Heading North

It felt good to be driving out through our front gates this morning. The past week has been quite busy preparing the 4wd and van. This is our first trip away with our 200 Series Landcruiser.  Ros has been busy making dishes that we pack in the vans freezer. They are there just in case the weather turns nasty or we want an easy evening meal.
Our original plan was to head west from Grafton and climb the Great Divide passing through Glen Innes, Inverell and Warilda. But with the chance of possible night temperatures dropping down below zero, we have decided to head north following the coast. 
Just over an hour after leaving home we passed by Grafton as we continued further north passing Ulmarra which is a small town on the southern side of the Clarence River. 35 km later we crossed the Clarence River just east of Maclean before passing through Woodburn and Broadwater. The contract for the remainder of the Pacific Highway duplication of about 155 km from just north of Coffs Harbour to the new Ballina bypass has been let, with the expected finish date in 2020. We are really looking forward to this and hoping that some sections will be opened before this date. Our first nights camp is at the Yelgun Rest Area just over 50 km north of Ballina. This is our usual stop whenever we travel north towards Queensland. This rest area has toilets and covered tables and chairs and is very popular. 

It was an easy run up the Gold Coast Motorway and across the Gateway Bridge before joining the Sunshine Coast Motorway. This dual lane Motorway would take us another 100 km north and just past Eumundi, before it became the Bruce Highway. We were now back to mostly single lane bitumen in each direction with the occasional passing lane thrown into the mix. The next 80 odd km were like this until we arrived at our campsite tonight situated in the small village of Bauple which lies 3 km east of the Bruce Highway. The town is the spiritual home of the Macadamia Nut and the local aboriginals dined on the nuts for thousands of years. Its located 40 km south of Maryborough and has free camping for self contained caravans and RV's. There are toilets at the museum and local sporting ground about 200 metres from the campsite and they are open 24/7. And best of all we had the area to ourselves.

The museum is a real credit to the community and its easy to spend several hours looking through the memorabilia that dates back to the 1800's. The large table in the centre of the main area is made of Queensland golden maple and was presented to the Local Government Association of Queensland by the Premier of the time Joh Bjelke-Petersen in 1982. It was the meeting table in the cabinet room:

This Landcruiser was the first ever 4wd to go to Fraser Island:

Just over half an hour after leaving camp we by-passed Maryborough as we continued north towards Childers. The town is situated on a rise overlooking the surrounding cane fields, and has many historic buildings and is classified as a National Trust town. 

North of Childers we came across an interesting sight with cattle having their feed supplemented with oranges and lemons.

We passed through Gin Gin and Miriam Vale with its cafe on the highway that makes the best crab sandwiches before passing the turnoff to the town of Calliope. 

Our third nights campsite is several kliometres north of the township on the Calliope River. We have stayed here before and prefer camping on the southern side of the river. You can also camp on the northern side but it always seems to be busier and tonight was no exception with over fifty vans parked up for the evening. The site has a dump point and toilets and its free. Camps 8 suggests a maximum stay of forty eight hours is allowed but after looking at some of the vans parked here, I don't think its policed. 
Parked in front of us were a couple with a Trakmaster van. We sold our Trakkie in early 2008 before purchasing our current BT. Bron and John new many of the Trakmaster owners we knew when we were members of their club and they also new the people who had purchased our van. They joined us for happy hour and we spent several hours reminiscing over Trakmaster days.