Bunya Mountains

From our last stop at Casino we drove over the hills through Kyogle to Murwillumbah which nestles below Mt Warning, the rocky remains of an ancient volcanic core. Unfortunately the hills were shrouded in misty cloud so we couldn’t get any photos.

Next day we moved on into Queensland and over the next few days we skirted round Brisbane, through Ipswich and north through the hills on the Brisbane Valley Hwy past the Wivenhoe Dam to Kingaroy, the peanut and navy bean capital of Australia.  The area has rich red and black basalt soils, excellent for crops but it is the huge peanut silos which dominate the town. After a visit to the Tourist Information Centre and Museum we now know a lot more about growing and harvesting peanuts.

Blue tongue lizard sunning himself on the track 

 We drove up into the Bunya Mountains, named after the Bunya pines which cover large areas of the mountains. The area was logged from the 1840s and in 1908 was declared a national park although some logging continued till 1917. There are many unique plants in the area and also some rare birds and animals and the pine themselves are a very old species dating back to the dinosaur and beyond. The area was very important to the aboriginals who gathered the nuts and used the natural grass clearings for ceremonies. We met an aboriginal ranger who told us that some of the grass trees were over 1000 years old. They only grow a couple of cm per year but some are up to 5 metres tall. The aboriginals made a drink from the flowers in water which is a great pick-me-up, and the flowers when eaten are better than Viagra!    The roads were very narrow and twisty but sealed but the gradient on one was 20%! Not suitable for the bus and not for caravans although some had come in on a different route.

View from Mt Kaingarow with grass trees below the track

Bush Turkey

We climbed a short track to the top of Mt Kiangarow, through real tropical rain forest with lots of vines and moss hung trees. Little birds were flitting ahead of us down the track and whip-birds were calling in the trees. We saw a big blue-tongue lizard on the track and the view from the top was spectacular looking out to the east and west. We had a late lunch of scones and coffee at the tearooms and then drove down to a picnic area where there were bush turkeys and wallabies everywhere.

Wallabies 

Central and North-east NSW

As we moved on up through New South Wales, our next stop was at Condobolin where we found free camping with hot showers at Gum Bend Lake and stayed for a week visiting local sights like Utes in the Paddock on a side road between Condobolin and Parkes.

Instead of using the highways we travelled north on sealed back roads up through cattle and then cotton country.   The back roads are good though narrow with almost no traffic. The disadvantage is coming up behind huge cotton harvesting equipment doing 15kph and using the whole road. There’s no chance of passing until they find a place to pull over.

We passed through little townships like Tullemore and Albert where we had lunch at the Rabbit Trap Hotel. They have a huge trap ready to mount on the roof of the hotel, but as it weighs about 1 ½ ton, they need to get the roof structure strengthened first. The project has been underway for a couple of years already – things don’t move very fast in the country!

1910 Regal Roadster at Gunnedah Rural Museum

Crossing the Mitchell Hwy at Nevertire we turned east through Warren where we could hear the cotton gins running all night as we camped by the river, then through Gilandra, Coonabarabran and Gunnedah were we looked through the big rural museum which had a wide range of displays and is well worth a stop if you’re travelling in the area.

 We turned north again on back roads through to Manilla and joined Fossickers Way north to Inverell, Glen Innes and Tenterfield. As well as Manilla, we saw roads to Wyoming and Bolivia, and Texas is not far up the road – you can see the world without leaving Australia! By now we were into much greener country, driving gently winding roads through green valleys and well wooded hills –quite a contrast to the flat plains not far behind us.

Ready for the parade - they wanted everyone
 in our group dressed as hippies!

After Tenterfield it was up over the Great Dividing Range to Casino where we met up with old friends and drove our Mokes in the Beef Week parade. The theme was Aussie icons so there were quite a few Edna Everidges, jars of vegemite, and large native animals. 

Over the hills towards Casino 

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

You may be wondering why you haven’t seen a blog for a while?

Murray River at Tocumwal - rail bridge - centre can open to allow
 boats through. Last opened 1995

Well, we spent the summer at home but we’re back on the road, heading north slowly through New South Wales and up into Queensland. So far we have only got as far as West Wyalong, a township in wheat country in the southern part of inland NSW. You can drive from here to Melbourne in 6 hours, but we’ve taken two weeks, stopping in Tocumwal by the Murray River for 4 days where we camped beside the river, walking distance from the town.

 We then moved about 190km north to Nurrandera on the Murrumbidgee River for another  4 days using it as a base to explore some of the smaller towns in the area. Lockhart was particularly interesting as they hold a “Spirit of the Land” festival each year which includes a sculpture contest using old scrap iron from round the farm and some of the items are on display around the town.  At the local museum there are portraits done in natural wool by a local lady Doris Golder but no photos are allowed however this link shows a few and also the metal sculptures  http://www.demotix.com/news/477865/lockhart-festivalthe-true-aussie-spirit-lies-heart-land#media-477794

Swag man & his dog - Artist:Andrew Whitehead

From Nurrandera we moved to Griffith and got lovely fresh veges at the Sunday market and a new foam mattress for our bus which we folded in half long-ways and carried back to camp poking out each side of the Moke (roof on, sides off) but forgot to take a photo.  Griffith grew out of the work camp for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation project and was originally known as Bagtown as the workers built huts out of the discarded cement bags. Today there are over 3700km of canals allowing the area to grow oranges, grapes, rice and a wide range of other produce.

That brings us up to date in West Wyalong where it was time to do some basics like shopping and laundry while staying at the local showgrounds. We are out of the irrigation area and into dry country desperately in need of rain – such a huge contrast.

Canada - Part 2



View from cottage at sunset

 Our plans for our visit to Canada were always flexible and so we stayed in Ontario quite a bit longer than originally intended.  This gave us the opportunity to spend more time with our son and new daughter and more time enjoying the “cottage lifestyle” and doing a few jobs about the place. New friends we made invited us to stay a few days and took us to a classic car show at Orillia and to a local market which featured sculpture, art, food and clothing, much of it quite different from items seen at Australian markets. 

 



Montreal old district





Street theatre in Montreal



  We spent a few days in Montreal wandering the cobblestone streets of the old part of the city while struggling with everything being in French but we got by with some very rusty school French, luck and help from friendly locals – most signage was in English as well, but often that was in small print.

 When we finally left Ontario in early September we flew west to Calgary in Alberta then took a four day bus trip up into the Rockies visiting all the famous spots like Jasper, Banff, Lake Louise and the Columbia Icefields – so many mountains towering over us and lovely blue-green lakes fed by glaciers – we lost count of the glaciers!

Lake Louise

The bright lake colours and cloudy white or blue rivers are coloured by rock flour ground up by the glaciers and so fine it stays suspended in the water. The amazing scenery is all around you all the time – photos can’t do justice to the awesome 360^o spectacle. The bus trip took us through Rogers Pass on the last day and on to Vancouver.

We wandered the city for a day then picked up a rental motorhome for a 7 day trip north in British Columbia through Whistler, which is a pretty tourist village which hosted events for the 2010 Winter Olympics, to Lillooet, a small country township beside the Frazer River, a complete contrast to Whistler.

Camp spot at Lillooet on 3 levels by the Fraser River

Lillooet has a surprisingly warm climate in a sheltered gorge which channels the warm southerly breezes and provides excellent crop growing conditions. It is also famous as a jumping off point for the trek north to the goldfields, and for the fishing in the river including salmon and white sturgeon, a recent catch measured a record four metres and weighed half a tonne. From there we turned south again on roads featuring plenty of rock fall and avalanche warming signs and tunnels through the sides of mountains till we got back to Vancouver.

Before leaving to head home, we spent two days with friends at Victoria on Vancouver Island which is reached by a 1 ½ hour ferry trip through surrounding islands. They took us to the beautiful Butchart Gardens and for a tour of the city and surrounds which was a lovely end to our Canadian Summer.



We were lucky to see some of this beautiful country during one of the best summers – in 3 months I think it only rained on us about 8 days. The people were all friendly, polite and helpful, and the towns and cities were full of bright flower gardens and hanging baskets. There is so much more to see so with luck we’ll get back before too long and reconnect with all the new friends we made.



Ontario Canada



Casa Loma



Here we are - Niagara Falls!

We are having a wonderful time in Ontario, Canada. We have been spending our time seeing the sights of Toronto where it has been so hot! Apparently this is a hot dry summer for them, but the humidity is very high compared to most of Australia, so when it is 32deg. it feels about 38. We have done the usual tourist stuff – the Art Gallery, Museum, markets etc. plus a private castle/mansion called Casa Loma which overlooks the city. It has only rained about 4 days since we’ve been here. Ontario is so green and of course in autumn when the leaves fall it is a blaze of colour. We hope to see some of that as we travel across the country to Vancouver before we come home.

Of course we did a trip to Niagara Falls and the nearby picturesque town of Niagara-on-the lake and did the “Maid of the Mist” boat ride (the mist is a torrential downpour).



Peter & Annette Whatmore



The main reason for our visit was our son Peter’s wedding to a lovely Canadian girl, Annette, but before that there was a couple of weeks work getting their old lakeside cottage into suitable condition to be used as the wedding venue, so we have spent quite a bit of time in the beautiful cottage country north of Toronto. Everything for the wedding had to be brought in by boat as there is no road access. That meant a marquee, food & drinks, tables and chairs, light and sound equipment and of course all the guests, many of whom stayed several nights camping in the woods.

The cottage on wedding day



Wedding on the dock



It all went off perfectly with fine warm weather and a wonderful group of friendly family and friends. Special thanks to all the people who volunteered their time and hours of labour to make the day a success, not only on the actual wedding day but in the days preceding doing jobs like building the new deck, painting, repairing rock walls, building stairs, gardening, racking and moving stuff around.

We are so happy that Peter and Annette have so many good friends and family around them.

Paradise on the lake in cottage country north of Toronto

Upper Spencer Gulf and Quorn

We have decided to put the Eyre Peninsula on hold as the weather is getting quite cold so we headed north to Port Pirie and then Port Augusta for a few days in each. These ports are different to the little places we’d passed through before as they are important shipping ports with Pt. Pirie having a big lead and zinc smelter as well as grain shipping and Pt. Augusta at the head of the Spencer Gulf is also an important freight terminal.

We explored Pt. Pirie town where the railway ran down the middle of the main street until the 1970’s and visited some of the small towns in the surrounding area like Gladstone which has a large gaol which was used until the ‘70s and is open to the public to stay overnight in the cells – popular with car club groups etc.

We drove through the hills south east of Pt.Augusta in the Mt Remarkable area which is very popular for mountain biking and there are lots of trails around Melrose township. At their museum we learned about Goyder’s Line, a line which was defined in the 1860’s which designated areas suitable for farming and outside which it was said to be too arid and only suitable for grazing. It is still used as a pretty accurate guide today.



Warren Gorge



This Yellow footed rock wallaby
had never seen a Moke before at
at Warren Gorge





Kanyaka ruins - even big properties were abandoned.
Kanyaka station was 360 sq. miles



We moved on up to Quorn and had a great day on the back roads between there and Hawker visiting Warren Gorge which would be a wonderful quiet bush camp spot with plenty of birds and wildlife and we stopped at several lots of ruins which are typical of the mid north of South Australia which is dotted with the ruins of broken dreams. Little cottages and towns which did not survive the hard drought years and changes of fortune on the land can be seen along every road.

Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas

Crossing the Murray River by ferry at Wellington

We have been slowly exploring the Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas in South Australia for the last month or so and have got as far as Port Pirie.

There were some really picturesque little coastal townships, all with a history as ports when the sailing ships loaded tons of bagged wheat and barley from local areas for shipment to England. What surprised us was that the sailing ships still operated in considerable numbers up until around 1950. The other thing we hadn’t realised was how big they were! The Pamir was 3000 tons and loaded 4000 tons of wheat and none of the models and picture give you a true idea of how tall the tall ships were. At Port Vincent you can get some idea as they have compared the Pamir to the town for example the masts were twice the height of the Norfolk pines in the main street; the spars were the width of the street and the deck the width of the median strip on which the pines are planted. The ships raced to England to get the best prices for the wheat crop – the record was 83 days.



Old horse drawn double decker trams still run on a bridge to this
island at Victor Harbour 



The Fleurieu Peninsula is quite hilly with some dairy farming but the Yorke Peninsula is much flatter with miles and miles of farms growing wheat and barley. The coastal towns are all within reasonable distance of Adelaide nowadays and so they are all growing rows of big holiday homes near the beaches, but the old parts of the towns are full of beautiful old buildings ranging from the old civic buildings to old mansions with tower rooms and verandas all round, to quaint little stone cottages.

We decided not to visit Kangaroo Island as the ferry pricing is too high for a day trip and there would be no question of taking the bus over unless we had a Lotto win!

Copper Mines ruin at Moonta

As we headed north on the Yorke Peninsula we found more mining activity with copper being a big early industry round the Moonta area known as the copper triangle. This lead to the strong Cornish heritage in the area.  Further north at Port Pirie is the biggest lead smelter in the southern hemisphere also producing zinc and some gold and silver. The ore processed here comes from mines further north.



Decorative detail above an old shop in Port Pirie