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Last blog posting

We have come to the end of our adventure. Superman has faded due to public exposure – he has decided to retire, although he may be seen on occasion reading comics at the City of Perth Library. Julia hasn’t decided where to live. Muz is keen to keep travelling with Murray.

We would like to thank all our readers, to those who recommended that their friends follow our blog, to Murray’s friends who rang him each time a blog entry was posted, and to the many people who emailed us encouraging us to continue to write or to pass comments.

Thanks and appreciation must also go to friends and family who hosted us with our rig, cooked us meals and welcomed us into their homes. We have made some wonderful lifelong friends.

We have enjoyed ourselves, have discovered that Australia is huge and a very varied country both in landscape, people, that each state/territory is unique, we have enjoyed the politics in each state and will miss the Queensland instalments.  Each state does little to report news on each other,  it is very easy to become isolated within your own country.

I would like to thank my employer – City of Perth/Library for giving me the time off to complete this trip with Murray. It has been a wonderful journey, enriching and rewarding both of us.

Bush/grass fires

Avoiding the fires, we were not too keen on travelling the unsealed roads towards Queanbeyan, so we drove to Bathurst, only stopping at the Info Centre to buy the token fridge magnet (we now have over 50 various magnets), via Sofala – an old gold prospecting village – perhaps 20 people live here now. Lo and behold, we came across our friends Sue and Jeff who were off to Carcoar Dam to camp.

We had time up our sleeve, so we decided to stop at the Dam. Stopping for a curry pie at Blayney – the worst pie ever – according to Murray, we arrived at the dam to be greeted by Sue and Jeff. This is a popular camping spot with locals-for fishing, boating, water skiing etc. This is free camping with no ‘rules’ – gennies/parties go all day and night, dogs roam freely, and people empty their caravan toilets in the public toilets. Fortunately no-one lit a fire. After 3 nights we moved on – once again saying goodbye to our friends Sue and Jeff.

Cowra beckoned us – famous for their Japanese Gardens, and during WWII – it had been a POW camp. There was a Japanese breakout on the 5^th August – remains of the POW camp can be seen, along with a Japanese War Cemetery, and a peace bell. An extremely interesting “Peppers Ghost” , created by www.shirleyspectra.com.au  display can be seen at the ‘Info Centre’.

 It was extremely hot – mid 40’s, we keen for a campground with a pool.  5kms from Cowra we found a camp ground – very empty, but a nice covered pool.

We spent a day exploring Cowra – at the Japanese Gardens – we met people we knew – Sue and Jeff! They were staying at a camp ground at the other end of the town. We met up for a meal at L31 – very nice food, in fact equal to the meal we had at Captain Flat.

This time, last year we were held up travelling by floods and now it is bush/grass fires that are our biggest concern. Fortunately we have been able to travel, skirting around them, and to date have not seen or smelt any fires. We are careful though, calling into Info Centres and checking the roads that we wish to travel and keeping to the main highways and towns.

Due to the fires burning in NSW we have decided to stick to caravan parks and main roads.

Leaving Moree with our friends Sue and Jeff (we met at Lorella Springs), we travelled to Narrabri. Here we stopped at Culgoora to look at the Australia telescope (6 telescopes beaming towards the sky looking out for the pie).  Onwards we travelled in 41dgs, very conscious of how dry and brittle the landscape was to Wee Waa – a small country town.

We stayed the night at Gilgandra – in a small caravan park. It was a long hot day – 5 hours in the saddle. (It is, this area around Coonabarabran, the Warrumbungle National Park, Narrabri that the fires are burning), 3 days previously we had been in this area.

We stopped at Gulgong to visit the Henry Lawson Centre, driving onto to our destination Mudgee – Murray’s bucket list. Mudgee is famous for wineries and as a winter/autumn weekend break.

Customer service in Mudgee is scarce, 1^st impressions always count, starting with the Info Centre – the most unhelpful we have come across. Retailers in Mudgee were more interested in greeting their friends and gossiping, rather than securing a sale – a pity as we had money to spend.

We did enjoy the hospitality at the Black Cats Bar. Brendon is a great host and more than happy to tell you his ‘story’ and serve yummy Vietnamese street food – amazingly there are only 2 dishes on the menu – a platter or an open sandwich

Twice, we visited the Mudgee Brewery for the afternoon/evening-trying the beer tasters-ale, wheat, porter and the American ale. I enjoyed the American Ale, the food and the foot tapping music played by the young male trio.

We paid $85! each for a wine tour-sharing the bus with 3 other couples. The tour was from 10am – 4pm and included lunch. Fortunately Murray was able to visit a winery from his ‘bucket list’.

After this tour, we were Mudgeed out and it was time to move on, saying goodbye to our friends Sue and Jeff, Roz and Brian.

Photos

There is still a problem with google, despite google posting that they are working on the problem, I doubt whether this will ever get fixed. Google are suggesting that users download, chrome or firefox-which I have done, but to no avail. I am one of millions with this problem. I would not recommend using blogger as a provider for a blog.
So, unfortunately photos for Superman's blog have come to a grinding halt.

Best sites, trivia we discovered on our adventure

We thought you might like to know what we felt were the best ‘things’ of our trip-so here goes…

BEST;

·         Beach Camp – Mission Beach, (QLD)

·         Bingo – Tin Can Bay Bowling Club, (QLD)

·         Camp Oven meal – roast chicken, Leichhard Falls, (FNQLD)

·         Curry Pie – Inglewood, (QLD)

·         4wd trip – Bloomfield Track, (QLD)

·         Fishing trip – Rosie’s Creek, Lorella Springs, (NT)

·         Free camp – Paradise Beach, (SA)

·         Fun night-trivia-Dundee Beach Lodge, (NT)

·         Hiking Tracks – Mt Remarkable National Park (SA)

·         Historical Experience – Mary Mckillop Centre, (SA)

·         Hot Pools – Moree, (NSW)

·         Hokey Pokey Icecream – Avoca, (Vict)

·         Indigenous Experience – Merl Campground, (NT)

·         Info Centre – Back o Bourke, (NSW)

·         Melbourne Cup Day – Captain Creek, (QLD)

·         National Park – Elsey National Park, (NT)

·         Museum – Military, Darwin, (NT)

·         Piece of camping equipment – outdoor-tripod from Osborne Park, WA. Indoor-Eco-pot

·         Place to stop smoking – Tullibgeal (NSW)

·         Rip Off – Gennie service Longreach and wine tour at Mudgee

·         Restaurant meal – Captains Flat, (NSW)

·         River Camp – Clem Walton, (QLD)

·         Scenic Drive – Savannah Drive from Daly Waters to Cairns

·         Sunset – Avon Downs, (NT)

·         Touristy Thingie – Karumba Scenic Railway/Skyrail, (NT)

·         Unique free camp – Toompine, (QLD)

·         Value for money – SA National Park Pass, (SA)

·         Wine deal – Dan Murphy’s all over Australia

·         Worst road – Borroloola to Hells Gate

photos...

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"This gate is locked"

Leaving suburbia, we looked forward to the peace and quiet of the countryside and free camping. However we had forgotton about the inconsiderate campers that seem to arrive out of the blue-fortunately they are rare. There was plenty of space at Kumbia, but this camper  wanted more than his share… (PHOTO)

New Years Eve was spent at a free camp, on the banks of the Condarmine River,  at Cecil Plains, 43 kms sth of Dalby. A very quiet evening. (PHOTO)

Cecil Plains is known as a cotton growing area and also more lately for the 2011 floods. The cemetery is home to many who have lost their lives from the early 1800’s to now, trying to cross the river. (PHOTO)

Between Cecil Plains and Millmerran are the following signs “This gate is locked”-CSG are keen to buy the farms-Coal Seam Gas. It is a very hot topic in this area and as far away as Texas locals are keen to voice their anger-we met the local Texas plumber and caravan park owner, while we did laundry. The main crop in this area is sorghum-looks like maize but is a dwarf variety. The heads are used either as cattle feed or cereal and the stems are crushed and made into sugar syrup. Sorghum is gluten free.

Murray was keen to visit Texas – he has cousins in Texas (USA), so off we went, arriving on a very hot day – 37degs. We camped on the river, along with many others. Texas and Millmerran and Inglewood are small country towns-they have a garage and supermarket, pub and op shops, still the population would be not more than a thousand. Our camp site was 50 metres from the NSW border and many times a day our phones would pick up the NSW satellite and want to change to a different time zone. (PHOTO)

The countryside is lush and green, with water lying on the ground in places. It reminded us of NZ. (PHOTO)

We are now in Moree ‘taking in the artesian waters’. At the caravan park we have 5 pools to choose from ranging from 30degs – 39dgs. (PHOTO). This caravan park is huge, 141 cabins, 42 sites and 12 motel type rooms. The winter is the most popular time to come and you cannot put out your awning-caravans are parked next to each other, often doubling up on sites. At this time of the year, we are lucky to see 20 people in the pools, whereas in the winter they are bunched up together.

We must mention our visit to the Moree Service Club to play bingo. Murray was wearing a singlet and initially was refused entry, but the receptionist lent him a long sleeve bar shirt. Although the tourist book advertised 2 sessions of bingo 11am and 1pm, it is in fact 1 session with a 1hr break for lunch. We arrived at 1pm and paid $4 each for a half book. Murray won a $15 meal voucher and a lady gave us her Lions Christmas cake – she had won enough goodies. The bingo prizes here are food packs-either, meat, fruit, vegies, or pantry.

The main agricultural crop here is pecan nuts and cotton. Approximately 14,000 people live here. There is an underlying racial tension atmosphere in the town-with motels, businesses surrounded by high fences and guard dogs. A mineral health spa resort has been trashed and sold recently at a mortgagee sale.