On the way to Broome 1 by Jan and Keith Travels

Issue 1 June 2019 Brodie’s next 15,000 klm

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The planning for this trip has been underway for quite awhile, Ron and Mary from Perth will holidaying in Broome and suggested we join them, and so it begins.

We haven’t travelled across the top of Australia as yet so this will be our opportunity. We are hoping to do a bit of metal detecting, sail the Blokart on salt lakes, visit the Gulf of Carpenteria, ride one of the most unusual regular train services, see some crocodiles and th is before we leave Queensland, with so much more to follow.

We ummed and ahh’d about taking the bikes but with the Suzuki Jimny we may not have us them very much (but may regret that decision). We packed the croquet mallets and balls so we will be looking for some games around the country and of course if we can ﬁnd some pu trivia that will give us some nightlife ..party animals that we are.

As a lot of free camping is envisaged I decided to ﬁt an SOG toilet ventilation system, this sucks any odours developed by the blackwater cassette and vents them through a ﬁlter to t outside air every time the blade is opened. Hopefully this will prevent any toilet odours wafti through the motorhome. We are also carrying an extra 40 litres of water as the onboard tan only holds barely enough for three days normal use and with the purchase of a small washi machine every drop will count.

We awoke to an overcast sky and the threat of rain on the Sunday 9th, our departure day, didn’t take long to hook the car up, say our goodbyes to our neighbours and head out the gates with a return date a possible 3 to 4 months in the future.

First stop was McDonalds at Casino so we could check if anything had come loose, and I have had hotcakes and a seniors coffee for Jan ..well we were there, shame to waste the opportunity. We met Tracy and the kids in Lismore ... more coffee for Jan ...said our goodb and then we were off.

Our ﬁrst camp of the trip was the Beerwah Showground, about 350ks, a lovely place, plen room, close to the shops and cheap! less than half the price of the caravan parks in the ar

It was a bit quirky they hadn’t replaced the shower signs and we wandered around with a f other campers looking for the showers, ﬁnally realising it must be the change rooms for the football but as only one would open it appeared to be unisex. A young backpacker who ha joined the search party announced she didn’t care who showered at the same as her and promptly claimed one of the showers. It was all resolved in the morning with the signs up a separate male and female.

The next day we had a look around Noosa, a very crowded tourist mecca before heading o to Coolum Beach where we found a very friendly croquet club and spent the afternoon playing.

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Beerwah Showground

Noosa Beach

Jan running a hoop at Coolum Croquet Club

We left Beerwah around 9am and drove right past McDonalds without stopping !!! In fact our first coffee stop was not far from Gympie, this would have been the longest wait ever, 21 mins for a coffee, should have stopped at McDonalds. Lunch was kindly provided by Maree and Jimmy, they had just recently moved to a lovely little country estate, just out of Maryborough, after Maree had put up with the cold climate of Albany WA. After a pleasant couple of hours we made our way through heaps of roadworks arriving at the CMCA RV Park about 430pm. The RV park is a basic low cost ,campground for self contained vehicles, almost in the centre of Bundaberg, we spent 4 nights there and the SOG system worked perfectly .............. The next couple of days we used the Suzuki to tour the area, The Bert Hinkler museum was a great tribute to one of Australia’s aviation pioneers and was well worth the entrance fee.

Maree & Jimmy

Bundaberg CMCA RV Park

Bert Hinklers plane was an Avro Baby, this was the plane when flew from Sydney to Bundaberg breaking the record for that distance at the time, just over 8 hours 40mins. When he flew in to Bundaberg he flew under the railway bridge (in photo) and the road bridge before landing on a playing field,taxing down the road left at lights and parking out side his parents house. Bert Hinkler was an amazing inventor and well worth googling his life. The photo of the bridge was taken from just below the riverbank zoo .

The Lavender Farm near Bargara

Mon Repos Beach

The renown Mon Repos beach where Bert made his ďŹ rst glider ďŹ&#x201A;ights in 1912 but now more famously known as the turtle hatchery, around Decmber you can do a guided tour and watch the huge turtles come ashore at night to lay there eggs, about 6 weeks later the thousands of baby turtles scurry there way to the water, sadly only about 1 in 1000 will survive to return to the beach to lay more eggs.

ndaberg Brewed Softdrinks

A fun hour tasting 18 different flavours of which I only liked about 6, but after 18 I couldn’t remember which ones I liked. At the end of the tour we could select a mixed 6 pack of our favourites flavours ... no idea if I got the ones I liked but I dropped and smashed as I got out of the car..hopefully I didn’t like that flavour.

Ginger beer tasting at Bun

Sunnyside Croque

et Club This was our last ady in Bundaberg so we ďŹ nished it oďŹ&#x20AC; with a pleasent game of croquet, Jan felt the need for stretching exercises ...must have worked as she played really well ...perhaps I should have tried it, it might have improved my game..but exercise! really.

Yeppoon Mullambin B

The slowest trip yet, we travelled through countless roadworks, I think it took 6 hours to cover the 350ks. The next day down the beach for a bit of sailing, the wind was in the right direction but not enough and with the same forecast for the next few days I reluctantly packed it away.

n Beach

It should have been like this, but that was just enough wind to take me about 300 metres away and after sitting there for about 10 mins hoping the wind would pickup I pushed it back.

Sunset over R With the disapointment with no wind we decided a 45 min drive to Rockhampton was in order. Its only a very small club , fortunately there were a few players that wanted to play us so we had great games ...cause Jan and I won. The club is almost inside the Botantical Gardens which includes a very impressive free zoo .. so a great day in all.

Rockhampton

Rockhampton Mallet Club

Bangalee Beach Yeppo

This beach runs for 13klm, the Blokarts (when the wind is right regular sail the length of the beach. Next time we are here and the wind is right I will sail and Jan can follow should be fun.

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We left Yeppoon fairly earl as we wanted to play croquet in Mackay at 130pm, but first stop Maccas!! The highway was really slow, roadworks everywhere, but we managed to find the croquet club with 15 mins to spare. After an enjoyable couple of games it was time to find a camp for the night. We had chosen The Leap Hotel, as we weren’t sure of the way we used goggle. Unfortunately we only entered The Leap, goggle took us along some very scenic roads and then the road stopped, overlooking the hot but about 100 foot drop to it. Backing a flat towed car is almost impossible so I had to unhook and do a 6 point turn in the motorhome and a 3 point in the Suzuki, hook both of them together and then drive the 500 metre to the hotel and un hook again as there wasn’t room to park together. The unhook was a pain in the neck but only added 10 mins to the journey but not quite the laughing matter it is now. A drink at th hotel and a rather cold but comfortable night

The Leap Hotel

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Mackay Croquet Club

Our next stop was going to be Home Hill RV Comfort Stop, one of the ladies at croquet told us to make sure we were there by 3.30pm or we wouldn’t get a spot. Well we were there at 11.30 and it was full!! it's a few blocks of parking along a road behind the main street .. there must have been 50 rv’s there .. looked like a gypsy camp so Plan B. Giru! Giru is a little village based around a sugar mill, for some very kind reason the village has oﬀered a park area for rv’s travelling through. The village only has one shop and a pub open, by 7pm there were probably 15 vehicles there so the pub got some trade. The sugar mill was running a few shifts so was quite noisy but from inside it sounded a bit like the ocean (well it did to me!) so I had a pleasant nights sleep. Next morning a lot had moved on before we poked our head outside ... must have been a sound sleep.

Giru RV Stop

Some of the views along the way to Innisfail, a lot of the towns are bypassed so they need something on the highway to attract tourists, The big mango is a symbol for Bowen and sold some very nice mango sorbet. The cemetery was on the bypass of Ayr and it was amazing the amount of money that must have been spent on the tombs. We wandered around admiring the work, most of the inscriptions were in Italian, but fairly easy to translate.

The cemetery at Ayr

Once again it was roadworks after roadworks all the way to Innisfail, somebody quipped it because there is an election coming up, it was still a slow trip. We wasted a bit of time in Townsville, after travelling to 3 diﬀerent McDonalds and unable to get a parking spot we headed north still looking for a toilet. We found a rest area that had both a coﬀee kiosk and a toilet, as well as about 30 Rv’s... the grey nomads are everywhere. This rest area was just out of Innisfail and our home for the night, a crop dusting helicopter kept us entertained till dusk. right on the highway it was a bit noisy but we got used to it.

Fred Drew Rest Area Innisfail

Mt Supri

After leaving Innisfail we had a few steep climbs up through the rainforest to the tablelands, There were a few walks to lookouts on the range but Jan’s hips were playing up so we gave them a miss. When we got to Ravenshoe the local bakery was the ﬁrst call, no chips!, and then the Tourist Centre. They had a good display of local history and a knowledge volunteer. He suggested Inot Springs for Jan’s hips, he said it would make Jan feel 20 years younger. Well that did trick, with a “Lets go!” she almost ran out of the centre. Inot Springs was about 30mins away, after paying $10 each it wasn’t long before we acting like tea bags in some really hot water .... We got bored after about 30 mins so pushed on to Mt Suprise

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Inot Hot Springs

Planet Earth Ca Mt Supr

Russell was the owner of the park as well as being cook, Barista and general handy man. Each afternoon he gave a talk on snakes and ďŹ rst aid, a not to missed bit of entertainment which could save your life. Everytime the snake was near me Jan was nowhere to be seen, she moved so fast I thought the snake had ďŹ xed her hips.

aravan Park rise

Mount Sup

The Savannahlander runs weekly to and from Cairns, it is an iconic tourist trip and takes a few days to complete each way, The train stops at some of the small towns along the way and the passengers are treated to tours of the area. The tour packages range up to $1500 but that includes a trip on another iconic train, The GulďŹ&#x201A;ander.

prise Station

The drivers area,he provides commentary and the passengers have full acess

We intended going to a gorge about 75ks from Mt Surprise, we had been told it was very pretty, unfortunately about halfway there the Suzuki started making a very loud tyre/bearing noise, we stopped and checked everything but with no phone reception and not seeing another person in the last hour we decided to turn back. It wasn’t till I got back to the sealed road I found by disconnecting the dog clutch (a device that isolates the drive train for ﬂat towing) then reconnecting it the noise went away, hopefully it was a build up of dust as it hasn’t reappeared as yet. I’m sure we will ﬁnd more gorges to visit along the way.

Crossing the Gilbert River

Looking down river from centre of bridge

Croy

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This is the last town before Normanton and the terminus of the GulďŹ&#x201A;ander train, it does the Normanton return once a week and a couple of shorter tourist trips. Croydon had a very well done information centre based on the goldrushes in this area in the late 1800's, once the gold ran out the town like a lot of other gold rush towns faded away, it mainly services primary production now. Of course the main reason we stopped here, it happened to be across the road from a ďŹ sh and chip shop.

Issue 1 June 2019

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