August 9th...DAY 54

What a wonderful walk through the rainforest we enjoyed this morning. The beautiful ferns, green lichens, creepers and tall trees were awe inspiring.

Age old logs covered with green lichen

John on bridge crossing Sheepstation Creek

We left our Border Ranges camp after 11.00 am, continuing on through the park till we came out near Nimbin .. a well know town for alternative life style living. The streets were packed for Saturday afternoon entertainment of one sort or another.

Then on to Lismore which has a very old style business centre and is spread out over the hilly country. In fact the scenery has been very steep and rugged all the way to the coast where we are camped just south of Evans Heads.

Coast Banksia

We have settled in the Bundjalong N P at the Black Rocks camping site. This is a very well planned area which would cater  for a lot of people. Each small site set aside to camp in, allows you to be quite private from other campers. We even have our own private clothes line! The beach is wide with a row of black rocks along the dunes. We walked for a long way watching the Pacific Ocean waves come in one after the other. We will hear the roar in our ears all night I would think.

August 8^th…DAY  53

Our first stop this morning was a visit to the Warwick Art Gallery. It was easy for me to compare the city of Warwick with Wangaratta. We have a Textile Festival every 2^nd year and a Jazz Festival every year whereas Warwick combine a Jazz Festival and  Textile Festival each year. ‘Jumpers & Jazz in July’ has recently finished but I was able to see the 'Knitchen' Exhibition. The local ‘yarn bombing team’ had transformed a kitchen into a 'Knitchen' by knitting covers for a whole kitchen..I love the name!

Items from 'Knitchen' exhibition.

I really expected that we would have another night in Queensland but today we crossed the border into NSW a little south of Killarney…definitely not green like it’s name sake. 

The road through the hills was bitumen and incredibly rough..I was very pleased when the road surface changed. However it was good to be ‘amongst’ the Great Dividing Range again. The farmlands were very steep and in some areas very dry but as we have come further east it appears there has been more rainfalls.

Camping in the Border Ranges National Park 

We had a couple of disappointments with camp sites this afternoon and eventually set up in the Border Ranges National Park. It is a very dense bush area which allowed only a little light to come through at 4.30 pm when we arrived.

August 7th...DAY 52

Time marches on and we are trying to delay our trip south. We have met other Victorian and Tasmanian campers who are doing the same. The weather has been lovely here today,,but a cold night to come... down to below 4 deg last night...nothing to compare with Milawa frosts though.

The extra day spent here at Lake Coobmunda has been lazy and very pleasant. There are always a few cleaning jobs to do or a tyre to be changed for some reason. All this happened this morning as well as a good walk around the edge of the lake. I can easily sit and watch the flights and feeding habits of the water birds. With the sun going down this evening the lake has turned quite pink.

Adult Pied Butcher bird

Juvenile Pied Butcher bird

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August 6th ..DAY ..51

Cool morning but clear blue sky. We have come south today through Dalby, Cecil plains, Millmerrin and Inglewood to Lake Coolmunda. It is a beautiful blue lake with clear foreshores. Many many pelicans form quite a 'flotilla' of yacht like shapes on the lake. Late in the day we walked out along the Dam Wall...a long way but enjoyable.

The road was not quite so rough today. Despite we have been travelling on bitumen some of it has been severely rough. The farm soil shows up very black in colour. Evidently black soil is quite unstable and maybe this causes the bitumen roads to sink in some places.

As we left Dalby we travelled by several machinery yards which were either selling or hiring machinery which was huge and plentiful,,,diggers, bulldozers, tractors, headers, graders, cotton pickers and grain harvesters. I had never seen so much large machinery all together.

The crops in the area seem to be wheat, sorghum and cotton so agriculture is a busy business to be involved in. Water appears to come from the Condamine River.

Prickly Pear plants have become more plentiful as we have driven these last three days. Today there were huge plants of this ugly pesty  plant.

Pelicans sunbathing at Lake Coolmunda

Pelicans feeding below Dam Wall

August 5th..DAY 50

Burnett River near Eidsvold

A lovely fine morning...coolish at 5 deg. The rain seems to have gone. Our camp on the Burnett River was most peaceful. Before leaving we walked for 30 minutes down to the river and along some of the Conservation Park Tracks.

Our first stop was at Mundubbera to do the weekly wash..cheaper than usual at $3 a wash!
This area is dry at present but they have suffered huge floods in 2010 and 2013. Three rivers join just a little west of Mundubbera. The valleys seem wide but still homes and businesses were flooded, some in both floods. The flood debris is so high in the trees. The amount of water flowing down the river course must have been astonishing

Again I took very few photos, this time because everything looked so dry and so many trees have died,
presumably from lack of water. Trees of interest were wattles in bloom and in one area a lot of wonderful Boab trees with their main feature being the 'bottle' shaped trunk.

We travelled south for 200 km and eventually camped at the Jandowae Showgrounds for $10 per night...even hot showers. There was shade and flat ground and lots of space so finding a spot was easy. The area also doubles as a Horse Racing Track. I happily walked around the track late in the day imaging trotters and race horses doing their training runs!

Boab trees form street attraction.

August 4^th…DAY 49

A grey day with mist and cloud..the first day for 7 weeks when it has misted/rained all day. Consequently I took no photos.

We left our camp on Kroombit Tops at about 8.30 am. It was best to drive this very rocky and rough road before the rain started to become heavy. As it was we came out very slowly before any heavy rain. The Lookout spot provided internet connection which was helpful in planning our day and doing my blog.

The distance down to Monto was 80 km…a very slow windy and rough track. The first 22 km took 1.25 hours. The fog dissipated a good bit as we progressed down the mountain. After leaving the National Park the road took us through Private Property with lots of gates to open. The country was extremely dry, all buildings and yards were old and neglected.

The road followed the Munholme Creek which at some stage had been severely flooded. The debris was high in the trees and the many Callistemon trees growing in the creek had a severe lean which had been caused by the swift flowing water.

We are camped tonight in the Tolderodden Conservation Park which is situated on the Burnett River west of Eidsvold. Again the flood debris is high in the trees. It appears that the water was about 35 metres above the bridge. I cannot imagine such an amount of flooding water.

Today we came through a district called ‘Cynthia’…it was nowhere near as smart as either of the two Cynthias in our family!

August 3^rd…DAY 48

What a great day exploring the Kroombit Tops National Park. The Lookout, then the Liberator Bomber Site and now we are camped at The Wall camping Ground. It is a peaceful park with some birds and flowers. Rainbow Lorikeets en-mass flew by our camp this morning and this evening a small flock of Red Tailed Black Cockatoos all screeching their unique call. All types of cockatoos have a particular screech. It does help with identification.

Beautiful Betsy wreckage

The ‘Beautiful Betsy’ Liberator Bomber Crash Site was very intriguing to walk around. Debris is widely scattered and appears to be in the same position as it landed at the time of the crash in February 1945. A World War 2 disaster! The plane could not be found at the time despite all efforts to locate it. The lives of six American crew members and two English RAF guests were all killed…eight war time airmen were lost. It was not until 1994 that the plane wreckage was located unexpectedly by a Park Ranger who was doing controlled burns. I cannot imagine the shock he would have received to come across such a wreckage. Since then there has been a detailed memorial Plaque placed in amongst the debris as well as detailed notice boards telling the story.

Another view of the wreckage of the Liberator Bomber

Our campsite surrounded by Sydney Blue Gums

The bush country is open with many tall straight trees. There are a couple of wattles blooming as well so the bush appears green and yellow like the NE Victorian bush does  in Spring time.