Last blog had us in Quilpie, S.W Qld., well we are still in Qld but now heading East(ish); we keep hearing horror stories about the temps back home and are very reluctant to go too far South. Mind you the overnight temperatures here are freezing and we are very glad of the gas heater. 6 degrees inside in the morning is jolly cold. We desperately needed to do washing, not to mention all the water management (love that phrase) things so we opted for the only caravan park in town. It was a good choice as it was quite a friendly place with a Happy Hour around a hugefire pit at 4.30 – no waiting around until 5 for a drink! The owner kept the fire going with great pieces of wood and we have found ... read more

Our camp at Lake Proserpine was in fact the Lions Camp, which hosted school camp groups, with a section at the back for caravans and tents. Although it is 20 kms from Proserpine, it did not look good on entry with every visible window covered in security mesh, however the section at the back could not be seen from the road (which really only serviced the camp and the administrators at the dam), so concerns about security quickly disappeared. There was reticulated water, power and an ablution block for travellers, and you cannot ask for much more than that at a cost of $25 per night. We were 1 of 4 caravans to make use of the facility although there were approx 30 sites available, and that meant that we had plenty of room to ourselves. ... read more

After doing not much in Baralaba, we headed for the big smoke in Rockhampton. Marg picked a caravan park in North (and when I say North I mean far North) Rockhampton. It was called the country club (the lack of capitals is deliberate), and it had certainly faded from its former glory. That was not of great concern as it was cheap, had ablutions, power and water which is all we wanted here. We have spent some time in Rocky before and it was quite familiar to us, which helped in searching for shops and services. Marg had picked up a slow leak in the near side rear tyre of the car and it was resolved to get it fixed. It was Saturday afternoon and when we called into the local Bob Jane Tyre service they ... read more

Minnie Water was exactly as we remembered it. Sadly our memory of the road in was somewhat eroded by the time we spent camping above the beach and breaking waves. I have come to the conclusion that National Parks do not want people driving into the camps they boast about providing for the common person. It was only about 800 mts into the first camping area, but we lost sight of the horizon 3 times when we disappeared into some of the potholes, and when we were on the ‘road’ they has used chunks of blue-metal the size of bricks in making the surface. Needed a trip to the dentist to have our fillings refitted after that. Fortunately the camp was not busy and we found a nice grassed site to park up not far away ... read more

Tuesday 14thApril and we finally get away for our trip around the coast of Vic and then northward up the NSW and Qld coast line, until we reach a point when we will return through the inland/outback of said Qld and NSW. As you can guess from that sentence our plan has some flex built into it... The theme of this entry will be somewhat focused on the weather. It seems that this was not the ideal time to leave as the weather pattern would indicate that we have missed the window before the onset of winter. Day one was not too bad, although mostly overcast, there was not anything you would call rain. Knowing that it was not going to be an early start (and it wasn’t), we only planned to get to Port Albert ... read more