The end of the first Journey

I know I haven't posted for a while but we have spent some time in places that we have visited before. We left Cania Gorge and went to Bargara to stay at the Absolute Ocean Front Tourist Park where some friends of ours are permanent residents. We stayed there for three and a half weeks and then carried on to Kingaroy for one night and then Killarney for one night (where we stayed at a friends place) and then onto Darlington Park (where we originally started off. We stayed there for four nights and we needed to put the annexe up so we could sit outside as the flies were atrocious for this time of year. While we were there our gas and electric water heaters decided to stop working and our outside light went on the blink, and we had something wrong with the water again as we seem to have lost some - although we don't have any leaks.We decided to go straight to my daughter's at Ormeau from there so we could get these things sorted out and do some alterations to the caravan that we want. We will be here until the end of January when the boys go back to school. We are down at Kirra beach for a week in a unit that our daughter organised for the first week of the boys school holidays and having a lovely time. We were playing Putt Putt at 8am this morning which is an improvement on the first morning as that was 7am. We have also been for a bike and scooter ride up the front and for a Gelati icecream which we promised the boys last night. They are now in the pool for an hour with Poppy while I make burgers for dinner and get the lunch ready. then I think we are going on the beach if the rain keeps off. One minute it is sunshining and the next the clouds roll in and it starts pouring down. Never mind we are all enjoying the time together. Have taken pictures of them on the beach but not downloaded them yet as they are on my phone. Will post some pics later.

Our Home "The Retreat Daydream Caravan"

We have been in Bargara for the past two weeks visiting some dear friends of ours and generally doing nothing but Fishing (Stephen) and making cards and crocheting (me) but my daughter asked me to post some pictures of the caravan. So here they are, these were taken just after we picked it up in July 2011.

Our home on wheels

View of the back end of the caravan

View of the front end of the caravan (to the right is the toilet and shower and to the left is my desk)

The sink and stove

The dining area

My desk

Cania Gorge

After Carnarvon we went to Cania Gorge near Monto, I know we have been there before but it is  a beautiful place and there were a couple of things that we didn't do last time so thought we would do them this time. One was Kroombit Tops National park and the four wheel drive day to "Beautiful Betsy" the airoplane that crashed in 1945 and was only found in the 90's by a national ranger doing a burn off. All six people on board were killed and some of their remains were still there when the ranger found the wreck. These were taken away to be identified and given back to their families for burial. After this they left all the wreckage there for people to see, it is kind of eerie and you feel like you are in a graveyard. Stephen also wanted to do the 22klm walk across the top of the montain range to the lookout over the Dam ( I wasn't going on this one) supposed to take 8 hours, he set off at 6am and was back at 11.30 glad that he had done the walk but said it was boring not an animal in sight. Never mind maybe next time as I'm sure we will be back it is so peaceful there.

Kroombit Tops Lookout

Spectacular Views

This view was to the side overlooking Gladstone

"Beautiful Betsy" crash site

Part of the back end of the plane

Details of the Bomber

One of the engines

The 22klm walk across Castle Mountain

Another view of the walk

The Lookout

One view of the Dam

A view over the surrounding area

A boab tree (just thought they were unusual)

A Bunyip at Mulgildie - Bunyips are mythical Australian creatures that live in swamps

The Fern tree Pool which is a walk at Cania Gorge - sadly the run offs were dry and this stream although still beautiful was not as spectacular as before, but we took a friend with us who had never seen it before and she enjoyed the walk.

Carnarvon Gorge

The next day we decided to do a small walk in Carnarvon Gorge - only about 7klms. We set off early approx 8am and took water with us and left morning tea in the car ready for when we got back. The scenery is beautiful and I was amazed at how many Palm trees there were and the loamy sandy soil that you walked upon. We didn't see much wildlife except for a wallaby and some of the birds. We did the Moss Garden walk and it was enough for me.

Carnarvon Gorge main track

Carnarvon Gorge main track

The Moss Garden Pool

Stephen at the Moss Garden pool

Moss growing on the walls  of the pool area

Looking above the pool area at the Moss Garden

The base of a tree on the way back from the Moss Garden

Carnarvon

We travelled to Takaraka Bush Resort at Carnarvon across 18ks of dirt road. We had to take it easy as there were several creek crossings and some had water in them, but not a lot. On this road we came upon a young family with a little boy 2 years old who had burst a tyre( the car not the little boy) and they couldn't get their jack under the car to raise it so we stopped to help. The little boy looked hot so as I had some ice pops in the freezer we sat and had one each. We then carried on to the resort, situated on the side of Carnarvon creek and booked in to a wonderful looking camp whose amenities are spotless.We spent the rest of the first day looking round the surrounding creek area and visiting the camp lookout at sunset

The entrance to the camp, you still have one creek crossing to do.

One of the locals

Carnarvon Creek at the back of the camp

Carnarvon Creek

Sunset from the camp lookout

Another view of sunset from the camp lookout

Emerald

We travelled to Emerald and stayed for three days, the first time we had been near to a shopping centre for a few weeks. We actually saw a Big W and a Woolworths besides Millers and Coles etc.

There is not a lot to do there so we just veged out for a while and took a few photos.

Large Goya copy Painting in the park (if you look closely you can see Stephen at the base in the middle)

This was the local Gaol

This was an early church

All these buildings have been moved to the park area next to the information office in Emerald.

Longreach

We drove from Winton to Longreach and what a difference a couple of hours make, this is a thriving community with tourism as one of it's leading attractions. We went and took photos of the "Stockmans Hall of Fame" and Qantas museum but we really went there to do the river cruise on the Thompson River. The cruise was magnificent. We went down the river and then they turned round and we headed back into the sunset so everyone could take photos, then we had a three course meal on the banks of the river (white table cloths and lanterns) and also two men singing bush songs and reciting bush poetry. We had a great time. 

We also visited a friend of my daughters that used to work with her and is now living in Longreach.

Qantas museum

Stockman's Hall of Fame

Statue at the front

Brolgas that inhabit the caravan park

A Coolibah Tree

Travelling down the river

Travelling back up the river towards the sunset

The other tour people use a paddle boat - we were on one like the city cats in brisbane

the entertainment (they wrote most of their own songs)

 We only stayed three nights in Longreach and are now at Emerald where we are staying for another three nights.  We keep meeting people who we have met before at other camps and it is like seeing old friends as they go different ways to us and we discuss all they have seen and what we have seen.
We are really missing everyone especially our grandsons Owen and Jack but we did talk to them last night on Skype and it wont be long before we are back with them.

Winton

We drove from Mount Isa to Boulia,  stopping at Djarra for lunch in the Roadhouse and then carrying on we intended to stop at Boulia overnight but it was desolate and we couldn't see any signs for the caravan park so we carried on to Winton. It was a long day - we didn't arrive at Winton until 7pm it was almost dark and we just got settled in and had beans on toast for dinner then went to bed absolutely shattered. We won't be doing that again in a hurry.

The caravan park was ok but Winton seems to be a dying town unless you go there during muster times or specail festival times. There doesn't seem to be a lot to do as by the time you reach there you have seen all the fossils and done all the fossicking you want to do. So we just veged out for a day.

Entrance to the Matilda Country Tourist Park at Winton

Looking at the same building from the inside of the park

our site

one of the inhabitants of the park - a monitor lizard

One of the older buildings on the main street of Winton

Looking down the main street of Winton

Part of Arno's wall

Arno's wall from Arno's park

Another section of the wall, check out the sewing machine on the top of the wall

 This wall is made from all old pieces of equipment taken from the town dump and set in concrete by a gentleman call Arno - very ingenious

This is the musical fence which can be played with pieces of rubber tubing or metal tubing depending on what sound you want to make. There is also a drum kit made out of old peices of tin and other items for you to play.