Tamworth to Carnarvon Gorge

Girraween NP - bit chilly

Leaving Coonabarabran we thought to ourselves that we might pop into Tamworth for a snappy look and about a re stock of the essentials and to have a look around. We found ourselves in a $65 / night non powered site in a Big 4 (big dollar) caravan park. Tamworth didn’t offer us much except a hot shower and to catch up on some washing. Sorry to offend any born and bred Tamworth lovers but the town is really lucky to have the music festival.

We joined the New England Hwy and headed north for 350km (one of our biggest days in the car) finally getting across the boarder, we are officially in QLD yay bring on the warm weather. QLD roads authority just love their signs – everything is signposted and they also love their rest areas, lots of them too.

We camped over night in the Girraween NP just over the boarder, a nice place at 1200m approx above sea level. Soooo at that height it would explain to us why we froze our bits off at a pleasant over night low of -2 degrees. Mmmmmm clearly we haven’t gone far enough north! We got to explore a bit of Girraween NP and climbed some really huge boulders, discovered the caves and decided upon a snappy pack up and press on. Did I mention we wanted to get to the warmer weather?

Gourmet campfire cooking - Chicken & Bacon Fetucinni

The vehicle and camper are going well and are good on the road. Diesel is a bit cheaper in QLD at $1.52 / litre. Not that you really notice the difference when you fill our two tanks at 145 litres! But everything helps. The kiddies are travelling ok and are reasonably happy as long as they are eating. Boy can they eat. We are not sure if it’s out of boredom or they are truly suffering from pangs of hunger every 5 mins? Because they are surely not burning any energy whilst they are sitting in the car for 350km. For those of you who have had the pleasure of feeding our kids, their appetite may not surprise you though.  Daily we make and pack lunch for ourselves which makes it a bit cheaper and easier to feed the passengers on the road if we are doing a big day in the car. Man, we are ploughing through some food! I do have to say that in the whole time we have been away that we’ve only fed the kiddies two meals of ‘2 minute noodles’ (for all you people with a direct line to DOCS, put the phone down we are all eating well!)

After Girraween NP we found ourselves a nice campsite beside a river at a place called Archers Crossing, SE of Chinchilla. It was free of charge, we cooked on the camp fire, had the place to ourselves, caught a few yabbi’s and a few carp, in our trap. We’ve tagged Archers Crossing as a place we will return to for an overnighter. Popping back out onto the VERY straight Warrego Hwy (two very narrow lanes wide) we were sharing the HWY with Road Trains. Oh my goodness, how excited am I? These trucks are amazingly HUGE and up to 4 trailers long. The trucks are something else out here. I am enjoying watching them pass us on the road, (once a truckies daughter – always a truckies daughter)  however my driver doesn’t share my passion, as there is not a lot of room when our little vehicle shares the road with a massive road train going in an opposite direction at 110km/hr. We passed lots and lots of endless cotton fields. Being the punter tourists that we are, we stopped on the side of the road to pick up some of the cotton as there is just so much of it around that falls off the trucks. And you wouldn’t believe it – it actually feels just like cotton balls. Who would have known?

Moss Garden - Carnarvon Gorge

 

We were aiming to get to Emerald further north, but doing 500km in a day was asking a bit too much. Geoff knew it was time to find somewhere closer when I serenaded him on lead vocals, backing vocals and dance moves to Huey Lewis and the News – ‘Happy to be stuck on you’ So we ended up at Carnarvon Gorge NP. Nice place this is… we thought at first we had been stooged as there is only one camping option in the off season, and that’s at a private camp ground. We planned to stay for one night and ended up staying two. Again, words cannot describe how beautiful this place was. We took ourselves on a snappy 10km return bush walk to have a look around. Whoa it was beautiful! I have included some of the many pictures I took that day. The 10km walk was only a fraction of the park and we could have gone on many more walks and stayed a few more days. I do think though, that there would have been a mutiny on board, Ben could walk to the end of the earth, Matty, perhaps not as far but stuck with it. Marley, on the other hand is loosing her enthusiasm for discovering the great outdoors on foot. We literally had to drag her the whole way to the sounds of constant protest. The bird watchers in the NP thought she was some pink haired crazed budgie who had fallen from its nest. We think Marley would prefer to be flown in via helicopter to view all these out of the way place. But to keep us on our toes, she does then sigh in awe and wonder when we get to the end of the walk and tell us how much she enjoyed the scenery. We think she is playing with our minds!

Ampetheatre Carnarvon Gorge

For our last hoorah at Carnarvon Gorge we swam in the rock pool. Brrrr it was cold. I will still defend myself and say I went for a swim (up to my waist) but my family is disputing my claims as I didn’t go under the water. (Me thinks I am not as silly as them!)

With the promise of no bush walks for a little while we are leaving Carnarvon Gorge and heading for Emerald, with a bit of Road Train spotting along the way.

‘I’m hungry…….’