Still at Port Lincoln in the break between Christmas and New Year and we get the good news that Jeremy, Michelle and Lucy will be coming direct to our campsite for 24 hours on their way to the Tamworth Country Music Festival, so we were able to see the New Year in with part of our family, also Michelle's mum and dad Bill and Rita and Michelle's Grandma Zidra. We sat in our chairs under the stars looking over the Southern Ocean watching the few fireworks that were set off, a real no - no as there was a total fire ban. As this is a fishing port a few people over in the town of Port Lincoln, 10 km away, decided illegally to set off some emergency beacon flares. Everyone watched as they decended to ... read more

As we are both avid Country and Western music fans we found Tamworth fascinating. We visited the BIG GOLDEN GUITAR museum and they had the record/CD shop to die for if you are a C & W fan, just about every artiste you could mention both Australian, English and in my opinion the best - American. The wax works was fun and I suppose it is the only time we will ever get near the singers. Trevor is proudly sporting his "Tamworth - home of Country Music" shirt as he strums on his guitar in the van. On leaving Tamworth we headed for Moama/Echuca, which took us three days. I suppose there is a bit of jew in us all and as we are fully equipped with water, generator and all home comforts we decided to ... read more

Our next stop was Yandina, which is very near Maroochydore and Maloolabar, both very pretty places with pristine beaches. Trevor has relations living in Nambour and we spent a very enjoyable day catching up with Joyce, Nev, Ivy and Colin. Trevor has always spun a tale about being related to royalty, being from the wrong side of the blanket. Imagine - those claims to fame appear to be true. Other long lost relations from Devon, in the UK, have been researching the family tree and have gone back to the infamous Lawrence Palk, Duke of Devonshire who took advantage of Trevor's great, great, great grandmother who was in service at his ancestoral home. Through the ages the Palk family have married into the Spencer family and it turns out that Diana, Princess of Wales is distantly ... read more

Rockhampton - Mt. Morgan - Yeppoon We decided to stay in Gracemere, just outside Rockhampton, for 10 days as our travelling companion, John, has three children living in the area so it was the perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with them. Rockhampton is an attractive City, sitting on the wide, tidal Fitzroy River. It has some facinating old buildings very well restored. Rockhampton is the Cattle City of Australia, the Brahmen cattle being their pride and joy. There is a statue of the bull at the entrance to the city with bulls appearing throughout the city both as monuments and advertising banners. We noted a huge statue advertising a financial company with "VALUABULL" in huge letters. Another advertising a removal company blazoned out "RE-MOO-VABULL" and yet another advertising a leasing company with "LEASEABULL" written ... read more

Last night was a real dream compared to the night before. We stopped at a little place called Cunnamulla about 200 km over the border into Queensland. Very clean, grass even !!! Can't remember when we last saw grass. All our washing and ironing up to date and we even found time to wander around town. For those country music fans there is a statue of the Cunnamulla Fella, imortalised in a song by Slim Dusty and written by Stan Coster. It depicts the young stockmen of the 50's and 60's who worked from sun-up until sun-down and relaxed around the campfire at night, sitting on their saddles or swags yarning about the days events. The statue in the centre of Cunnamulla is made of bronze and was sculpted by Archie St. Clair from drawings by ... read more