The Last Post

6/7/16 - 9/7/16 The Last Post

Heading down inland though Charters Towers, Emerald, Roma & Toowoomba so a lot of backtracking again.

We were going to take a bit of time going down the coast but our daughter in law, on the 3rd revisit to hospital after having the baby, had major surgery (we’d have lost her if nothing was done) so we decided to head inland and get back ASAP to help them out. Trouble is Ray’s back doesn’t like the long days driving and they are becoming tedious so it’s taking a bit longer than possible.

So now we find ourselves back at the first stop on our way out, James Hedges Park 20k south of Toowoomba. The car’s brakes overheated and stopped working on the way down through the ranges so Ray had to use the caravan brakes to slow us down before running into the back of a truck, lots of traffic so nowhere to go. Needless to say it was a stressful few kilometres for him especially but he did a great job and got us here safely. We are early so Ray is washing the van (with our own water) while I finish this blog.

Next stop an overnighter between here and Sawtell then 1 week there to meet Isaiah and  spend time with the family.

11/7/16

We spent last night at New Italy, a place we have often passed but never called into. It’s our last free camp before going to Sawtell. We got the best spot on the bush side and went to visit the museum set up in recognition of the early immigrants who settled in the area. Very interesting and we found one of the daughters from one family married a McPhee, so will have to do some genealogy research and see where they fit into Kay’s family tree.

Beautifully restored sulky in one of the buildings at New Italy

Old carts out in the yard at New Italy

There is plenty to see and apparently good food and coffee (the cafe was crowded) and gift shop with some lovely things from Italy and Australia.

Now in Sawtell, meeting this gorgeous little bub 

and catching up with the rest of the family. Lovely to spend some quality time with these ones we don’t get to see often enough and why I’ve only just got to put this post up.

The scenery as we have travelled has been amazing and although the photos through the windscreen may not seem to change much the colours and landscape do tend to vary quite often. It’s just that there is so much land out here and so many kilometres between anything that I tend to tune out. I’ve got some knitting done when the road wasn’t too bumpy and I wasn’t trying to take photos or follow the maps, gps or wiki camps. It gets a bit crowded on my lap sometimes! Not to mention the swapping of sunglasses and reading glasses for the above activities.

I wanted to see if the mirage would photograph!

Colours of the soil change from newly ploughed fields
to those that were black soil when we went through 5 weeks ago and are now sprouting 

Having a caravan this time has been wonderful, except for losing hot water. So much easier than setting up the camper trailer, even though we’d had that down to a minimum. Having a place to eat in along the way was great. The car and van ran well apart from the warning light which drove Ray mad and was a worry that we might be causing more problems, hopefully that will be fixed next week.

Thanks to those who’ve encouraged me as I’ve been posting to this blog. It’s as much for me to remember in the future but it’s lovely to realise others are interested in our travels and great to have the opportunity to share photos of our beautiful, vast country.