Saturday, 8 September 2018
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Gunsynd (Melbourne Cup Winner) |
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Looking from Queensland to New South Wales |
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Not colour coordinated today! |
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Tree of Knowledge - used to mark flood levels |
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Colourful reservoir |
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Sandstone Bird Sculptures |
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Victoria Hotel |
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Quiet thoughts beside the dam |
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Birdlife with the setting sun |
Departed Brisbane on Friday morning without any dramas and
were soon on the motorway heading towards Toowoomba. The rain had disappeared and the sun was once
again shining as we travelled through the Lockyer Valley before the steep climb
into Toowoomba. After leaving Toowoomba,
the road to Goondiwindi took a definite downturn in standard, becoming very bumpy
as we drove across the enormous plains – along with many, many trucks!
By the time we arrived at Goondiwindi, the westerly wind had
strengthened, the temperature risen, the humidity dropped and storm clouds were
building. We stayed at the Goondiwindi
Freedom Lifestyle Park, which was handy to the highway and had large drive-thru
sites – all were a sandy dirt with some small and large trees scattered
about. The owner/manager was very
friendly and chatty; the amenities were reasonable and clean with some very
quirky signage – The Missus, The Old Fella, Sheilas, Blokes. A large dam at the back of the park was home
to a number of water birds (and probably snakes!). With an eye on the building storm, we did a
quick tour of the town’s touristy bits and visited Coles before settling down
for the evening.
About 9.00pm, the first storm cell hit (and it was the most
severe), with lightning, thunder, torrential rain, hail and extremely strong
wind. The caravan didn’t just rock, it
actually lifted a number of times! We
were quick enough to get two hatches shut but not before the hatch over the
kitchen area blew upright and water poured in through the blind cover. After getting this closed, we noticed that
the front window cover had blown open, so Himself, being very brave, stripped
down to his boxers and made a dash outside to close the cover and lock it in
place. I discovered this morning that
Rex (our artificial grass door mat) had taken refuge under the car! Lots of water around and one car had half a
dead tree up against its side. We don’t
appear to have suffered any damage, luckily.
Today we crossed into New South Wales, with Coonabarabran
our destination for the night. The wheat
and cotton plains from yesterday continued through Moree and Narrabri, with a
bit of canola adding a splash of colour.
Unfortunately, the bumpy road the lots of trucks also continued,
although the road did improve south of Narrabri. We have booked into the Getaway Tourist Park
on the south side of town.
Unfortunately, the severe drought conditions don’t help the caravan
parks look their best and we have a dirt site that once upon a time was
grassy. Just to keep the boys amused,
the caravan park is having a new driveway formed and sealed, so we get to watch (and hear) all the roadworking machinery.
We were the first to arrive today and the park is nearly full already.
The answer to the bird question – babblers.
1 comment:
And there were 2 (two) of them. Just saying.
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