Lady Musgrave Island

Inside the lagoon at Lady Musgrave Island, approaching the pontoon. The dark patches in the water are the shallow reefs inside the lagoon.

Up bright and early this morning to get picked up by the bus to the marina. We’d blown some of our “organised trips” fund on a day cruise to Lady Musgrave Island, part of the Great Barrier Reef. The island is 60km out to sea from Seventeen Seventy and the day cruise uses a fairly large catamaran that acts as transport and is also a base for the day. The weather looked a bit ominous to start with, big dark clouds seemed to lay in our path.
The trip out to the island was pretty rough with a decent chop and with no stabilisation the catamaran made for an uncomfortable ride during the 1.5 hour trip to the island. Not sure exactly how many sick bags they had on board but a number of passengers put a decent sized dent in their stock levels during the journey ! Even Pam succumbed and she’s not normally effected by sea sickness.
Lady Musgrave Island is composed of a reef that encloses a lagoon in the centre of it. At the westerly end of the reef is the island itself which stands at about 2 metres above sea level at it’s highest point. The beaches and the island itself is formed from the remains of coral from the reef. There is a small navigable passage into the lagoon at the easterly end of the reef and this allows the catamaran to enter the lagoon and moor up alongside a pontoon there.

An Egret on the island, a smaller species than those on the mainland.

After mooring up at the pontoon and with the sun finally making an impression we were ferried to the island for a guided walk. The island’s beaches are littered with shells and pieces of coral of numerous varieties. You’re allowed to pick them up and look at them but none of the coral or shells can be removed from the island. Inland the island is covered in trees, many of which are of a species not found in mainland Australia as the seeds have been transported there by migrating birds.
After the guided walk we were picked up from the beach by the glass bottomed boat for a tour around the corals. This was similar to the tour of the Ningaloo reef we’d had in WA. I’m far from being an expert but I thought the corals here didn’t look as vibrant or healthy as the Ningaloo reef corals. Perhaps they just have different species or the light is different or something, it was just an impression I got.

Stood on the pontoon, the island in the background.

Following the coral tour we returned to the pontoon and catamaran for lunch after which we had the option to try out or snorkelling gear again from the pontoon. We opted to hire wetsuits as they were cheap enough and it would make staying in the water for longer a bit more comfortable.
Once again we enjoyed the freedom and sights you get from snorkelling over the reef. It really is like floating on the surface of a large aquarium and if you just float with the current over the reef the activity going on all the time is engrossing.
There was a bit of a growing swell as well as the current and it was starting to get quite tiring moving into a new position against the current and trying to maintain a “head first” position into the swell so your snorkel didn’t get swamped. A lot rougher than Ningaloo had been so in the end we spent less time snorkelling here but still enjoyed the time we did spend. (I have no idea how long we spent snorkelling by the way !) By the time we’d finished

Returning to Seventeen Seventy at sunset, I couldn’t resist this shot of a random yacht with the sunset behind it 🙂

snorkelling the sun was beating down and the skies had cleared.
After changing and drying ourselves off, a quick snack of scones, jam and cream and we set off back to the mainland. The trip back was a lot smoother than the trip there, thankfully. Unfortunately we didn’t spot any whales (a bit early in the year for them) so we still have that particular box to tick if we can. We arrived back at Seventeen Seventy just as the sun was setting making for a very atmospheric return.
Returning to the camp site we decided to give the bistro at the site a try and a very good steak it was too !
Tomorrow we’re going to head south again, probably not very far. We’re looking for a good spot for a rest day or two and as this weekend is a holiday long weekend (Queen’s Birthday) we might be best booking for 3 nights if we find somewhere as it’s likely to be busy at many of the camp sites.

Seventeen Seventy

The camp site at Tannum Sands this morning

We found a car wash this morning and managed to get rid of most of the cow manure ! The Land Rover is looking more blue than it has for a while now.
From the car wash a quick visit to the supermarket to restock on food, a quick visit to the bottle shop to stock up on beer and we hit the road again.
Pam phoned the “day cruise” people at Seventeen Seventy (that’s the name of the town) to see if there was any space on tomorrow’s trip to Lady Musgrove Island Reef which is part of the Great Barrier Reef. There is space available so, as we’d kind of planned, we headed down the Bruce Highway to Seventeen Seventy.
Seventeen Seventy gets it’s name because it was the second landing point for Captain Cook and the first landing in what would become Queensland. He landed in May 1770 and the town was named Seventeen Seventy as part of the bicentennial celebration of the visit in 1970. Many of the streets have Captain Cook and Endeavour related names as well.
In all the miles we’ve done around Australia we’ve not encountered as many roadworks as there are on the Bruce Highway. More annoying was that part of the roadworks forced us to drive through a few large pools of muddy water – so much for the clean Land Rover, still at least it doesn’t smell… We did get the chance to have a very quick chat with a guy in a classic Range Rover in front of us in the queue though so that was a plus.

A view from the lookout at Seventeen Seventy

There are two camp sites at Seventeen Seventy and we looked at both before picking the one not on the beach as it seemed a bit quieter. We’re booked on the cruise tomorrow and will be picked up from the camp site early in the morning. I’ll leave a description of the cruise and the island until tomorrow when hopefully I’ll have billions of glorious photos to choose from 🙂
We’ll stay at this site tomorrow night too and then look to move a bit further south. We’re both feeling a bit of a rest day coming on so we’ll try and find a site suitable for chilling out for a day.

Tannum Sands

One of a pair of Pale-headed Rosellas in the Eucalypt woods.

We’ve had a nice gentle day today. We spent the morning doing a couple of the walks in Cania Gorge. The first walk was at the north end of the National Park where, once again, gold mining had been taking place in the early 20th century. There isn’t much left on the surface but it was a nice walk anyway, taking us along the creek and then through a eucalypt forest.
Lots of bird life in the forest including a pair of Pale-headed Rosella which is a species we’ve not come across before. We were hoping to sight a Koala but no such luck unfortunately.

Not sure what these little lizards living on the sandstone rocks are. They are about 3 inches long and beautifully coloured.

The second walk we took was up to the Two Storey Cave. The walk to and from the cave was interesting with lots of lizards and a particularly nasty looking spider. There were some red ochre paintings on the way there and in the cave itself. Not sure if they’re old or modern in origin. The ones on the outside were very faint and the ones in the cave looked too fresh but who knows…
Having walked off breakfast we set off back to Monto to get some fuel before heading cross country to the coast. We also decided that second breakfast, or lunch, was something we couldn’t resist in Monto.
The cross country route from Monto to Gladstone is a really nice road to drive. Lots of tight twisty sections and climbs/descents along with rail crossings with no lights where you have to “Give Way” to trains. We soon realised that the train track wasn’t in use anymore as in some places the fence cut across it and in one place a load of tyres were piled on the track.
We crossed numerous rivers and creeks along the way, many of the crossings have been upgraded to have concrete flood ways but a good number sported old wooden bridges that have had a layer of Tarmac on top with little or no parapet.

One of the many old wooden bridges on our route today.

You know you’re following the “road less travelled” when you come across a sign on the road that says “Unsuitable for Trucks, Buses, Caravans, Trailers.”. This was on the surfaced part of the road where there was a long descent down a single track section of road with hairpin bends around blind corners. I think the sign makers were just covering their bets though as there were also signs on the way down reminding buses and trucks to stay in low gear !
As we skirted the northern part of the Many Peaks Range we followed the edge of the Awoonga Reservoir which caused us to stop and take in the sight. There seemed to be a forest of trees that have been flooded by the reservoir creating a really strange sight. Not sure how long the reservoir has been at that level but all the trees look dead.

An underwater forest on the reservoir’s edge.

We eventually joined the highway again at Calliope where we headed east again to the coast and to our chosen site for the night at Tannum Sands. From this point on we’ll mostly be heading south give or take the odd inland excursion.
Tomorrow we need to stock up at the supermarket and find somewhere to wash the Land Rover. It’s a bit smelly at the moment courtesy of the cows that hang around the road in Cania Gorge and liberally cover the road with manure. I managed to drive through one of the larger, fresher ones yesterday and, frankly, it went everywhere and stinks !
We’ll probably take a wander to the beach and maybe have a swim before heading down the coast to our next stop, wherever that may be…

Cania Gorge National Park

Another day on the road, no rain yet but the clouds are lingering

A long day today as our anticipated transit day turned into a 496km journey, mostly in a northerly direction. We tried to stay off the highways as much as we could as it’s a lot easier to set your own pace that way and you get to see places a bit off the beaten track.
We nearly had a stop in Oakey this morning as there are signs for an Army Flying Museum which we thought sounded interesting. After a bit of a trek off the main road following the sparse signs to the museum we finally got to the gate to find it closed – it’s only open for part of the week and they haven’t considered adding that information to the big advertising signs on the highway !
Anyway, other than that diversion we made pretty good time and finally got off the main highway at Dalby, finding the driving on empty roads very relaxing after the traffic on the highway. There’s nothing more off putting than a road train sitting on your rear cross member for mile after mile. Our average of 90km per hour is good for fuel consumption but at least 20k slower than the road trains.
On arriving at Mundubbera we stopped and had to make a decision on how much further we wanted to travel today and where we’d stop for the night. In the end we decided to push on a bit and stop at Cania Gorge as both camp sites here get good reviews. We chose the one with Telstra reception in the end, a nice quiet spot with a few walks we can look at tomorrow morning.

Feeding the local parrot species. The Lorikeets are pretty fearless, the Cockatoos wait until you move your hand to them.

On arriving and checking in at the site we were told about their bird feeding regime where the local parrot species are fed daily. Huge numbers of Lorikeets, Cockatoos and Galahs descend on the feeding area and will perch on anyone with bird seed in their hands. I’m not overly keen on this type of feeding that encourages contact with humans in this way but I admit, I couldn’t resist ! Just like the birds on our feeders at home, most of the seed was discarded as they searched out the sunflower seeds.
We’re almost at the most northerly part of our trip into Queensland now so I expect that tomorrow, after a walk in the gorge, we’ll start heading to the coast somewhere near Gladstone. We can then commence the much slower return leg down the coast to Sydney. We’ve booked into Lane Cove caravan park (where we stayed for our first couple of nights of the trip) for the last 2 nights of the trip. That means we have just under 4 weeks to get there.

Nobby

Rolling hills, trees, mountains, all typical of this area

As planned, today turned into a “transit day” more about making progress on our journey than sight seeing along the way. That’s not to say we don’t get the chance to take in the sights along the way, just that there are no specific points of interest.
That said we did actually stop in a couple of places along the way, the first one being a stop for breakfast in the first town we came across – Inverell. A nice Italian coffee shop provided both a mug of decent proper coffee and, for breakfast, we also had a slice of warm apple pie with cream… maybe not what you’d want for breakfast every day but very decadent and a great way to start the day 🙂
From Inverell we headed east to Glen Inness where we joined the New England Highway heading north. At Tenterfield we crossed the border into Queensland again for the first time since Cameron’s Corner. We stopped for a spot of lunch (coleslaw and cheese sandwiches, using up the last of the coleslaw) before continuing on to Warwick.
Most of the roads and landscape around here remind us of driving through the dales or the Lake District apart from the lack of dry stone walls. Lots of rolling hills and steep mountains and all very green. It seems like a really nice place to live.

A free camp site within 50 paces of a good pub that serves excellent food and beer – ’nuff said really.

Looking for a suitable spot to camp for the night we both started searching on WikiCamps and came up with the same spot independently – the free camp site at Nobby. This is a facility provided by the town and the only charge is for electric hookup if you want it. It is also within very easy walking distance of the Rudd’s Pub which is a bit of a bonus ! There’s an old public weigh bridge next to where we are camped, if I can figure out how to use it I’ll try and weigh the Land Rover tomorrow morning and probably scare myself silly with exactly how much it weighs with all the gear aboard…
The food at the pub is good quality, lots of it and not badly priced, they also serve Toohey’s New on draught which is one of our favourite Australian beers. There was some confusion over measure sizes of the beer again, another state, another way of measuring beer. In most states a schooner is the larger glass, just smaller than an imperial pint. A midi is about half a schooner so is just under half a pint. In SA though we came across a schooner that was the same size as a midi, a pint that was the same size as a schooner and an imperial pint that was the same size as, well, an imperial pint. In WA we found some pubs served pints, some schooners but all serves midis as the smaller measure. Anyway, it turns out that here they don’t have a midi, it’s called a pot. So now we have to add yet another possible way of measuring beer to the list. It’s a bit like Russian roulette ordering beer here, you never really know what size glass to expect and just hope it’s a big one ! On the plus side the cost of beer here is about the cheapest we’ve found at around $5 for a schooner of draft Toohey’s.
We have a very rough plan drawn up for the next couple of days and I think we’ve decided that Gladstone will be our most northerly destination in Queensland. Rockhampton is still a possible alternative but we don’t want to leave ourselves short of time for the journey down the coast and every extra day north effectively means at least 2 days by the time we come south again. Tomorrow we’ll head north on another transit day and see where we end up !

Lake Copeton

One of the views from Mount Kaputar

We spent the first half of today in the Mount Kapatur National Park. The first part of our exploration of the park involved a drive up to the peak of Mount Kapatur, a drive of around 50km with the last part being a mix of surfaced and unsurfaced routes up some steep and very narrow roads with huge steep drop offs to the side.
The unsurfaced bit in particular really kept you on your toes – it’s one thing getting understeer or the back end stepping out on corrugations when there’s a nice flat desert next to the road, quite another when there’s a near vertical drop with no barrier ! Needless to say I was giving the corners a lot of respect.
The views from the mountain top are, once again, awe inspiring. At 1510 metres above sea level the peak is the highest point for hundreds of miles in every direction. The mountain peaks of the range seem to capture or create their own clouds above them and we were just above the cloud base on the peak. Once again, the camera doesn’t do it justice but looking out over the plains in every direction you felt like you could see forever. What it’s like in summer with clear blue skies, I can only imagine.

Basalt columns at Sawn Rocks

From Mount Kaputar we had to retrace our steps all the way back to Narrabri before taking the road to Bingarra. This road passes through the northern most part of the Kaputar National Park, crossing over the mountain range. We stopped at the Sawn Rocks, quite high in the mountains. This is an area that has basalt columns, similar to those found at Giants Causeway in Ireland. They’re formed when volcanic lava cools slowly, allowing the basalt to form in it’s crystalline pattern. Apparently there are many instances of this in the area although Sawn Rocks is the best example.
From Sawn Rocks we continued on to Bingarra. This whole area seems to be prime pastoral land with wide fertile valleys which seem well irrigated both by the rivers that run through them and presumably from the cloud systems that the mountains seem to collect. It’s mostly cattle farming but by contrast to the cattle farming in the outback this resembles UK farming with fenced off fields and tags in the cattle’s ears. The breeds of cattle are also more like the ones we see at home rather than the more primitive breeds used in the outback.

Sunset at our camp site, camp fire already burning and tea nearly ready

When we arrived at Bingarra it was time to choose a destination for the night. Our old friend WikiCamps showed a few possibilities in the area and we plumped for the state park site at Lake Copeton. It’s an odd site this one, you drive into what looks like a high end tourist park with kids play areas, a cafe, a big car park. The site extends for about 5km along the edge of the lake and most of it is bush camping with no facilities within easy walking distance – suits us down to the ground having no other campers around us. We also took advantage of the available dead wood and had a camp fire for the first time in ages.
Tomorrow we’re anticipating a bit of a transit day, getting some more miles under our belt and getting further north.

Narrabri

A view from the Slide Springs Observatory car park !

The combination of altitude, clear skies and a southerly wind meant the temperatures this morning came as a bit of a shock, to say the least ! According to the coolant temperature gauge in the Land Rover it was down to 4 degrees C this morning and the sun was having a hard time making any impression through the morning mist.

We didn’t hang about, trying to keep warm by moving around. Once we set off though we did make one stop that was even higher than our camping spot. Siding Spring Observatory is perched on one of the higher peaks in the Warrumbungle Range at around 900 metres above sea level. The views from this peak are spectacular and on a crisp clear day I imagine you could see the Vic High Country. Sadly this morning it was a bit hazy and there was a bit of cloud cover yet to be burnt off by the sun. I know I’ve said this before and I will doubtless say it again but pictures really don’t do justice to the awe inspiring view.

The Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT) inside it’s dome.

The main Anglo Australian Telescope and it’s covering dome are an impressive sight and visitors can climb the 4 stories to the floor of the main telescope. As the name suggests, the scope is a joint venture between the UK and Australia. The main mirror (3.9 metres in diameter) was created (poured) in the USA then polished and formed in Newcastle in the UK and then shipped to Australia. It’s the biggest ceramic glass mirror that’s ever been transported by sea.

This area seems a bit telescope mad ! As well as the collection of scopes at Siding Spring there are a handful of smaller, I think private, observatories scattered along the road down from the ranges. One even has a skeletal radio telescope. One property we passed had a collection of small observation domes in the front yard complete with rotating domes and apertures. I guess the conditions here with no light pollution and clear skies for much of the year make it a bit of a Mecca for hobbyists and professionals alike.

A view from the bottom of the AAT dome.

We refuelled at Coonabarabran before heading north again on the Newell Highway. Fortunately the drop in altitude and the sun burning off some of the mist and cloud meant it started to warm up a bit by then and we were back into just our T Shirts and Shorts.

I’d been “feeling a bit crook” all morning with stomach cramps and by dinner time I was in quite a lot of pain. Pam took over driving but we stopped at a rest area when, as Pam said, “I looked so pale she thought it couldn’t just be her driving”. We stopped there for an hour and I felt a bit better so we carried on northward to Narrabri. By then the pain had subsided and after setting up camp and resting for a few hours all seems back to normal. No idea if it was something I ate or an allergy or what but hopefully it’s all fine now.

On the plus side it’s a lot warmer this evening and hopefully it won’t get as cold overnight. Looking at the forecast and weather reports we’re heading back into the better weather with temperatures in the mid to high 20s. There are a few showers on the coast but hopefully they’ll have moved on by the time we get there !

Tomorrow we’ll head east into the Mount Kaputar National Park to see the sights there. We will probably then head to Bingara although how far we get will depend on how long we stay in Kaputar NP.

Warrumbungle National Park

One of a pair of Kookaburras that came to check us out when we were setting up camp

As anticipated we had a steady start this morning, in fact it was nearer afternoon by the time we hit the road 🙂 Our thanks as ever to Jim and Sue for their hospitality.
We headed north from Trangie through Gin Gin and Collie before heading east to the Newell Highway at Gilgandra.
As we travelled east we could see a mountain range getting closer and closer which marked the Warrumbungle National Park. As the timing was about right for an overnight stop and we liked the look of it we headed into the park for the night.
The views and the wildlife inside the park make it a really pleasant place to stay. There seems to be a large kangaroo population and lots of bird life with Kookaburras and Lorikeets making their presence felt almost as soon as we made camp.

View from our camping spot of one of the mountains

I think the next few days will comprise of much shorter hops rather than the long 500km days we’ve been doing recently as there are so many places to visit. We’re still heading on a very rough north east track but beyond that we’ll be taking this part of the journey as it comes. In many ways the final leg of the journey starts here.

Trangie

Much better weather this morning – a real contrast to yesterday’s picture.

The weather was more or less back to normal this morning after yesterday’s and last night’s storms. For the most part we were back to clear blue skies although a heavy dew meant the outside of the tent was quite wet. We stayed at Nyngan for a while to let the tent dry out in the sun before packing it away and setting off.
The trip to Trangie is only a short hop from Nyngan so we got there early and kept going to Dubbo so we could do a full shop and restock everything before returning to Trangie. With that done it meant we were set to head north from Trangie after spending the night there.
It was good to catch up with Jim and Sue again, now in their new house, and we had the luxury of sleeping in a proper bedroom again.
Tomorrow I expect we’ll start a bit late with a steady start to the day and head north and see where we end up camping when we get there. We have a list of possible places to visit from Jim and Sue so it’s given us some very rough plans on where we’ll go over the next few weeks.

Nyngan

Heading into the storm on the Barrier Highway towards Cobar

We’ve had a very steady day today as we’ve continued our eastward journey. At around 3am this morning the rain arrived and by the time we got up the rain was accompanied by thunder and lightning. It was fairly patchy though so we managed to get everything packed away and got ourselves sorted in the gaps between showers. Very glad we decided to put the fly sheet on the tent before we left Broken Hill or we might have got a bit wet !
As we headed east we were treated to displays of forked lightning in the distance, eventually catching up with the storm and passing through it with some very heavy rain along the way. The Land Rover is looking a little bit cleaner but not much…

Another view of the gathering storm clouds.

Once we got ahead of the storm we were back into bright sunshine again but whenever we stopped for too long it would catch us up. During one of these stops we fixed the main tank fuel gauge which has been stuck reading full since the second day of the Simpson Desert crossing. The sender arm keeps sticking for some reason inside the tank. Normally a decent bump in the road will fix it but it’s stayed firmly stuck despite climbing sand dunes, rattling along corrugated roads and driving up creek beds and rock climbs at Eldee. The sender unit is now fully sealed to the top of the tank since the Tom Price fuel leak so I can’t take it out and reposition it. Fortunately removing the inspection plate above the tank (after removing the fridge and all the wolf boxes first) gives access to the top of the sender unit and hitting the top of it repeatedly with the wheel brace got it “unstuck”. Hopefully it’ll stay unstuck now although it’s not a major issue, because we know roughly how many miles we get from a tank, it Is quite annoying.
Tomorrow we’ll head south east to Trangie to visit Jim and Sue before we start heading north into Queensland.

Landy Travels

Up on the roof