Townsville, Qld.

Our journey north is interrupted by a right-hand turn at Charters Towers. The further east the Flinders Highway goes, eucalypts slowly give way to palm trees as the bush becomes thicker and greener, and the population density increases. We pass more but smaller farms and houses, which quite soon become large industrial estates and shopping centres. The road widens to three and four lanes, traffic increases, and we soon enter the largest city since leaving Sydney.
We found Townsville to be charmingly tropical. The long water frontage gives it a very recreational feel, with a beautiful shady walkway that takes you along the beachside for many kilometres, called The Strand, flanked with restaurants, cafes, pubs, swimming rock pools and playgrounds. It was in one of these restaurants that we met a Swiss couple, of similar age to us, who were travelling Oz and coincidentally staying in the same caravan park as us, just up the road. The four of us became engaged in conversation for the rest of the evening. It was yet another chance encounter, one of many, that’s made this journey so much more enjoyable and enlightening.

As the sign for this Townsville beach net says - "stinger risk moderate", and water temp a very pleasant 26deg.

We travelled by ferry across to nearby Magnetic Island and explored it by hop-on/hop-off bus. With so many accommodation apartments and eating places, it’s just another suburb of Townsville, but much of it is National Park with many bushwalks. On the walk we did, we saw koalas, one with a baby, and then on to some abandoned WW2 bunkers that were built in 1942 to help protect the RAAF base on the outskirts of Townsville on the mainland. Perched strategically on top of a prominent hill, the view was fantastic, and you have to marvel at the hard work it would’ve taken to build these concrete structures in the middle of the bush.

Perched high on a bushy hill, an abandoned WW2 watch tower on Magnetic Island.

After a few days, we returned to the northward journey and we headed up the coast. On our friends Murray and Estelle’s recommendation, we pulled into a caravan park at the interestingly named Rollingstone that was set right on the coast, and isolated from any built-up townships. It had beautifully laid out lawns, a spectacular swimming pool and a large lake that contained barramundi and eels and various other fishlife. The Saturday night had live music in their little open-air bar/bistro, with the predominant instrument being ukulele. It was a treat to hear them, and meet them, and I even got a have a little jam with them.

Rollingstone Caravan Park, 50 kms north of Townsville.

Mum is cute, but her baby is cuter ...

As beautiful as this coastline is, with its superb beaches and clear blue skies, there is one aspect that is driving us crazy. We cannot swim in the sea because of the threat of box jellyfish stingers and saltwater crocodiles. Every caravan park has a very well maintained swimming pool, so we are able to cool down on these 30-degree days, but it is so frustrating to not take advantage of these lovely beaches. The coastline always has an “Achtung” sign giving the warning, and there is the occasional net suspended from the beach that provides a safe swimming space. There is always, however, several stations on the shoreline that house a bottle of vinegar for the rogue stingers that get pass the nets.

When swimming in Queensland beaches, always know where the nearest bottle of vinegar is.

Charter's Towers, Qld.

We have never been this far north of Australia. The inland city of Emerald lies on the Tropic of Capricorn, as does Rockhampton on the coast. The city gets its name from the sapphire gemstones that are dug from the ground in this area, much like opals around Lightning Ridge. During our Emerald stay we drove out to Rubyvale to explore the gemstone fields, and we went down a mine that had been dug with a jack-hammer by a guy called Jason. These are people of resilience and determination, and obviously do not suffer from claustrophobia.

We moved on further north to Charters Towers – yet another town founded on mining from more than a hundred years ago, this time gold. On the way we free-camped beside the highway overnight, that was thankfully not too busy so as to give us a good night’s sleep. We shared the spot, and a campfire, with a couple from Sydney who were also traveling north. We’ve met so many of these like-minded people and it’s been a highlight of the trip.

Since leaving Sydney, we’d driven through scenery so different to what we’re used to in Tasmania. Flat, sparse, hot and dry. “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains” is certainly most appropriate. The occasional hill appears on the horizon, although the locals would probably call them mountains. They strangely stick out of the landscape like goose bumps. Hawks and eagles are regular sights in the sky, grandly soaring on thermals over roadkill, ready for that roadside feast. At the roadside we see emu and kangaroo, cows and buffalo, and the occasional fox will run across the road in front of us.  Each town has an interesting aspect, while in between are straight roads flanked by the Australian bush.

Main street of Gulgong.

However, after a few weeks of this fascinating landscape, we are beginning to feel drawn to the east and the ocean. We’ve decided that Townsville will be our next destination, instead of continuing north through the Queensland outback. Daily temperatures are in the mid-30s, we haven’t seen rain for months, and the sea is calling.

Canarvon National Park, Qld.

Not long after leaving Lightning Ridge we crossed into Queensland. They call it “The Sunshine State” and they ain’t kidding. The entire sky was a cloudless blue. The horizon was flat all around us, and the countryside was sparse with a few trees no more than two metres high. Bridges or causeways crossed dry river beds. We passed gateway entrances to properties that must be as big as Tasmania, and their 20 kilometre front driveway disappeared into the distance. Towns announce themselves from 10 kilometres away by displaying a water tank atop a high tower.

The Hebel Hotel, the best in town. The only pub in town. The only social outlet in town.

 The first Queensland town we came across was Hebel, consisting of a pub and a general store. The pub looked like a real outback pub but sadly didn’t open until 1pm (it was now 11am). So we popped into the general store for a morning cuppa. A sign on the door read “This business will no longer operate after Xmas, 2017”. Talk about giving plenty of warning. I asked the guy what the story was, while he made our coffees.

“Are you selling the place because business is too slow?” I asked.

“Quite the opposite”, he said. “This place is too busy, we work 16 hour days, 7 days a week. We’re getting too old for this. We’ve had it on the market for 18 months but no-one wants to buy it. Can’t really blame them, there’s not much attraction to living out here. So we’re gonna have to walk away”.

What a dilemma. You’d have passing customers every day, on one of Australia’s major roads running north-south, particularly truckies, but your social life would consist of plodding over the road to the pub. The next major town to the north is St George, 160 kms away. We drove through St George and set up camp in the bush beside the Balonne River a few k’s further north. It was a superb shady spot, totally quiet and tranquil, with only the birds and the flowing river to be heard. The river had swollen its banks after torrential rains had fallen on the east coast and had fallen on the westward side of the Great Dividing Range. Within an hour another five caravans had pulled into our spot with the same intention of staying the night. It was proof that the free-camping Grey Nomad lifestyle was alive and kicking.

 

Bush camping near St Gorge, southern Queensland.

The next day was Roma for lunch, where we made the decision to go for the Carnarvon National Park for the night – 160kms up the highway and another 50kms in. A new campground called “Sandstone” had caught our eye. “For self-contained camping only (no water or power available) but right in the National Park and only $20 per night” said the website as well as the recorded phone message when we rang. However, we could not find the place and it was 6pm and getting dark when we stopped at the wilderness lodge to enquire. It just so happened that the owner of “Sandstone” was in the lodge, a pleasant lady called Olivia, and she came out to greet us, only to very coyly say “Oh, but we’re not open until the 1^st of May, another three weeks away”.

“Um, that’s not what your website says!”

“Oh, yes, we should change that”.

“And your recorded phone message …?”

Ah, yes, we should get that changed too.”

I felt like wishing her a sarcastic “Good luck with the new business, because you’ll need it if that’s how you handle your publicity”, but there was not much she could do for us. Fortunately there was another camp nearby, “Takarakka Bush Resort”. Unfortunately it was at near capacity because of school holidays and Easter week. Fortunately they had a spot for us. Unfortunately it was $38 a night, unpowered. But it was a pleasant stay, which we extended to two nights to enable us to explore the National Park. We met so many people from all over Australia, many were families with little kiddies that made us fondly remember when we would take our little girls camping. The following day we walked into the Carnarvon Gorge, through thick forest dominated by palm trees that almost glowed green in the blazing sun. Above us towered white rocky cliffs that fell into the valley below, with sheer perpendicular faces decorated with veins of different colours. The further we walked, the closer these cliffs came in around us until we were in their shadow and were walking amongst permanently wet forest with moss and ferns. The extensive birdlife topped off a beautiful experience.

Canarvon Gorge National Park.

Lightning Ridge, N.S.W.

We’ve become very familiar with two salutes on this trip. Oncoming caravans always give an acknowledgement – either a friendly wave or a gentle raising of a finger from the steering wheel. The other is the famous Great Australian Salute – the flies are relentless. They’d crawl up your nose if you didn’t perform the patriotic hand gesture.

In the four days after we left Narrabeen, I think we saw all the extremes that exist in this great country that is girt by sea. The beaches of northern Sydney are just beautiful, only made better by the local council cleaning the sand every morning with a sieve on the back of a tractor. The water was warm, the surf was raging, the coastline majestic in both directions, and the view out to sea was panoramic. Within minutes of leaving, however, the tranquillity was abruptly replaced by bumper-to-bumper traffic for the hour it took us to get out of Sydney. Traversing the Blue Mountains provided views of spectacular sheer rocky cliffs, deep gorges and long forested valleys. Through Lithgow on to Rylestone, where James and Joanne had been looking after our caravan. Then on to Gulgong, Dunnedoo, Mendooran, Gilgandra and Curban where Anne’s Uncle Alwyn and Aunty Harleen live in retirement on a 1,800 hectare farm. Just a small plot! An overnight stay there gave us a good insight into living on these lands – the preciousness of water, the endlessness of sky, the chandelier of stars at night and the flatness of the land. The Castlereagh Highway then took us further north to Coonamble, Walgett and on to Lightning Ridge.

Just north of Gilgandra, in the front yard of a 1,800 ha property.

Lightning Ridge is a fascinating town. It’s not a pretty place by any means, but it has character and attitude because of the people who live here. They call themselves “Ridgies”, and many of them have been attracted here from all around Australia and the world by the charm of this unique opal mining town - and of course the lure of making your fortune from opals.

Lightning Ridge outskirts, hardly picturesque.

We went underground to see several chambers of figures carved into the rock by an enterprising immigrant Pom called Ron. This was an incredible sight due to the combination of imagination and skill to create these carvings together with the sheer dogged determination and hard work to dig the tunnels by hand in the first place. A few metres below these galleries was another level of mine shafts where opals were being mined. A former miner showed us through the narrow tunnels and explained how the permit system works – there are no big corporate companies here like in Broken Hill, these are small leases where one man will dig and salvage opals in dry, hot conditions. Some are permanent residents, others are itinerant. Ridgies are proud of their town, their heritage and the culture that they’ve created. It was well worth the visit.

"Chambers of the Black Hand" 12 metres below ground, all carved by one man.

Our caravan park, by chance, hosted a couple of bush poets and story tellers who do a different performance at 4:30 every day. We enjoyed their show for our three days in the Ridge. Mel and Susie were spontaneous, entertaining, well rehearsed and very clever. They will be an enduring memory for us of Lightning Ridge.

Mel and Susie, after another hilarious show.

The Hawkesbury, N.S.W.

It was 6 o’clock on the second evening when twilight fell and we thought we’d better find a park for the night. Twenty four hours before it was 7 o’clock, supposedly. The end of daylight saving had given us an extra hour of this beautiful day. Our accommodation was not on the road but on water. The road on which we were travelling was not bitumen, but the magnificent Hawkesbury River just north of Sydney. We were joining our dear friends Mike and Denise on a four day adventure in a hired cabin cruiser (crossing another one off the Bucket List).

Breakfast on the Hawkesbury.

As darkness announced the end of our sailing day, we hooked up to a mooring in a little bay off the main river. Turning off the gentle hum of the engine left us in total silence – until we stood outside on the bow and witnessed nature going on around us. We heard the melodies of frogs and birds, fish jumping and trees rustling in a gentle breeze, while our eyes became accustomed to the half-light from a setting sun and a risen crescent moon. It was hard to imagine that just a few kilometres away, over the forested hills that surround us, was the busy Pacific Highway carrying thousands of scrambling Sydney vehicles. For us, however, we were in another world, actually the Kuringai National Park.

The next morning we had a swim off the back of the boat, a hot shower and then breakfast before heading off once again. There are certain places that the hire company will not allow us to enter (coloured red on the map), but that didn’t diminish the large expanse of water we had to explore. Going at a gentle pace, we dawdled along with eucalypt forests all around us, growing down to the waterline. Trees seem to be growing out of solid rock, and faces of stone peer out from the bush as if watching us go by. There are no houses, roads, telegraph poles, only the occasional boat on the river. Rounding each headland gave a new vista, revealing more headlands in the distance. We didn’t mind the boat’s slow pace, because we wanted to take in the view. We are kept entertained by a passing parade of eagles, sea eagles, osprey, pelicans and wading birds. We watch as rain squalls come up the river and pass over us, depositing a healthy shower of rain. Then the sun comes out to enable us to have lunch on the top deck of the boat, and a quick swim. It’s a lifestyle that we could get used to.

Our floating home on the Hawkesbury.

When our four days were up, we headed back to the boat’s home port and drove to Mike and Denise’s home in Narrabeen before returning to Rylstone to pick up the caravan and continue heading north. How far north we get may depend on the recovery and clean-up from the devastation left by Cyclone Debbie. Our plans may need to be flexible.