Spring 2021 - Carnarvon Gorge

 22/8 Sunday 

Left home on Sunday morning at a leisurely pace. We weren’t going far. 

Arrived at Murphy’s Creek, just at the foot of the escarpment and under the gaze of Toowoomba, at about 1pm and parked up behind the pub.  We checked in and enjoyed a couple of drinks before returning to the van and settling in for a quiet afternoon.

It was a peaceful arvo followed by dinner at the pub - crispy pork belly for me and chicken breast stuffed with tasty stuff for Karen. 

 

There was some burning off being done in the distance so when the moon rose it looked a little different.

23/8 Monday 

Drove the bypass around Toowoomba and headed west.  The new bypass certainly makes the journey easier than the grind up that really steep road into Toowoomba.

We stopped in Dalby to stretch our legs and have a coffee. Lovely town. 

Arrived at the Chinchilla Weir at about 2pm. All the powered spots were gone but we got a nice one with a view over the water.  

The place has been really nicely laid out and it's amazing it is so good considering it is a free camp (thanks Chinchilla) with good toilets and level sites.  Busy though. 

We went for a walk around the weir pond edge and didn't over stress ourselves :) 

It pissed with rain overnight but no problem for us, but some people were camped on blacksoil areas and these turn into bottomless mud pits when it rains - some were lucky to get out! 

 

24/8 Tuesday 

Left the Weir and trundled off at about 10am driving out through the pretty little town of Chinchilla.

We stopped for a coffee and a pretty poor pie (not a lot of filling and all too thick pastry) in Roma and filled the fuel tank. 

Headed north and stopped at the caravan park in Injune. 

Nice little park in a generally friendly little town. We visited the information centre and the local Spar grocery store.

Quiet pub 😁 where we enjoyed a couple in the gardens watching the corellas wheel around the trees. Nice. 

 

25/8 Wednesday 

Headed north (after doing some washing in the laundromat in the van park) to Carnarvon Gorge. and arrived at Sandstone Park at noon and found our spot. 

The whole place is laid out on a low ridge top inside the gorge itself so when you look around you see the gorge walls in the distance - the gorge is maybe a kilometre across at this point so it's wide open. The views are spectacular.

This was the view from our campsite

Al arrived at about 1:30 and set up near us.

Went to see the information centre, a useless place with no information really - just small snakes in glass bottles - and poor customer service. We checked out the other venues around there (The Discovery Lodge and Takarakka) and decided that we had the best place available.

That evening saw us having a few drinks, a fire, and a chat with the neighbours (Fran and Shane) and all good. 

Sunset from our camp site.

Gorge walls glowing in the sunset

 

26/8 Thursday 

Drove to the Gorge and did the Rock Pool and Mickeys Creek walks. 

Neither of them are very challenging, but my new knee wants to be taken care of so that was just the ticket for us.

This was the Rock Pool.

We did have to get across the creek on stepping stones, but it was worth the walk.

This is Karen and Al at the top of the Mickey's Creek walk.

About a klm and a half, it wasn't hard, but it was pretty.

27/8 Friday

A quiet day to rest my knee was declared and we spent it filling up the water tanks from the additional supplies we had dragged in in jerries and the tank in the car, and general maintenance. 

Karen and I visited the café for a coffee and French patisserie goodies and we were amazed that such a spot had such a fantastic patisserie. It really is an excellent spot.

The coffee and cakes were followed up with a beer and a wine and we spotted an echidna doing its thing in the gardens there.

It did the curling up and digging in thing when I approached though.  :) 

That night I cooked a camp oven pork roast in the camp fire and it turned out really well.

A black faced wallaby called in to see what was cooking but didn't hang around for a slice of pork. 

 

28/8 Saturday 

We went for a longish walk down the gorge today - about 8 klms to the Moss Gardens, but I didn’t quite make the last 650metres as it was too steep and rocky for my knee.

Karen and Al did though and enjoyed the place.

This is just one pic of the gorge walls we passed on the walk.

We walked back and somehow ended up dropping in at the café for a beer 😁

 

29/8 Sunday 

Rest day for me as my knee was a bit swollen and sore. This seems to be the pattern - walk one day and rest the next. Not that I'm complaining - it's only 12 weeks since I had a full knee replacement and it's getting better every day.

Went to the café for a couple of beers early arvo, but a quiet day all told.

 

30/8 Monday 

Went and did the Nature Walk which was short enough to be kind to my knee but still interesting.

We spotted a ‘roo drinking and an echidna in the Bush.

Café was closed today, so disappointed, so it was back to the camp and drinks around the campfire.

This was the 'roo we walked past - tame as anything!

31/8 Tuesday 

Time to leave Sandstone Park and head south to continue the trip.

We bade farewell to Al at the main road as he turned north to go home and we turned south.

We refuelled in Roma and picked up some much needed supplies - it's nice to get access to a decent supermarket. Oh yeah, and bottleshop :) 

We carried on and set up camp in Surat. Nice enough spot with power and water for $25 but I'm not going to get too excited about it.

 

1/9 Wednesday 

Today we ended up at the Nindigully pub - this has been on my bucket list for ages so I was happy to be there.

 

 We ate dinner there but were disappointed that the only burger on the menu was the Roadtrain burger which has 5.5kg of beef patties plus half a kilo of bacon plus everything else and all held in a bun the size of a dustbin lid.

We didn't order that! 

Instead, we ordered their chicken parmigiana and it was the best we've ever had! 

Our camp spot at the pub, right next to the river.

The river is naturally this turbid - it doesn't look super attractive, but that's the way it's supposed to be.

When we left the pub in the morning we headed off to Thallon to check out the painted silos. Painted in the seventies they are really impressive.,

Right next to the silos is an area reserved for campers. Nice to see and there are hot showers and flushing toilets available too. Can't complain about that! 

2/9 Thursday 

We left Nindigully and drove through Goondiwindi to Yelarbon where we took a spot at the recreation grounds. $15 a night including power, water, showers and toilets. All just across a small road to the Yelarbon Lagoon.

Very nice little place.

We went for a walk around the town and checked out their version of painted silos (again, very impressive work) and also the pub. 

This was the lagoon.

The pub obviously welcome bikers! 

3/9 Friday 

A relaxed departure from Yerlarbon this morning saw us head to Stanthorpe to a spot in the show grounds. 

The drive there was up and down all the time, but it was beautiful and quite quiet. We drove through (the town of) Texas which is a spot we'd always wanted to see, but it wasn't too inspiring so we didn't stop.

Once we'd set up in the Stanthorpe show grounds we went for a walk through town. Nice town it is too..

We headed out for a drive along Armistice Way to check out the cheesery (we bought a few bits of cheese too) and we stopped off at the Granites Brewery which turned out to be a lovely place with some lovely beers. I bought a case of their IPA.

Home to the caravan for dinner and for me to watch Geelong beat the Giants in semi final by 35.

A good day all round although Stanthorpe is pretty cold! 

 

4/9 Saturday 

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2,414 klms