May 18th: Roma to the Gold Coast

Day 45 (Day 20 in Australia)

Another long driving day (for Phil) but we had plenty of stops on the way.

Before we even left Roma (with our bag of swag! 😂) we drove around the beautiful town of around 6,800 people and had a look at:

  1. the largest bottle tree in Roma;
  2. a tiny old ‘slab hut’ made with an adze in 1893 that once was home for a family of eleven;
  3. the cattle sheds (only used Tuesdays and Thursdays for sales but 400,000 cattle pass through them every year. That’s a lot of road-trains!







Road trains at the cattle sheds


We even had time for a breakfast of a ‘sausage and fried egg pocket’. New to me but delicious. A busy little cafe with very basic decor proving that it’s the product that counts not the wrapping.

Next stop was Chinchilla. The roads leading to it were lined with acacia bushes, or wattle plants (as in a famous Monty Python sketch!).

“This here is the wattle, the emblem of our land…” 

Chinchilla was equally lovely as so many of these small country towns are. Beautifully kept, graffiti-free and looked after. This one had a great park. We visited an exhibition of quilts made by a local craft group, several of which were very impressive.

As we carried on, Phil pointed out that we were beside part of a rabbit fence that continues for 500 kilometres. They really don’t like bunnies in Queensland. Not native, you see!

The next stop was the much larger town of Toowoomba, set in the Cunningham Gap in the Great Dividing Range. We climbed steeply to about 700 metres and just as quickly descended the other side after a short stop for a cup of tea.

The  Cunningham Gap


‘Beach turkey’

On the way down we encountered our second car accident of the day. This one caused us a 30 minute delay but at least we were not involved in it.

As we waited patiently we could see lightning in the distance. It wasn’t much later that we were driving through very heavy rain all the way to The Gold Coast. Luckily as we arrived it had all but stopped.

The four of us are staying with Carolyn’s mother, Ailsa, for a few days while we explore this part of the country.

[Written 19/05 at 22:30. I’ll try and do today’s post tomorrow!]


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 12th: Crossing into Queensland

Image
Day 39 (Day 14 in Australia) I didn’t sleep well last night. It was a bit hot in our room. I was up at 6:50 and went for an early morning walk. The streets of Gunnedah were deserted, even allowing for it being a Sunday morning (and Mother’s Day here). Not only quiet but pristine clean and SO wide. Parakeet Julie loves these gum(?) trees that seem to have been stripped of their bark and sandpapered to a polish Nice house in Gunnedah We set off on the second of our five leg journey to the outback fairly early but first we detoured to a local park full of gum trees. Gunnedah is sometimes known as the ‘koala capital’ of Australia. We spent 15/20 minutes looking for them  without luck. They don’t move much and are, apparently, hard to spot. We did, however, have fun watching some argumentative cockatoos squabbling over a perch. The 436km (272 mile) drive to St George was about 5 hrs (without stops). The sky, initially overcast and providing some spots of rain, gradually cleared and beca...
Read more

May 25th: Fun, Food and ‘Footie’

Image
Day 52 (Day 27 in Australia) A rare treat this morning - a proper breakfast in the hotel. Old fashioned too as a waitress took our order and it was cooked just for us rather than buffet style. It was good! The video below is the view from our room. I would have filmed it last night for the sunset but I couldn’t fine out how to unlock the door. Turns out it wasn’t locked! Milawa is a very sleepy little place but in a famous gourmet region. As well as wineries, there is a bakery, cheesery, olivery and a mustardry. (I may have just made up some of those terms but the establishments exist).  Milawa Mustard Shop Mr Milawa Main Mustard Maker is from Harrogate Our journey back to Phil & Carolyn’s in Melbourne was only 3 hours so we had plenty of time to enjoy it and arrive mid afternoon in time for this evening’s entertainment. First stop was for coffee at a random town just off the highway. Violet Town was picked because we liked the name. Charming little place that is clearly strugg...
Read more

May 14th: Glamping It Up!

Image
Day 41 (Day 16 in Australia) Our stop for tonight and tomorrow is 3km outside the town of Longreach, which is less than 2 hrs drive from our ultimate Outback destination of Winton. We’re at Mitchell Grass Retreat for a spot of ‘glamping’ with a definite emphasis on ‘glam’. Our ‘tent’ The view from the deck As the owner showed us around our ‘tent’ with its large double bed, separate bathroom with bath and  large shower, kitchen area with fridge/freezer (including a large bar of KitKat - dark chocolate Tasmanian mint flavour - you don’t get that back home!), deck with gas barbecue etc, she pointed to a decanter half full of port and said, “if you run out just let us know and we’ll restock it for you”!! She also said, “I’ve just cleaned your toilet again as there was a green frog in it. He likes it here so he might come back”!!! We like frogs so I’m hoping it is a green tree frog and does pay us a visit. Well done to Carolyn for booking this place! Mind you, the first thing I saw aft...
Read more