Undara Qld 30 July 2017

Yesterday we travelled from Charters Towers up to Undara via the Gregory Development road, that is a road with a strip of tar about a truck wide and gravel on either side. When another vehicle is approaching, the smaller one gets off the bitumen and they pass safely. We saw this large truck coming, i got of as far as i could, right up to the edge of the 1m gully, and waited for  the truck to react. We weren't right off but we had no where to go. Finally he saw us and hit the brakes, leaving us with the disconcerting sight of his second carriage swerving right across the road. Fortunately the driver got it all back together and blasted past leaving us unscathed. We stopped at a tiny dot on the map called The Lynd, a neat and tidy but tiny roadhouse, for lunch before moving on to Undara.

Undara is home to the, rightfully, world famous lava tubes. Basically a huge stream of molten rock following a watercourse or valley, that has cooled and set on the outside while the inside has kept moving. Here is the interpretive boards placed by Queensland Government:

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

To take pictures is somewaht difficult: there is the brightest of white sunlight and the pitch black of the shadows, and there is the size of the thing. Basically you are trying to take a picture of a whole.

Anyhow here's a couple of snaps :

The Archway. You are looking at the top, or roof, of a lava tube. Underneath is  something like 20 metres deep and wide. The lava flowed down this way, cooling on the bottom and sides first, then the top, trapping the heat in and due top the gradient, the river of lava kept on flowing. When the volcano stopped erupting, the lava literally ran oiut leaving a hollow. Next time an eruption occured, another tube may well be formed over the top of this one. They say there are at least 10, but then it did take 8 million years before the volcanos went to sleep.

From inside the tube. In this case its closed at one end and open at the other. They only get to be open when the roof collapses.

Inside the largest lava tube cave in the world. A picture cannot describe how big this hole is, but something like 60 metres tall, 30 metres long and 100 metres deep. It has bats. The thing hanging down is a tree root from way up above. The tree roots will eventually crack the rocks and the roof will collapse. Not any time soon though.

Micro Bats, mega caves. Undara Lava Tubes. Undara Qld

There are a bunch of bush walks to choose from for your afternoon's entertainment. We took the hike up to The Bluff and took some snaps of the Resort and the countryside.

Undara Qld

Kalkani crater, one of the many dormant volcanos that gave rise to the  lava tubes. Undara Qld

Sitting here in the shade of 'Central Station', enjoying an ice-cream, Judy remarks that its just like looking out from a lava tube. And it is! Undara Qld

One of the many carriages, this one is a dining room. Undara Qld

Charters Towers Qld. 28 July 2017

The road from Clermont to Charters Towers is not too bad, although there seemed to be more dead cars on the side of the road than dead roos - even though on the map it looks to be near the coast and civilisation, there's not much out here and a lot of space in between. The outback starts early in northern Queensland. This is a 375km trip and there is precisely one stop, which you may as well make the most of!

Belyando Crossing Roadhouse, Qld

Belyando Crossing Roadhouse, Qld

'CT' is one of our favourites. Apart from a really nice Big4 van park, it's a lovely old town, but modern enough to have lots of stuff one needs, such as screws and bolts and caravan window winders and locks and even trailer mirrors.

Today is the day to fix up some of the carnage, well a few bits and pieces that have come loose and broken at least. I found 'the' hardware store and stocked up on bits and pieces, and then oddest little caravan place that had a few proper things and made a start. We replaced the two winder mechanisms on the bedroom window, but I couldn't easily see how to replace the catches, which are riveted on, so I went to the pool instead! The pool was 'refreshing', to say the most, but a really nice spot.

This Big4 Aussie Outback Oasis is a bit of a gem really. It's known for its Friday Night pizza and show around a big campfire. The pizza was OK, and the 4 persons doing karaoke were entertaining enough, even if their choice of endless ballads seemed at odds with the Rock and Roll that they kept telling us we were going to get.

3/4 of the 4 person band. Big4 Aussie Outback Oasis. Charters Towers Qld

Big4 Aussie Outback Oasis. Charters Towers

Tomorrow we head off into the unknown - a new untravelled road for us, which is becoming a bit of a rarity.

Clermont Qld. 27 July 2017

Up and away early from Roma, we have a long drive ahead, some 515km to Clermont. The road north out of Roma isn't brilliant, and gets quite hilly as we cross over the ranges onto the plateau. One thing we noticed was the number of vans travelling south, don't they know its still cold down there? There is one section of 'development' road, which is quite narrow but reasonably smooth and not as daunting as the map makes out. The thing is, there is a lot of not much between Roma and Rolleston, where we stopped after 250km for a rest.

Last time we came through here there was next to nothing in this quaint little town, a single short street with a few down-at-heel shops and a park. This time however, the park was sporting a coffee van run by volunteers raising money to beautify the park, and by the look of the park, doing a great job. There was at least twenty vans parked in the street and everyone was waiting for the coffee; and using the loos and checking out the old post office and the museum. The lady in the van reckons it's this busy from the time they open until closing, every day of the week. What a great initiative - good on them!

Coffee waggon doing a great job at Rolleston, Qld

Main Street,  Rolleston, Qld

From Rolleston its an easy drive up to Springsure, which looks like a nice place to stay a while. Unfortunately on the way a large truck slammed my driver's side mirror flat with its bow wave and the attached trailer mirror flew off into oblivion. We didn't even back off; there was no point, it would have been smashed to pieces for sure. From Springsure to Emerald the road opens up a bit and we started to make better time, reaching Emerald in time for a refuel and lunch in the park.

Finally, we reached Clermont some 120km up the road from Emerald, but an easy drive. The van park at Clermont has undergone a sort of resurrection: it was pretty worn out last time, and this year it's all nice and shiny. All the old vans have been pushed out into the back paddock, where they will be 'accidentally' consumed by flames in due course, and there are heaps of new cabins and dongas. Obviously there is more happening around Clermont than a bit of gemstone fossicking, which is why the majority of vanners are here. They're worse than fisherman, 'you should have seen the stone this bloke got - it was this big!' Good on them.

But there is this gem in the Clermont Caravan Park Rules which makes all this travel worthwhile:

'There is no dump point [a dump point is where you empty your caravan's toilet] in the caravan park. The dump point is located in Lime Street near the toilet block next to the Bowels Club'

Its way better than the one from Townsville a few years ago:

'No children passed this point'

Good night readers.

Roma, Qld July 26 2017

Transport day, a 425km leg from Lightning Ridge to Roma. After passing through Hebel the next town is Dirranbandi, where we stopped for a coffee and rest. The roads are good enough with the proviso that they can be quite bumpy at times, not pot-holed, just not flat and smooth - you tend to do a bit or porpoising because its hard to tell when the undulations will hit, except for the cattle-grids, of which there are many. Hebel is touted in Lightning Ridge as an attraction, mainly because of the pub and a 'restaurant', and as far as we could see, there wasn't much of anything else. We did see the strangest thing some time out of Hebel. Out there, in the middle of nothing, there was this black and white dog (think Dog from Footrot Flats) sitting on top of a dog-box of sorts, on the side of the road. It was chained to the said dog-box and eagerly awaiting the return of its master. One could only assume it was there for a reason, maybe it was guarding something important, like a slab of FourX. Who knows. Dirranbandi is the neatest, nicest looking one street town you will ever see. You just had to stop and wander back to the bakery come cafe, where we drank coffee and admired the Russian influenced cakes and of course the brilliant Samovar.

On and on we went, driving straight through St George despite it's charm and coffee shops, right up and into Surat, where we easily found the park by the Balonne river and enjoyed a nice lunch in the van. Just out of town, and on that same river is a nice enough looking free camp, already jam packed at 2.30pm.

We cruised into Roma at about 3 o'clock and settled in, followed by a run to the shops for food and a walk through the very pleasant adjacent park.

Sadly the 'Big Rig Oil and Gas Interpretative Centre and Night Show for an interactive insight into the hardships and heroic stories of oil drilling and exploration' has been cancelled for tonight, and the next cattle sale isn't until Friday, so we'll just have to take an early night and head out first thing in the morning for Charters Towers

Lightning Ridge NSW 25 July 2017

Had a quiet sort of morning, read a book, had a swim or two and sat in the sun for a hour. I could get used to this.

In the afternoon, we took ourselves over to the 'real' opal fields, which are 60km to the west of Lightning Ridge, past Cumborah, past Grawin and onto Glengarry and The Sheepyards. We did this last time we were here and enjoyed ourselves, but this time it just felt like a waste of time. The first 30km of road is good bitumen, and as long as you stay on the alert for sheep, cows, goats, dogs, alpacas, emus etc, it is an easy drive. Then there is the 30km of dirt road, opal mining debris really, which was quite rough.

We resisted the temptation to take the short detour up to the Club-in-the-scrub, which is a tin shed masquerading as a Golf Club and at which there is nought to do except buy overpriced drinks. One could play golf I suppose, but that's not us.  The next attraction is the big mullock heap, and yes it's big but not as big as say, the one in Norseman in WA, and besides, it's just a pile of white dirt. They say that you can 'noodle' in this pile, but the chances of you finding anything are much less than that of being run over by the next incoming dump-truck, which is unlikely, if you stay away from the obvious 'road'.

Further along you come to The Sheepyards War memorial, which is a kind of nice thing to have done and worth a stop for a look, I even took another snap.

War Memorial. Sheepyards, NSW

On then, to the Glengary Hilton. Having seen the converted container and tin shed masquerading as a hotel, we neglected to take that short detour as well,

Finally, we arrive at The Sheepyards, the hotel to be exact. This time they didn't have any food left at all and the barman / hotellier fought against all his principles and reluctantly came to sell us a Bundy Ginger Beer each at $3.50 a pop, before retiring to his seat and his cronies with a dismissive wave of his hand. The opal in the rough they had on display is just a bit of colour, totally worthless, as is the rest of the junk they have lying around. I felt like taking him literally when he said 'knock yourselves out', meaning if we wanted, we could look at all there was to see in his establishment, which wasn't much.

Outside, apart from what appeared to be a new set of toilets, was the same old phone-tree and the same tired tractor. I took snaps, as we wont be back, and we scat.

Dead tractor. Sheepyards, NSW

The Sheepyards Hotel. Sheepyards NSW

Old Sydney Red rattler, Sheepyards Hotel, Sheepyards NSW

Phone tree. Sheepyards, NSW

And what's with the old trains from Sydney? There are at least five in Lightning Ridge. One would have thought it would be heaps cheaper to buy a proper kit bunkhouse specific to your purposes than to buy one of these rusted out contraptions, transport it way up here and then try and convert it to something useful.

Anyhow, having felt underwhelmed by the welcome, we did indeed return to the van park, where we were very welcome indeed to take part in another Mel and Susie show, swim in the heated pool, sit around the campfire, take a spa, and generally enjoy the rest of our stay. Which we did.

Lightning Ridge 24 July 2017

Today we did the Lightning Ridge car door tours. There are four trail, each one marked by a series of car door painted in that trail's colour: red, yellow, blue and green. One surprise for us was that they want you to give them a dollar for the info sheet, which was ok I guess. One thing that was not a surprise was the rudeness of the woman in the Info Centre, as they were just as unhelpful and rude 3 and 6 years ago. Maybe it's their idea of fun: annoy and ridicule the tourists who come in at the rate of 5-6000 a month.

I was going to present a pictorial coverage of the trails, but as it turns out, most of the explanations of each numbered door simple said to move on to the next door.

Anyhow here's a few just for fun:

Red door tail. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Highest point on the ridge. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Yellow door trail. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Yellow trail. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Lunatic lookout is a ledge at the top of the hill. The Three-mile mine area is at the bottom of the hill, and when some hardy souls decided to go up the hill and dig down, by hand, the extra 60ft to get to the same seam, they said they were Looney, hence the tag Lunatic Hill. Today it is one large open cut mine that cleaned out anything that the old-time diggers missed.

Lightning Ridge, NSW
Faux church erected for some totally forgotten B grade movie 

Lightning Ridge, NSW

Lightning Ridge, NSW
OH&S has even caught up with the bears nailed to the trees

View from top-of-the-ridge looking west. Lightning Ridge NSW

No visit to Lightning Ridge is complete without a visit to the '2nd most unmissable attraction in NSW' aka The Chambers of the Black Hand. Which is one man's 20 year's worth of carving statues into the sandstone layer above the opal layer. We've been here before and it's changed a bit: there are more chambers, more carvings, no guided tour of the actual mine part, and they've whacked the entry fee up. But interesting enough, so a few of the carvings I haven't put up before

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

We made it back in time to catch another Mel and Susie show, which was even better than yesterday, and then we went and had a dip in the hot spring. H-O-T being the operative word here, it must have been 40+ and you just couldn't stay in more than a few minutes at a time.

We finished the day sitting around the campfire and swapping a few travel tales with our fellow drifters.

Lightning Ridge, 23 July 2017

    Another freezing night in downtown Dubbo. No problem, today we head north to Lightning Ridge. We are pleased to report that Warrawillah still exists and we said hello in spirit to the Mortimer clan as we flew past on our way to ‘Gil’. Through the town and out along the road, past Gulargambone with its stylised corrugated Galahs and real-life emus. We have never seen so many, one near the road had a heap of chicks as well. We stopped for a break at Coonamble, and enjoyed ourselves by getting the chairs out and sitting in the sun in the local park with our cuppa and a piece of cake. Apart from the herd of cattle eating their way up the long-paddock and the distraction of sliding through Walgett, possibly the most distressed town in NSW, the rest of the drive to The Ridge is uneventful and we arrived at our park in time for a late lunch.

    One of the reasons for coming here was to see those great Australian bush poets. Mel & Suzie, who abandoned Wilton in Qld for a new home here in Lightning Ridge. The show is on at 4:30. They tried the usual evening slot but found that nobody came back once they had gone to their vans for dinner. Anyhow the show was good, not as good as the Winton ones perhaps, but pretty entertaining none the less.

    While Judy whipped up a potato pie for dinner, I went for a swim in the heated pool, much to the surprise of those all rugged up in their puffer jackets and beanies in the adjacent camp kitchen.

Dubbo NSW 22 July 2017

It can get a bit chilly in Dubbo, -2 overnight, but lovely during the day with a top of 17 and bright clear skies and glorious warm sunshine. Mind you, laying in bed in a thin metal caravan with a doona and 3 blankets it still felt like -15. 

Undaunted, I was up and around to the start of Parkrun by the allotted time of 8am, and managed a reasonable walking time despite the cold, The walk starts on one side of the Macquarie river, then crosses over and heads back along the other bank until you reach the turn around point under the bridge. The parklands near the start were a white sheet of ice and totally deserted when we left. An hour later and there are 10,000 kids playing soccer, the ice has gone and the temperature is already climbing.

After a long hot shower and breakfast, we headed out to do one of the Heritage Trails. The first and main point of interest was Dundullimal Station, dating from the early 1800's. We had actually been here before many years ago and it was quite run-down. Today thanks to the National Trust it is in splendid condition and the homestead, barn and grounds are one of the best we've seen.  A new feature is an old timber church that they rescued from a property out near Narromine. It was built in the 1870's and this is it's seventh home!

Homestead, Dundullimal Station, Dubbo NSW

Barn, Dundullimal Station, Dubbo NSW

TimbreBongi Church. Dundullimal Station, Dubbo NSW

Barn, Dundullimal Station, Dubbo NSW

Further along the Heritage Trail is the 'Observatory', which wasn't even worth stopping for; it looked like someone's house with a tiny dome out the back and a sign out the front 'by appointment only'. The proprietor of this fine establish was a Mr Peter Starr. No, they weren't kidding, it said so on the sign.

Next in this travelcade of delights was the Red Dirt Winery, where we had hopes of scoring some lunch and a taste and chat about wines. We parked up near the other cars and strolled into the property. Out on the wide verandah was a few people sitting around a table in the sun quaffing the wine being offered by a woman one had to assume was the host. We went inside anyway, to check the place out but all its secrets were revealed in a single glance: there would be no coffee or ploughman's lunch for us, there was basically nothing in there except a few bare tables, secondhand books and an abandoned bar.  We made our egress back out onto the veranda where we were totally ignored for the few minutes that we waited and then we legged it back to the car and continued our search for a nice place for luncheon.

To cut a long story short, we ended up back at the Zoo where they were still open (it was 2pm and they were certainly set up to provide sustenance to the hungry hoards. I took a few snaps of the animals just for the hell of it:

Monkeys. Taronga Western Plains Zoo Dubbo NSW

Bird. . Taronga Western Plains Zoo Dubbo NSW

Giraffes. . Taronga Western Plains Zoo Dubbo NSW

Big Hippo, Little Hippo. . Taronga Western Plains Zoo Dubbo NSW

It was all too much; we went back into town and bought some supplies and retired to the van where a  warm heater and cold wine awaited.

Dubbo, NSW, 21 July 2017

Well, its been nearly a year since our last trip, and it’s a relief to be on the road again and heading toward somewhere warmer. 

We drove through thick fog from Murrumbateman out past Yass and halfway to Boorowa. The temperature hovered between 1 and six and back again. Finally we broke into some clear sunny conditions and we had a pleasant run through to Cowra, where we stopped at the info place and Maccas for a break and a nice cup of coffee. After our rest stop, and ignoring the temptation to wander around the Japanese Gardens, we drove up to Wellington where we found a single cafe open, well almost, they were putting their signs away right on 2 o’clock, but were happy to feed us anyway. Wellington the town looks even deader than when we were there last a few years ago.

From Wellington it’s a 100km or so run up to Dubbo where we found the Big 4, despite our GPS having not heard of it - and it’s being right next to the zoo. The most anxious part of any trip is that first go at parking the van again. Made it in only three goes, so not bad given I'm a bit rusty.

And to our relief, it’s a balmy 15 degrees, well at least until the sun goes down!

Had a bit of a drive around the parkland alongside the river, mainly to find the start of Parkrun, which I hope to be able to do tomorrow, before getting fuel and retiring to our van, heater on full-blast, all blankets out and on the bed. Brrrrr!