Judy & Brian Tour Oz

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 kep...

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 ...

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 pos...

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 some...

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 ...

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 ar...

    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 ...

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 qu...

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 par...