St George region to Brisbane

We left Tom’s property near St George on Saturday afternoon and headed to Oakey to stay with Therese and Bruce on their property. Oakey had minus 5 degrees the night before we arrived, so that was one excuse for the kids sleeping in the house, while Claire and Jim braved the camper trailer. During the day, Jim did some tractor driving while the kids got haircuts in town. Ned also helped paint Bruce’s new cattle crate for his truck.

Elsie helped keep the others amused in the car by games such as this on the way to Oakey

Bruce had some new babies at Oakey

We left Oakey after 3 nights and wound our way through the beautiful scenery of the sunshine coast hinterland. After a late lunch in Maleny we set up camp for the last time at Coolum Beach - a great spot for our last night in the camper trailer. The next morning we travelled north for a swim at Noosa which was about 10 times more beautiful than we remembered – the National Park up to the water’s edge, a deep blue cloudless sky and crystal clear water. We’ll definitely be back. (The kids say it’s much better than Cable Beach.)

Coolum Beach - we thought this was good, but Noosa was better!

Then with sadness (for Jim at least) we headed home that afternoon to slip back into “normal” life. Even before we crossed the Gateway Bridge Jim was trying to plan timings and locations for our next trip.

 PS - Jim lost his mobile phone somewhere between Darwin and Brisbane, so cannot receive any phone messages. Please use email or Claire's phone to contact Jim (e.g. for job offers, large monetary gifs, etc)

Thank you all for reading this blog – I hope you enjoyed it. Earlier on, I wasn’t sure how many people, if any, were reading it - so thanks for the positive feedback along the way. It was a trip of a life time that we will never forget.

The actual route we finally took - 17 300 km

Some relevant stats from the trip:

Distance travelled: 17 300 km

Fuel (diesel) used: just over 2600 litres

Time away: one day short of 12 weeks

Favourite place (family consensus) : Uluru – it’s VERY big

Favourite campsite: Lots, but our spot on the grassy shores of Lake Kununurra was pretty special

Highest fuel price: $2.13/litre at Yulara (Uluru)

Highest camping fee per night: $76 at Coolum Beach

Average fuel consumption: About 15 litres per 100 km (The fully loaded trailer was just under 1.5 tonnes)

No. of times bogged: 1 (nearly 2)

No. of flat tyres: none (due to being totally prepared with 2 spares and a puncture repair kit)

FAREWELL FOR NOW!!

Darwin to St George region

We had originally planned to come home slowly from Darwin, but decided to cover the ground quickly so we could make it back in time for Jim’s cousin’s (Brian) birthday party on his cattle/sheep property near St George on 28 July. This meant we needed to do some big km each day, leaving before dawn, so we booked some cabins for sleeping along the way to save packing up the camper trailer. We did about 2200 km on the first 2 days, staying in Tennant Creek first and making it to Winton by 8:30 pm on Wednesday.

The Mt Isa mine is virtually right in town

Despite doing 1150 km that day we still stopped in McKinlay for a drink at the pub made famous by Crocodile Dundee

We spent Thursday morning looking around Winton and played the musical fence (which works like a guitar), saw Arno’s Wall (built from rocks and heaps of old machines, typewriters, spare parts, etc) and explored the amazing Gregory Hotel (where Waltzing Matilda was supposedly first performed in 1895).

Elsie at Winton's junkyard band, next to the musical fence

Part of Arno's Wall, Winton

Jim would secretly still love to drive one of these

  We then headed to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History where we learnt lots about dinosaurs and saw heaps of dinosaur fossils which were all found locally.

Bronte next to the small white femur of an ox, compared to the larger fossilised dinosaur femur

Ned with a life-sized dinosaur

Volunteers painstakingly chip away the dirt from the fossil

 We then headed down to Longreach for a really quick look around before making it to Barcaldine for the night where we were treated to some bush poetry and jokes by the campfire in the caravan park.

We left before dawn again to travel via Mitchell and St George to arrive at Brian’s property west of St George after dark, ready for the big party on the next day.

Kerosine tin hut at Morven - people lived in these diring the depression

Some of the party crowd at Brian's machinery shed

Lots of camp ovens were used to cook the party food

Inside Brian's shearing shed

Jim trying to be useful in the cattle yards at Bernie's

The kids had never seen branding and marking before

We then spent a few nights on Ross and Cheryl’s cotton farm south of St George, followed by a night on Tom’s property near Weengallon. It was really good to stay on the various farms and catch up with the rellies, while the kids also loved the all the channels on their Foxtel.

Elsie and Claire with Ross who was fertilising the ground in preparation for cotton planting

Ken was drenching the sheep on Tom's property

Checking out the sheep on Tom's property

The kids loved holding the new lambs