August 2013 - Brisbane to Albury & return
For some time now, we have been preparing Scooby2 for road trips. She is a great car for us to travel in, and we enjoy the freedom and adventure of exploring our beautiful country. We set off on our road trip down south with no set plan. Just the best way to travel, and a great way to leave the worries of the world behind. It rained every day of the 10 we were away, but the green vistas that we saw were breathtaking, and the rain really didn't hinder our trip. I can only explain it like this. For many years on trips up and down both the coast and inland routes, it is usually a brown, dry and uneventful trip. I have never seen so much water just laying in the paddocks. When we returned over the Toowoomba Range... which is usually green and lush... in the week we had been away on the Queensland side of the range everything had turned from lush green to brown. Full reversal of what it normally is.
Did a bit of gold detecting near Warwick, NSW & found this:
Pretty happy with the find just quietly :ebiggrin:
We were keen to get to Pilliga NSW for our first stop, so didn't take alot of pictures. From Brisbane to Pilliga usually takes us around 7 hours. Made a quick stop because this took our eye in Gilgandra NSW....
This was also pretty interesting, and something we didn't expect to see - a petrified tree trunk from the Jurassic Period - 150 000 000 years old:
Many hours later, we arrived at the Subaru Bar - Artesian Bore, Pilliga NSW... We had to make sure the prehistoric Engel was working as it should be
Yes.... it was... and the coke was cold enough!
Took a dip in the Artesian bore - a constant 37 degrees. Highly recommended for any ache or pain. Apparently if you stay in long enough you are re-born! Fantastic after a long day on the road.
We pulled up on the "outskirts" of the free camp. There were alot of vans pulled up enjoying the benefits of the bore, and lots of stories told while soaking. A couple on their way out pulled up intrigued by The Love Shack. I was mortified when the woman yelled out "where's your kitchen .... have you only got a bed in there..." so we thought we'd better try out the extension...
The weather was drizzly & miserable, otherwise we probably would have stayed another night here, but we decided to head on down the highway. Dropped in unexpectedly on some friends just out of Cowra NSW, who thought we were tourists ... lost coming up their dirt track. It made us laugh that every small holding up the road probably looked out & thought the same thing. Damn tourists!
We had a great evening catching up with our friends ... camped down their paddock then woke up to a wonderful home cooked big breakfast. We headed down the paddock for some detecting. No big nuggets were unearthed.. just some spent ammunition and a large piece of rusted metal.
Spent the day looking around the area... stumbled upon a beautiful farm... if we had some $s to spare :lol:
Between Warwick & Yass there was an awful lot of roadside carnage.. dead kangaroos. Between Yass & Jingellic NSW, I remembered the last journey this way and just as I mentioned better keep your eye out for wombats Scooby2 & the Love Shack had an "oh my God" moment and we were very thankful as we saw its startled eyes disappear under the sump that nothing caught up underneath and he carried on his merry way.
We pulled up in the dark at Jingellic on the Mighty Murray River. Tried to park where trees wouldn't fall on us in the middle of a downpour. Bunked down for the night, & fell asleep to the sound of torrential rain wondering if the river would rise. In the end... I thought well we will float if it happens & drifted off into the land of nod. Woke next morning to a big puddle on our doorstep, but we hadn't floated away so it was all good.
Went for a walk close to the river, & wondered about a log that was floating upstream. Watched it for a good half a minute or so before I realised it was a platypus! I was really stoked. Have camped and fished alot in places in the AUS bush, but this was a first for me. He/She gave quite a show in amongst the fallen tree branches, and we watched for about 5 minutes, but sorry no pictures. It was one of those moments if we had moved we would have scared it. For readers outside AUS, this is what a platypus is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus
Headed up to a place called Rocky Knobb for a bit of a look around in the National Park:
This was the scenery behind where we pulled up, just before we climbed to the top:
Everything was springing to life... some beautiful flowers:
Tea Tree
Hardenbergia
The view from the top:
Best regards,
For some time now, we have been preparing Scooby2 for road trips. She is a great car for us to travel in, and we enjoy the freedom and adventure of exploring our beautiful country. We set off on our road trip down south with no set plan. Just the best way to travel, and a great way to leave the worries of the world behind. It rained every day of the 10 we were away, but the green vistas that we saw were breathtaking, and the rain really didn't hinder our trip. I can only explain it like this. For many years on trips up and down both the coast and inland routes, it is usually a brown, dry and uneventful trip. I have never seen so much water just laying in the paddocks. When we returned over the Toowoomba Range... which is usually green and lush... in the week we had been away on the Queensland side of the range everything had turned from lush green to brown. Full reversal of what it normally is.
Did a bit of gold detecting near Warwick, NSW & found this:
Pretty happy with the find just quietly :ebiggrin:
We were keen to get to Pilliga NSW for our first stop, so didn't take alot of pictures. From Brisbane to Pilliga usually takes us around 7 hours. Made a quick stop because this took our eye in Gilgandra NSW....
This was also pretty interesting, and something we didn't expect to see - a petrified tree trunk from the Jurassic Period - 150 000 000 years old:
Many hours later, we arrived at the Subaru Bar - Artesian Bore, Pilliga NSW... We had to make sure the prehistoric Engel was working as it should be
Yes.... it was... and the coke was cold enough!Took a dip in the Artesian bore - a constant 37 degrees. Highly recommended for any ache or pain. Apparently if you stay in long enough you are re-born! Fantastic after a long day on the road.
We pulled up on the "outskirts" of the free camp. There were alot of vans pulled up enjoying the benefits of the bore, and lots of stories told while soaking. A couple on their way out pulled up intrigued by The Love Shack. I was mortified when the woman yelled out "where's your kitchen .... have you only got a bed in there..." so we thought we'd better try out the extension...
The weather was drizzly & miserable, otherwise we probably would have stayed another night here, but we decided to head on down the highway. Dropped in unexpectedly on some friends just out of Cowra NSW, who thought we were tourists ... lost coming up their dirt track. It made us laugh that every small holding up the road probably looked out & thought the same thing. Damn tourists!
We had a great evening catching up with our friends ... camped down their paddock then woke up to a wonderful home cooked big breakfast. We headed down the paddock for some detecting. No big nuggets were unearthed.. just some spent ammunition and a large piece of rusted metal.
Spent the day looking around the area... stumbled upon a beautiful farm... if we had some $s to spare :lol:
Between Warwick & Yass there was an awful lot of roadside carnage.. dead kangaroos. Between Yass & Jingellic NSW, I remembered the last journey this way and just as I mentioned better keep your eye out for wombats Scooby2 & the Love Shack had an "oh my God" moment and we were very thankful as we saw its startled eyes disappear under the sump that nothing caught up underneath and he carried on his merry way.
We pulled up in the dark at Jingellic on the Mighty Murray River. Tried to park where trees wouldn't fall on us in the middle of a downpour. Bunked down for the night, & fell asleep to the sound of torrential rain wondering if the river would rise. In the end... I thought well we will float if it happens & drifted off into the land of nod. Woke next morning to a big puddle on our doorstep, but we hadn't floated away so it was all good.
Went for a walk close to the river, & wondered about a log that was floating upstream. Watched it for a good half a minute or so before I realised it was a platypus! I was really stoked. Have camped and fished alot in places in the AUS bush, but this was a first for me. He/She gave quite a show in amongst the fallen tree branches, and we watched for about 5 minutes, but sorry no pictures. It was one of those moments if we had moved we would have scared it. For readers outside AUS, this is what a platypus is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus
Headed up to a place called Rocky Knobb for a bit of a look around in the National Park:
This was the scenery behind where we pulled up, just before we climbed to the top:
Everything was springing to life... some beautiful flowers:
Tea Tree
Hardenbergia
The view from the top:
Best regards,
Last edited:
!
Thanks Gravel Rocks, Dulagarl & Kevin. We are still getting stuff sorted and getting used to things like how long the fridge will run for before we go flat, so our venturing into the wilderness is tamer than the average Offroadsubaru adventure. A 2 person expedition with short overnight stops we had no problems, but our next little jaunt with the kids for a week highlighted the need for probably a solar panel of some sort... either that or leave the I gizbos at home.... (now that to a child today would be like severing a right arm!) 
