After Noccundra, we headed towards Thargomindah along mostly single strip bitumen with the occasional double lane in most floodways. We prefer to move onto the dirt on single-lane bitumen and give the oncoming traffic the right of way because at least we are ensuring that we don't end up with a broken windscreen or stone damage to the front of the Chev. It may take us longer to get from A to B, but we aren't in any hurry anyway.
Our preference is not to stay in caravan parks, but we booked into the council-run park for three days. Firstly we had both contracted Influenza A, with Ros much sicker than I was, and secondly, we were still trying to dodge the masses leaving the Big Red Bash in Birdsville.
From here, we took the Quilpie road that bypasses Toompine, where the pub is currently closed. Most of the road is bitumen with about 20km of dusty gravel that wasn't bad enough to reduce tyre pressures.
We spent three days camped on the western side of Lake Houdraman, where there are no facilities, and camping is $7.50 per person per night. We enjoyed our campsite with just two different campers over the three days while we were there, and they parked well over 500 metres away, which suited us right down to the ground. We shopped in town and enjoyed lunch at the local bowlo on one of our days. The eastern side, known as "The Lake", has powered sites, showers, toilets and even a bar. Sites here are $30 per night or $15 if you camp near the lake using the facilities.
A massive shout-out to the butcher in Quilpie. We'd heard that he sold lovely meat and the scotch fillet steaks we purchased and cooked over the coals were so tender and juicy.
The next port of call was Charleville, where we camped outside town at the CMCA park. Our Chev and van are insured with Ken Tame, and joining the CMCA is required if insuring with them. At just $3.50 for each of us, it's a no-brainer. You must be self-contained, and they have potable water and a dump point on site. Non-members can also stay for $10 pp pn.
We enjoyed lunch at the local RSL club on one of our days, both had our hair cut, bought groceries, and I topped the fuel at @$2.55.9 PL.
After two days, we moved on to Neil Turner Weir at Mitchell, a free site. We've never seen it so busy with over 40 vans camped here. We remember coming 14 years ago, and then you could count the vans on a single hand.
We headed towards St George 208 km southeast of Mitchell before joining the Carnarvon Highway towards Thallon. We've camped at the Nindigully Pub numerous times, so we just stopped for a photo shoot with the new van and truck before continuing another 34 km to Thallon.
We've previously camped at Thallon, where there is a camp adjacent to the painted silos. There is power available, and there are toilets and showers. Payment for the powered sites can be made at the local pub. It's been a bumper wheat crop this year, which has been attributed to the constant rain that had fallen, and when we arrived, they were filling wagons on a train, and numerous B double trucks were also carting grain.
Only a short drive today as we passed through Mungindi towards Garah. This 68 km has to be the worst piece of bitumen we have ever driven over. Luckily, we have such great suspension on the Chev, and Gen Y Hitch protects the van from all the jarring. We then passed through Moree and just 20 km later turned onto Gum Flat Road, which, after 3 km of dirt, leads to one of our favourite campsites beside the Gwydir River. It was interesting to see that the Wiki Camps people have used our drone photo I took in 2019, showcasing our 2016 Bushtracker and our 200 series Landcruiser for the site.
Our intention was to spend three nights here, but around lunchtime on the second day, it started to spit and with the dark clouds overhead, we decided to leave as this is black soil country, and we didn't want to be stranded for days or even longer.
It was just over an hour later before we arrived in Bingara. We've been coming here since 2008 when we picked up our first Bushtracker and were on our way home.
The area had recently been flooded as Copeton Dam released water because its capacity was over 100%, so instead of camping beside the river, we camped on the river stones about 60 metres away. We enjoyed four nights here before moving on to another one of our favourite campsites.
Cangai Bridge crosses the Mann River 20 km west of Jackadgery, just off the Gwydir Highway. It's our go-to camping site whenever leaving or returning from holidays as it's just 150 km from home. We arrived just at midday, and even though it was a Monday, we were surprised to find that we had the place to ourselves.
