Committed Travellers

An unexpected failing of Augathella was the lack of any shop that sells coffee in the morning when most needed. Coffee would have to wait until we reached Tambo. We continued travelling north west on national highway A2, also known as the Landsborough Hwy between Morven and Cloncurry. Everywhere along this highway is so green that sometimes it reminds me of Gippsland in Victoria. We passed through these towns about three years ago travelling in the other direction. Tambo has several attractive historic buildings, including the post office which is for sale. I finally had my coffee at Fanny Mae's Cafe which has this impressive horse statue. When we stopped here in May 2018 Max and Coco relaxed on the cool verandah. Tambo has a Teddy shop with this teddy outside the front door to remind customers to wear a mask. The Tambo butcher's shop must be staffed by teddys. On the way to Blackall a car towin

Before we left Mitchell I took this photo of the Courthouse Hotel which was owned and run by our friend's family many years ago. It seems to have stopped trading in 2017 and is for sale for $110,000 plus GST.  We bought lousy coffees from a depressed-looking cafe and continued along the Warrego Way. It was a slow trip as we got stuck behind a fifth wheeler that took up too much road for us to safely overtake. At Morven we refuelled at a truck stop where the price of diesel was 10 cents per litre cheaper than at the Gold Coast.  We are parked at the back of the Ellangowan Hotel with power, water and a dump site for $25 per night, with a $10 meal voucher we used having dinner at the pub. The house nextdoor would have once been a lovely Federation home. Augathella is a town of about 400 people with a small supermarket open 5.5 days and a busy butcher employing four people today. There is a post office which is for sale, two fuel stops, a pharmacy and not much else. The locals have don

Tonight's stopover is the Major Mitchell Caravan Park at Mitchell beside the Maranoa River. All sites are drive through so we didn't need to unhook. Once set up we crossed the river to go to the Artesian Spa 200m away. There are two pools - one at 38° and the other at 27°, which feels very cold after being in the hot pool. There is a lovely old hall next to the spa. The caravan park is spread out and has some quirky furniture made from metal fence railings. This is the huge fire pit dug into the ground.

The Condamine River is flowing over the Chinchilla Weir 5kms out of town. It has reached the 6m mark on the gauge and is an impressive sight. It is forecast to reach 8m by Tuesday in two days time. Chinchilla has suffered several floods when Charley's Creek rises. This is the post office in the 2010-2011 flood and as it was today. On 28 December 2010 the water level at Chinchilla Weir topped 15m. Despite this history of repeated flooding Chinchilla appears to be a prosperous town with many community facilities such as a water park, 700 seat cultural centre, and major road improvements. Many of the out of town workers are employed by QCG, a Shell company "producing" natural gas in the Surat Basin - presumably this means collecting the gas by fracking. Just down the road there is accommodation for 1,000 workers in Stayover so the town is benefiting from the presence of this large workforce. Tilly finally slept through the night. Today I kept her outside as much as possible

Our morning became complicated after Anita sat on her glasses, bending the arms so badly that she could not wear them. Fortunately a local optometrist was due to open at 9am and Anita was there waiting. The glasses are still not quite right after being heated and adjusted, but at least she can wear them. When Anita tried to pay for this service she was told that was not necessary. Instead she was able to make a donation to the charity supported by Eyecare Eyewear Dalby. We returned to the caravan park and hooked up the Bushtracker hitting the road before 10am. As we only had 75kms to drive to Chinchilla we arrived before the shops closed. I headed for the hardware store then Anita explored Drakes supermarket. The only caravan park in Chinchilla was happy for us to check in early. There are dozens of cabins here mostly used by out of town workers. Blue followed the scent of another dog being walked in the park. Grumpy 10 year old Barney was happy to say hello while I chatted with Barney

Tilly was mischievous last night, scratching on Bluey's crate and waking him and me. He whined so I thought we would all get more sleep if he spent the rest of the night with me. Tilly did multiple acrobatic circuits bouncing off the bed, table, crate and floor. Somehow we did manage to get some sleep. Our frisky feline spent the morning chattering at butterflies, birds and water dragons. She slipped out the door once and lay under our neighbour's van. Fortunately she was easily tempted out by a length of string. One of our modifications was replacing all of the flyscreens in the Bushtracker. I had to remove all of the internal frames, take off the two rollers, then fit magnetic tape around the openings. The result is much safer flyscreens that should keep Tilly inside the van. The new screens are black which provide a better outlook. We had breakfast at the Urban Paddock cafe and dinner at the Criterion Hotel. At Supercheap Auto we bought an infra-red thermometer to accurately

Since our last trip in 2020 we have been modifying our Bushtracker, cleaning and loading it ready for our first trip in 2021. We left home today and are based at the Dalby Tourist Park for two nights, right next to Myall Creek. The water level is 5cm above its normal height due to recent rain. Before we left home we had the loaded Bushtracker and Toyota professionally weighed to make sure we are compliant with our specified maximum weights. We will follow the advice given to have our Toyota suspension upgraded to increase its carrying capacity. That job will be booked so it can be done at the end of this trip. While I was outside with John from Ezy-Weigh, Tilly and Blue watched from inside the front door. They were both so worried about being left behind! As soon as they were put in their crate at the back of the Toyota they fell asleep with Tilly using Blue for a pillow. They are both still very well behaved and love playing with each other. Blue came back from the groomer looking lik