Our aim this trip is to travel to Cape York, the northernmost point of Australia, then down into the Gulf country, through to Lawn Hill and back to Canberra via southeast Queensland. It should take us about 8 weeks. We're travelling with good friends and partners in crime, Lorraine and Bill, and Lorraine's brother Danny and wife Margaret.
Our first (very cold) night was spent in Cowra. It happened to be State of Origin night, so we walked up to the corner pub to have a meal and watch the game on the big screen with some of the locals. Well, our dinner was pretty basic, and there were only half a dozen other people in the pub - not a lot of atmosphere, and the pub was quite chilly, so we walked back to our van and watched the game on our little TV in the van. We created our own atmosphere, but it still wasn't enough to get NSW over the line 😡.
Next day we put in a good day's driving to get to Goondiwindi just over the NSW border. We stayed at the showground for $20 per night, with showers and toilets. I called Lorraine to find out where they were, as we were supposed to be meeting up with them in Bundaberg. We were ahead of schedule, and they weren't ready to meet us yet, so we decided to take a detour and spend a couple nights at our daughter, Tracy's place in Brisbane. On the way to Brisbane, the fridge in our van gave up the ghost, so we stopped at Good Guys in Toowoomba to buy a regular little bar fridge to replace it, and Trev would instal it when we got to Tracy's place.
I asked Tracy not to tell our grandkids that we would be visiting, so when we arrived at their new house, Cory opened the door and Blake and Chantelle were on the staircase - their mouths just dropped, and they flew down the stairs to give us big hugs - what a lovely greeting. After a couple of nights catching up with family, we were off to meet Lorraine and Bill at their friends' property in Burnett Heads, in the middle of cane country. We spent the night there, had a lovely BBQ, and had a drink or two around a roaring campfire.
Next morning, Trevor discovered we had a problem with the radiator - as in, we need a new radiator! We found a radiator repairer in Bundaberg who could do the job for us the next day, so we found a spot to stay at the Bucca Hotel out of town, set up our vans, then Trev dropped the car back in town to leave it overnight. By this time we had met up with Danny and Margaret, so the boys followed Trev and brought him back to camp. We had a good meal at the Bucca hotel, where we camped for $10 per head, which also gave us access to showers and toilets.
Next morning, the boys went in to pick up the car, and $860 later we were back on the road. We're doing well so far: new fridge, new radiator and it's only about day 6! We're also having trouble with the batteries since we installed the new fridge, so Trev is fiddling around with that too.
We're now at The Reef Caravan Park at Agnes Water ($25 per night) and we were very lucky to find a spot. It's the beginning of school holidays here in Qld, and this is a holiday town. Unfortunately, Margaret is not well, so we had to find a doctor for her today. We'll be staying another night so hopefully she'll be feeling well enough to travel tomorrow.
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