Following the Thermal Pools Trail...

Travelled through Roma, then on to Mitchell for the hot springs.  We free-camped at the Neil Turner Weir, on a lovely stretch of the Maranoa River.  There were quite a few people already camped, but still plenty of room.  We got talking to our neighbours, Nick and Chris, from Ballarat, who invited us to sit with them and have a drink.  We were also joined by Lyn & Rob from Hervey Bay.  Nick & Chris had a lovely campfire going, and we all ended up cooking on it that night - it was our first campfire meal of the trip.  Roast pork and beautiful veges - yum.

That night it poured with rain, and we had a very soggy campsite the next morning.  Ah well, you can't fight the weather.  We went into town for a visit to the Mitchell Artesian Spa - very nice little operation, with two pools operating at different temperatures.  It cost us $8.50 pp for a 2-day pass, pretty good value.  

The weather cleared up, and we again cooked dinner over the campfire, and Chris provided us all with a bowl of delicious spicy lentils.  They had also been joined by their friends, Peter and Barbara from Lakes Entrance.  We all had a very pleasant evening around the campfire, and finished off with some of Nick's grappa and Chris's prunes soaked in grappa - that's a first for me!  Definitely firewater - next morning I was not too well, but I don't think I can blame it all on the grappa - it might also have had something to do with the half bottle of champagne and couple of cointreaus that I had before it!


We dropped camp, and said farewell to the others who were heading to Lightning Ridge, then we headed back into town for a last dip in the wondrous waters of the artesian bore. We had lunch there, then decided to head towards Moree as we'd heard that there were also artesian bores in that town.  

That night we stopped at a little place called the Nindigully Pub - we'd heard that the pub had free camping on site, with the use of showers and toilets.  We pulled in to find quite a few travellers already set up there in the mud (we've been following the rain for a couple of days), so set up our camper just in time for happy hour in the hotel.  Had a couple of drinks and checked out all the battered old cowboy hats and boots mounted on the walls of the hotel, and read about all the goings-on in this quite famous pub which was first established in 1864.  One of its claims to fame is the humungous 'Road Train Burger' which costs $45.00 and can easily feed four people. We decided to have dinner there, cos I didn't feel like cooking.  The meals were huge, good value, but way too big - I had to give Trev a good portion of mine.  Have a look at the website and you can see it has plenty of character.
 
Next morning, off to Moree.  We arrived around lunchtime and checked into the Gwydir Carapark & Thermal Pools.  Nice park with 4 large thermal pools, varying in temperature from 34-39 degrees and one large swimming pool set at 28 degrees.  Spent an hour or so hopping from pool to pool and chatting to lots of grey nomads.  Looking around the pools I decided that Trev & I are at least 10 years younger than 95% of the people here - I can't believe how many very senior people are still travelling all around this huge country, and many of the ones we spoke to today actually follow the 'thermal pool trail'.  


After stocking up on a few groceries, we are now back in our camper, and I am listening to the rain thumping on the roof as I type - I'm not looking forward to dropping the camper tomorrow, cos I hate packing up in the wet.  But people around here are very happy to have the rain, so I guess I shouldn't complain.  We've done pretty well weatherwise with our trip so far.  So tomorrow, we're heading south, but haven't quite sorted out our next stop.... if the rain keeps going, we'll be home very soon.