On The Road Again

It never ceases to amaze us, but whenever we decide to head off towing our van, it always seems to rain, and this trip was no different as we left home on Sunday, the 4th of June. We experienced heavy rain for about twenty minutes after leaving home, but thankfully, the clouds gave way to a lovely sunny day.

If heading towards Queensland, we prefer to camp at Cangai Bridge on the Mann River, just over 150km from home and west of Grafton, but as we approached the turnoff, the dark clouds were starting to gather. It looked like we could be in for another downpour, so we changed our minds as the campsite was along a dirt road.

We continued onto the New England Tableland through Gibraltar Range National Park, our Chev towing us effortlessly the 1100 metres above sea level.

We stopped for lunch at Beardy Waters rest area before continuing through Glenn Inness and Inverell. It was just another 50 km to the small town of Ashford, and our camp this evening was just outside town at the Severn River rest area. The site is vast beside the river and has a composting toilet and rubbish bins, and we shared this area with four other groups.

Our second day was just a short 70km drive to another free site south of Texas in Queensland bordering the Dumaresq River. This campsite was very busy, but we had no trouble choosing a site because of our early arrival.

To limit travel distances, we spent our third night at The Gums Golf and Cricket Club for $10 for the evening. They have showers and toilets, but of course, we just use our own.

We had read excellent reports on Wiki about Judds Lagoon just outside Yuleba; we planned to spend two evenings here, but unfortunately, the whole place didn't appeal to us. So it was just a one-night stop. The lagoon was relatively small and limited to only two vans that could actually camp beside the lagoon.

After the disappointment of Judds Lagoon, we moved on to Neil Turner Weir at Mitchell, where we have been coming to for more years than we can remember. The camp area has been extended, and this may have something to do with the influx of travellers who will soon be coming through on their way to the Big Red Bash in Birdsville.

We spent three nights here, and the diesel heater indeed received a workout with frost on the car and van each morning.

We are limiting our drives to around the 200 km mark on our travel days, and that's how far it was to our next stop in Charleville, where we camped at the CMCA park outside town. Our van is insured with Ken Tame, and a CMCA membership is required with this insurance; as members, our two-night stay was just $14. However, they stipulate that no water can be let out onto the ground, there is a central fire pit each evening, and they have potable water and a dump point, which suits us just fine. It's incredible the amount of money spent in these towns; we spent $569, which included fuel, grocery shopping, a haircut for me and lunch at the pub. Fuel was $1.899/L

Our next port of call was Quilpie, where we spent three nights camping on the western side of Lake Houdraman for $15 per night, with the only facility being a rubbish bin but with the added benefit of having the place to ourselves. It was free many years ago, but the property owners have installed showers, toilets, power, and a bar on the eastern side. We passed through Quilpie last year after completing the Strzelecki Track, and even more businesses have closed during this time, which is sad to see.

We were now heading towards Windorah after negotiating the many hundred or so floodways over single-lane bitumen. We decided to camp at the caravan park as Ros wanted to wash our sheets, and it was easier doing this there than in our washing machine. We paid $22 for an unpowered site, and fuel had now increased to $2.33/L

We left Windorah on day fifteen to camp at Betoota. The single-lane bitumen stretches for 125 km, with the remaining distance mostly dirt with the occasional stretch of bitumen near Deons Lookout and 20 km from Betoota. The gravel sections, while extremely dusty, were in good condition as we sat on 60km/h. We camped beside Browns Creek waterhole, where we had the place all to ourselves. A composting toilet has now been built at the far end of the waterhole, so it will mean the white graffiti brigade won't be leaving toilet paper blowing in the wind.

Even though the pub was extremely busy, we had our lunch of meat pies with sauce washed down with a Canadian Club. We sat under the trees, which were lovely and cool beside the waterhole, for the remainder of the day.

The remaining 166 km gravel road into Birdsville was in good condition, with bitumen caps on some of the more enormous sand dunes. We came across a very healthy-looking dingo beside the road and wondered if he was being fed by people passing by.

Arriving at the Town Common, we set up camp just before the bridge and one kilometre from the pub.