On our way again -Eungella.

At last we are going north towards Cape York. This will be quite an adventure, with world class 4WD tracks. As always for this trip we will be racing the onset of the wet season, which can cut roads making them impassable even for high clearance 4WDs. Joe has done this trip once before, but I have only been to and from the tip by boat and plane. I did a locum in Bamaga in 1983. I arrived there after a pandora expedition!

On that occasion Joe went to Bamaga by road. And the wet season started as he was leaving Cairns. I was in Bamaga when the rain stared bucketing down. Visibility was down to about 50 meters, and the rivers were rising rapidly. In those days there was no bridge over the Wenlock and no barge on the Jardine River. The big danger was getting caught between these two big rivers at the onset of the wet. If you did get stuck there was no getting out until after the wet and the rivers went down. That could be 6 months. Joe did get stuck! And was eventually winched across the Jardine. We had the Suzuki in the north for a couple of months, and later had it taken to Cairns on the barge. 

So we hope that there is not a repeat of this story this year!

We left Brisbane a few days ago, going via Mt Glorious where we spent an evening with old friends. These are friends we knew in the 1980s, and who shared an interest in home made wines (as well as insects). Joe surprised us when he brought out a 1978 onion wine that had been maturing under his parents house for all these years. And it was quite nice. This was just right occasion to enjoy it! 

We then travelled to Eungella by the western route, camping two nights on the way, in the Connondale Forest reserve, and the Cooningla state forest. Both these spots were lovelly. In particular the Connondale forest reserve was very rich with bird life. We spotted scaly breasted lorikeets among the rainbow lorikeets in the flowering eucalypts. 

Coming up the back road to Eungella also brought back memories. In 1981 we were returning from a locum in Normanton. It had been a particularly hot and humid summer and Normanton and the gulf country were very brown. I saw Eungella on the map as we passed through the mining towns west of Mackay. I had been to Eungella as a child and remembered that it was cool and green. So we looked for a way to get there from the west. We came across the pipeline running west from Eungella dam and decided to follow it to see if we could get to Eungella. It was a very rough trip, at one point going along a river bed, but we did make it. (Later they built a road along a similar route and this was the road we were looking for). We were stunned by the beauty of the Eungella area. It was so green after the western country we had been in for the last few months. Co-incidentally we camped on Diggings road where we later bought our property.

Anyway, looking for the pipeline road, we missed the turnoff to Eungella. When we found the pipeline we found a locked gate! This required a back track and 2 hours wasted! So we eventually got to our Eungella property after 10pm. As always it was great getting here. 

It is quite a few years since we have been here in September. It has been very dry, but right now as I type I can hear thunder from the west. Some of our trees have not survived, but generally we are in time to save them by watering. 

One of the things we enjoy here is bird watching. September apparently brings a different group of birds. The cedar near our deck is flowering and it is full of Scarlett honeyeaters. We have seen these birds only twice before, so this is a lovelly surprise. 

And we have had more surprise. We have seen only one ever Noisy Pitta here. This is such a beautiful bird but it is very shy. We saw one in the first month we were here in 1988, but not since - until this morning. One flew past us when we were sitting on the deck, with tourquoise glinting in the sun. Then we realised that we were hearing a new bird call which we couldn't recognise. So out came the bird app (Morcombe's bird book with recorded bird calls) and sure enough it is the Pitta calling almost incessantly. I do recommend this app for any bird watchers with an idevice. 

The bird illustrations used in this blog are screen dumps from the Morcombe app. 

We are using the Earthcruiser for power here, with a second fridge plugged in to the Earthcruiser batteries, and a lead to the shed for lights. I also used the EC power to use my food processor this morning. What a luxury -previously not experienced at Eungella.

Our plan is to stay here until next Friday when we will be going to Ayr to meet up with my cousin (Ron). 

What I do NOT like about camping!

I now realise that there were certain things that I did NOT enjoy about camping - before I got my Earthcruiser!

In particular I did not enjoy the effort required to set up the camper trailer after arriving at the site. In fact I realise that I could not have done it by myself. There was a certain level of strength required to pull up that tent. And then there were other tasks that required two people. Packing up was NOT a breeze. 

In fact  now we don't unpack so much stuff at all - because it is mostly already set up inside the EC. We only need a couple of chairs and a small table, and a billy on the fire. So easy to put away!

And with the Earth Cruiser I can do it all alone! Push a couple of buttons -it's all done! 

And I really didn't enjoy how dirty we got.... No baths for a few days? But with the EC we can have a bath every day! And with 360 litres of water - we still don't need to fill up our tanks for a few weeks! The shower leaves me speechless! A shower for inside on cold or windy days, and a shower for outside on sunny days when we are in wilderness! What more could I ask for! 

Cooking outside with the sun and flies! Nuh! Now I can retreat inside with no problems!

The toilet! OMG! No more spades. No more burning toilet paper! No more porta potties stinking out the back of the car! What luxury to awake in the morning without having an uncomfortable trek! 

And travelling with the EC compared to pulling a trailer.... well arriving is so much easier. Positioning the EC is easier than backing a trailer into position, keeping in mind levelling. 

We can charge our electronic gadgets, charge our batteries from the solar panels, have water at our outside taps, carry two spare tyres, have 300 litres of fuel, carry and sleep 7 people! 

Can you imagine all of this fitted into a shipping container for overseas travel? Yes we can!

Well the upshot is that I still enjoy camping (or is it glamping) at the age of 60 yrs. No! I love it! and we can do this in Australia and overseas as well! 

Go Earthcruiser!

The last camping spot of our journey from Sydney to Brisbane was Stanthorpe -on our own property. This is where Joe had the heart attack that changed everything. It was after this event that we decided that's there is no time to lose. Now is when we must enjoy life to the full, since who knows what tomorrow will bring. 

As we sat here at this very campfire 2 years ago, Joe had a 98% chance of sudden death in the next year. It would have all been over by now except for modern medicine.

This is the set up we had, shown here at Stanthorpe before Joe's heart attack. When he was being medevacced to Brisbane, I was unable to pack up the camper by myself and had to leave it behind in Stanthorpe while I drove to Brisbane to be with Joe. It was three months before we could get back to pick it up. 

We have spent a substantial amount of money on the Earthcruiser, but it is worth every cent, in my opinion. Now we can travel and camp (glamp?) to our hearts content, including overseas. I'm sure that as we age we will be able to keep up our camping in the Earthcruiser much longer than we could have with the camper trailer. 

We are home now, with the Earthcruiser in the driveway at last. But we are only staying for a week. Then we are off to Eungella and the Cape in the third stage of our shake down trips. 

Stage 2:

Waterfall way.

For the last couple of days we have been following what is known as Waterfall Way. This is a road and series of lookouts and camping spots along an incredible geological formation on the New England Tableland in Northern NSW.

In the screen dump above you can see the deep gorges. These are like splits in the flat tableland, with a waterfall at the apex of each gorge. The gorges are hundreds of meters deep! And relatively narrow. When we saw the signs to the first waterfall we were expecting that such flat country could only have a small rapid or something similar. So imagine how astounded we were to come into this formation!

This is Tia Falls. And so is this - that blue spot is Joe after walking down a stairway which doesn't even go halfway down to the bottom of the gorge.

This is another of the gorges....the picture is over exposed because the shadows were too deep to see the waterfalls otherwise. There is not a lot of flow in this one -dry season.

This area is so spectacular! I wonder why it is not better known?  There are helicopter flights over it which must be very interesting. 

Today we are at the northern end of this area, Cathedral Rock park. Joe has gotten up early and gone for a 3 hour walk, leaving me to sleep in. He has climbed the rock, which is the sort of thing he likes. "quite spectacular" he says. Meanwhile I stayed back at the camp ground and read, blogged, and made the fire for breakfast and tea. Ahhh! That's the kind of thing I like to do! We have a UHf radio for communication while he is away so I know how long he'll be etc. 

At one of the camping areas we met a camper, Roger Fryer. He is a journalist photographer, who publishes a magazine for the Bicentenial National Trail, the horse riding, bicycling and walking trail that runs from Victoria to far North Qld. He is a great photographer and seems to spend a lot of his time in the bush. Have a look at some of his photos here:-

Www.rogfryer.com. 

There is also a link to his blog there. He's an entertaining writer.

Locked gates!

After leaving Broke we went through Greta where Joe was born. In 1951 Greta was a refugee camp. We couldn't find the hospital, but there were plenty of quaint little heritage buildings, including the railway station. This little building must be just as it was when Pepa and Babi arrived there more than 60 years ago.

Then we were back into National Parks -this time Chichester state forest which s adjacent to Barrington Tops National Park. We have very fond memories of Barrington Tops from when we visited the area more than 30 years ago. Now most of it has been declared wilderness with no vehicular access! 

However there are 4 magnificent camping areas in Chichester state forest. These are large camping areas with many sites, along a flowing river. They were all nearly full when we got there, despite it being an election weekend! 

You would think with the federal election taking place that there would be political talkl and some radios going in the evening to get the results.... But no.   We heard not one radio, and all of the talk was about camping and 4wd adventures.

The day after the elections we spent exploring the National Park -or at least trying to do so. We kept being frustrated by locked gates! These are very frustrating indeed! After battling sometimes for hours along a marked and rough track, to come up to a locked gate -well the exact emotion is "fury" I think. Why couldn't they have put a sign at the beginning of the track indicating that there was a locked gate? We met some young fellas who expressed the same feelings, along with urging us to vote for some recreational shooters and drivers party -or similar name. This party wants tracks opened up again for 4wders and trail bikes. They pointed out that this would also keep fire trails open. There is some merit to this, and we certainly agreed on some points. 

At the end of the day we shaken up and just about greened out! We felt like some bitumen roads and a little less dust! 

Once we were on the bitumen we noticed something. The grey nomads are back! Every camping ground and rest area is full of them! They must be all coming home from Queensland. A month ago they were noticeably absent, and we concluded that they must all be up north. And they must all have the same apps and maps that we have. Even out of the way free camps seem to draw them like magnets. The following picture is Bretti camp ground. Needless to say we passed this one by and wild camped in the bush.

Rough roads

For the past couple of days we have been deep in National Parks - Wategans and Ya

ngo. We have been taking minor tracks partly to get across to our next destinations by short cuts, and partly to try Matilda (EC28) out as a 4wd vehicle. So far we have been pleased with how she performs. 

 Of course photos don't show the ruts and dips very well, and I forgot to take a pic at all on the steep rocks we tried. Joe was concerned that the low gear wouldn't allow him to climb very slowly over rocks. However when we tried a very rocky steep area the low gear was quite low enough allowing him to lift one wheel at a time over the rocks and crawl up the slope without too much jolting to vehicle or passengers. 

However on roads like the one shown above Joe was very comfortable in his sophisticated, sprung and modern suspension seat, while I was feeling the bumps in my seat which is a lot more basic. Consequently I decided that despite my habit of wearing minimal supports for my upper body, I need undergarments that will do the job for these rough bush tracks. I was much more comfortable on day 2 !

Once we were out of the National Parks we were into the Hunter valley wine area. That made a nice change. However we will need to be more discerning I think. After buying nearly every thing we tasted at one winery, we found that later we went off the bottle of wine we had.  One glass was certainly enough! 

Last night we camped in a free camping area in Broke, and awake to literally dozens of campers, mobile homes, and tents. Tomorrow is the day of the Broke fair. S we were out of there early this morning, but not before we had three lots of visitors wanting to discuss our vehicle and offer opinions (all favourable and envious) and one declaring he was hooking his vehicle up behind and coming with us! 

On the road again!

Monday 2nd september.

At last we are travelling again. We arrived in Sydney Monday night to pick up the Earth Cruiser. It has been serviced, the heater and cook top have been reviewed and now work perfectly, various small things done, such as a handle near the door and the battery made secure and locked in place.

We left mid-morning on Tuesday and made our way north to Wyong where we had lunch with an old friend (Sharon) and her daughter. They gave us directions to Munmorah National Park where we set up camp on a parking area overlooking the beach. We slept with the sound of waves crashing on the beach.  We were all alone, despite being quite close to a large population centre. This area had gates which were locked at 6.30 pm and not opened again next morning. So we felt very safe.

Wednesday 4th September.

After exploring the Munmorah area for awhile we left the park. 

Suddenly we saw a fire in the grass beside the road. It was about 1m x 1m when we pulled up, but we could see it was going to spread quickly. It was crackling and the flames were already meters high. I called 000 and Joe started filling a soft drink bottle with water. After the fire brigade was on its way I started filling water bottles for Joe. He was trying to limit the spread of the fire. At first it seemed like a drop in a bucket, but then another passerby stopped and I was filling bottles for both of them. The fire was soon more than 100 square meters, and in tops of bushes. 

But amazingly the two fellers got it under control! By stopping the edges they stopped the spread, and by the time the fire brigade arrived (30 mins from my call) it was nearly out. The fire brigade then got their hoses onto the hot spots spots to stop it starting up again. What heroes we were! And how fortunate that we had enough water!

The firies said that it was almost certainly arson! There has been a spate of arson attacks in the area recently. When we left they were pulling bottles and rags out from the area where we showed them it started, and smelling them for fuels.

We left feeling like heroes, but soon realised we could be under suspicion, as the first ones on the scene! 

We also realised that if we had had a hose attachment on our outside tap we could have put the fire out straight away! It would be quite easy to adapt the fitting and achieve this, so we are now planning to do so. This could also be useful should a campfire get out of control one day!

That night we camped in a National Park among amazing tall trees, at Gap Creek camping spot. Ahhh, it's good to be on the road again -as someone more famous than I has said!