Retracing Our Steps Through Queensland to Longreach

After our Sunshine Coast visit, we retraced our steps from the previous two weeks, but this time, we camped in different locations and covered more ground on our daily drives.

After leaving Gympie, we stopped again in Kilkivan to visit the butcher on the main street, where we purchased more bacon, scotch fillet steak and crumbed lamb cutlets and spent over $150.00. Our travel then took us through Goomeri with a stop in Gayndah to purchase groceries before moving onto the Eidsvold Showground for the evening so that Ros could catch up on our washing using our 4kg Camec washing machine. We used more water than the $20 fee to camp here for the evening.

Our next day's travel took us through Monto and Biloela with a plan to camp at a spot on Wiki called Lake Victoria. However, for the past two hours, we had travelled through rain, although once reaching the turnoff from the highway, the rain had stopped, so we took the dirt road for three kilometres before arriving at a gate to the lake turnoff that was definitely black soil and with light rain falling again we decided to forgo our planned stopover.

It was then onto Dululu, but after driving through the campsite, we decided this site was not for us. Hence, we continued onto Duaringa, where we said we would never camp again because of the road noise, but this time, we found a spot further from the highway.

From here, we passed through Blackwater and Emerald before stopping outside Alpha at a free camp. The site is close to the highway, but the road noise stops in the early evening, and we enjoyed a lovely, quiet night.

Only a short drive today of just over fifty-four kilometres to again stay at Redbank Park outside Jericho before heading off through Barcaldine and onto Longreach for possibly two nights. It would be lovely to camp beside this waterhole at Redbank Park. Unfortunately, it would mean camping under towering river gums. 

We have stated before about the shocking condition of the roads in Queensland, and since leaving Gympie and out past Emerald, which is roughly eight hundred kilometres, the roads have been a disgrace. The roads have significantly improved around Alpha and through to Jericho, and we know that the remainder of our trip over the next week or two will continue like this.

We are again staying out at Apex Park, five kilometres outside Longreach, and arriving early this morning, we were able to jag an excellent site with the van sitting on dry grass with a fenceline running down beside and to the rear of our van so we will not be to concerned if the wind does blow with much less chance of being covered in dust as we experienced here two weeks ago.