Gilgandra and surrounds

While spending a week or so in Gilgandra, we did a couple of side trips in Scruffy.

The first was to Dubbo to pick up our mail so we took the opportunity to the Western Plains Zoo. Probably not the best day for it as it was a bit overcast and cool but we drove round in the Moke and saw some of our favourites – meerkats, ring tail lemmas, cheetahs, the tiger, otters and much more in open range style enclosures.

 We visited the old Dubbo Gaol which had Gaol which has some excellent displays set up in the old cells with automated dummies made to look like actual former in-mates, and as visitors pass a photo cell sets off the automation and the “prisoners” tell their stories. Each dummy has individual features and there is even a female escapee going over the wall.

 We also spent a day exploring the Warrumbungles National Park. Some great camping areas easily accessible to motorhomes and there is plenty to see without tackling the many walking tracks. Good sealed roads, very enjoyable for Moke driving. There are some amazing rock formations left from the volcanic activity 13 million years ago and revealed by erosion. Just outside the park is the Siding Springs Observatory which is well worth a visit for the views from the mountain top and the facility itself.

In Gilgandra we visited the Rural Museum and spent some time going through all the farm machinery, tractors, trucks and ingenious home-made equipment. Gilgandra area once had hundreds of windmills and there were four different types out the front. They have been superseded by solar pumps as these are more efficient and at the sunniest, driest time of year there is often no wind.

Introducing George

Before we head off into the outback I thought it was time you met our travelling companion.

His name is George and he travels in the Moke when we’re on the road. It is really funny to see the looks on people’s faces as they spot him when we’re parked anywhere . When we stop and set up camp he usually sits in the passenger seat of the bus and creates a real talking point.

We tell people he’s our security guard. Also, as we have house sitters at home, we couldn’t leave any skeletons in the cupboard.

We get comments such as – “you need to feed him up a bit!” “Is it the boyfriend or the girlfriend?” “Where does he sleep?”

Wandering southwards again

    

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We spent three days at Ipswich, visiting the Railway workshops Museum - Excellent! very modern display methods and interactive stuff for the kids. Sunday morning a country market set up near us in the showground where we were camped so lots of good food bargains and stuff to see. We had to leave early Monday morning as the  circus was moving in on us so we ran away from the circus. We met a couple of fellow travellers who do signwriting so now the bus has some decoration.

    

At a lunch stop this Willy Wagtail cleaned all the bugs off the stoneguard



The road from Ipswich took us up over the Dividing Range for the third time and we knew we had a climb ahead of us as the signs said Cunninghams Gap as we approached the ranges. They also said 8% grade for next 7km. The highway was good with a passing lane most of the way up so we didn’t hold up faster traffic. However as we got towards the top we caught up with all the other traffic at some major roadworks. The road was down to one lane, one way at a time as the rest of the road appeared to have fallen off the edge of the mountain. There were several kilometres like this and in one place a double height row of shipping containers to stop the mountain falling on us! Then we were over the top onto the tablelands and heading for Warwick.
Straight through Warick and on to Goondawindi for 3 nights then back to Moree for another soak in the hot pools. This is all very flat country, growing wheat and cotton - lots of cotton - there is enough scattered down the sides of the road to stuff dozens of mattresses.

We are now at  Tamworth, the Country Music capital of Australia and in a couple of days we'll head west to join a group of motorhomes travelling the outback for about 6 weeks - can't wait!







Mokes and other things

We travelled over 2000km before we met up with another Moke!

 We stopped for one very chilly but fine night at Glen Innes and there was a Moke parked at a cabin in the caravan park. It was a “bits & pieces” car with identifiable parts covering a range of years. The young owners were on their way round Australia in so we wish them good luck.  On that frosty morning the ignition switch was frozen and everything had a coating of frost as they are travelling with just a bikini roof and no side-screens, just lots of layers of clothing.

From there we travelled through Tenterfield and over the Dividing Range to Casino to find another Moke belonging to a friend at the Casino Motorhome Village needing some help with brake repairs. Two and a half weeks later it was finally fixed after a saga of  wrong parts supplied and new problems to be solved.

Casino Village was a great place to stay with very good facilities and fine weather almost every day. Plenty of birdlife and rabbits in the camp area. We spent the time between car repairs relaxing and doing some local sightseeing and eating good country food at the local hotels and tourist sites such as New Italy which was settled in 1880 by Italian immigrants rescued from a disastrous settlement scam north of New Guinea.

Yesterday we moved north to Ipswich near Brisbane so we’ve made it into Queensland. As we left Casino we set the GPS for Ipswich but it wanted to send us through the twisty hill roads we’d already explored (in the Moke) so we took the easy route which confused the GPS completely. It then instructed us to “Proceed 60,000km”- hmmm, always knew that shortcuts were the longest route. Someone suggested it was trying to send us to Ipswich, England!

The bus has a name - BERTHA - pics on our next blog!