Travelling South to Home

We arrived back home on Saturday, enjoying our trip along the way.

When I last posted we were staying at Bargara, on the coast near Bundaberg.  We had a second night there, giving us a day to have a look around the area.

Firstly, we drove up to “The Hummock Lookout”, half way between Bargara and Bundaberg.  This is a volcanic plug in the middle of  vast rich basalt farmland. 

You can see out to the coast when looking east and overlook the sugar, fruit and vegetable farms to the west, south and north.  Such a productive food bowl area.

There are quite a few houses as you drive up to the summit, taking advantage of the wonderful views.  We were really taken with this one.  It is a container house, albeit on rather a grand scale.

Bundaberg is another regional town with impressive historic buildings.

The Catholic Church.

The Anglican Church.

The Post Office and war memorial.

The School of Arts.

Back at Bargara, we called into the local op shop and were surprised to find spotty plates to match ours that are getting cracked and rather worn.  Happy dance.  The down side is that they were taped together and when we got home and opened them up, other than the top plates they were also rather worn, some more so than ours.  We can use a few, but quite a few are beyond it.  Oh well, you get that.

It was rather hot, so time for an ice cream.  Chocolate hearts.  We haven’t seen them for ages and didn’t think they were still being made.  Mick had to play the clown.

The next day we started to head further south.  Some friends of ours have recently moved to Hervey Bay, so we caught up with them for lunch.  This was  the view from the pub.  Rather hard to take.

Continuing on our way, we drove through Maryborough.  No need to stop this time,  but we always love the old Queenslanders on the main road.  

This is just a couple I snapped out of the car window.

And another impressive Post Office tower.

Our destination for the day was Tin Can Bay.  No reason other than we haven’t been there before.  

We were surprised by the number of pine plantations in the general area as we drove along.  We are used to them down here, but weren’t expecting such an expanse in Queensland.

It is a quiet fishing spot with a nice walkway along the foreshore.

There is not a beach as such, and it was low tide, but still nice to see.

I haven’t seen a mangrove in flower before.

Some of the walkway was through lush scrubland.

The caravan park was small and rather lovely.  The nicest we stayed in.  It was another hot day and we enjoyed a dip in the pool.  It even had a ramp for access, which must be very helpful for some people. We don’t expect we will visit the town again, but it was nice to visit this time.

The next day was rather stressful, as we travelled south past the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, back into New South Wales.  We joined the M1 motorway at Gympie and it was busy traffic from then on, including lots of roadwork and rain.  It isn’t the best fun driving in those conditions towing a van.  There is not one single rest area where you can pull off to the side of the road, unless you go into a town or a Service Centre.  They were all on the opposite side of the road, so accessing involved several roundabouts and then trying to find somewhere to park the van.  We have come to the decision we will not drive in this area again with the van.  If we want to go to a particular place on the coast we will drive the inland route and then over the range to that town, then taking day trips without the van.

Our initial plan, (not that we really have plans, rather we have a vague idea and make it up as we go along) was to stay at Ballina.  In the end we felt we would like somewhere quieter, so continued on a little further and stayed at Evans Head.  Aaah, the peace and quiet.

The caravan park is huge, with 450 sites. We’d hate to be there in holiday season, but it was only about a third full.  The row of cabins reminded us of beach huts.

It was in walking distance to a nice beach and the mouth of the Evans River and breakwater.

There were a few fellows beach fishing.  We saw one catch a small shark and release it.  There were also a couple of surfers trying to catch a wave.

We say a few water dragons on the rocks beside the river.

No photo, but we had fun watching a dolphin swimming in the river mouth and surfing the waves.  Such a lovely sight.

There was a lovely sunset.

When we returned to our van, just on dusk, the sky was alive with bats flying over.

In the morning we drove around to the boat moorings.  There appears to be a small fishing fleet still operating from here, complete with a fisherman’s co-op.

We are really pleased that we stayed there, on a whim.  It is a lovely little spot.  We can imagine returning for a few days in the future, as we enjoyed it best of all of the coastal towns we visited on our way south.  We’ll see.  

Our initial vague plan was to continue on to Port Macquarie and the west over the Oxley Highway, but in the end we decided we would rather head back inland, where life and the roads are much quieter.  Therefore, we only continued south to Grafton, before going over the Gibraltar Ranges.  I didn’t even take any photos, which is rather remiss of me, as the scenery is rather lovely, with views back to the coast and majestic tall trees. Best of all, there was hardly any traffic.  We made it to Guyra, where we free camped at the “Mother of Ducks Lagoon”.  We have stayed here a couple of times before.  The last time was in November, on our way home from Toowoomba, when I sat in the afternoon sun doing my knitting.  Well, that wasn’t going to happen this time, as the temperature was 16C, feels like 10C, with a chilly wind.  That was a bit of a shock to the system, as we haven’t experienced anything under the mid 20s, even overnight, since we left home.  

Back on the road the next day, we called into the village of Bendemeer for morning tea.  Mick remembered that we had seen a new cafe there last time we were through, so we gave it a try.  The building was the old original general store.

Our morning tea was to die for.  I had a slice of caramilk mousse pie, while Mick had lemon meringue.  Both home made and absolutely delicious.  We know where we will be stopping on future trips north.

Our final night on the road was also a free camp.  This time at the “Black Stump Rest Area”, just north of Coolah.  We have had this place in mind as somewhere to camp for some time, but never stopped before. 

It is said to be the sight of the original “Black Stump”.

Unlike the previous afternoon, the weather was lovely and warm.  Perfect for afternoon tea outside.  The rock was perfectly placed as a foot rest.

And yes, this time I did bring out my knitting and got quite a bit done, as we listened to the end of the audio book we had been listening to as we drove along.

The book was “Death at the Auction”, a rather light hearted murder mystery along the lines of Midsomer Murders, Grantchester and Father Brown.  Just the right sort for travelling.

And that brings us to the end of our latest trip.  We really enjoyed our time away.  Now it won’t be long until we have visitors and head off on our next adventure to Baradine.  A busy week ahead.

I did manage my 15 minutes of knitting on six of the last seven days, which I am happy enough with.  I will do the stats on my next post.