21 Sep At home for a while
We stayed at Tara Lagoon for a night and did the laundry, then went to the tiny town of Meandarra to stay beside Brigalow Creek for 3 nights, a beautiful peaceful spot with plenty of room. We had a lunch at the pub, and went to the excellent Anzac Memorial Museum. On the way to Meandarra we saw a koala sitting in a tree by the side of the road – a very rare sight these days.
Then we went to Caliguel Lagoon near Condamine for 2 nights. We made some new friends and sat at their camp fire enjoying Happy Hour. Two RV Homebase couples arrived as well – it seems we bump into fellow residents many places we go.
The next stop was Wondai Showgrounds for a night, then to Barambah Bush Camp for 2 nights. While there we found a few geocaches in the surrounding area and enjoyed very tasty pies for lunch at the new Goomeri Bakery.
The finale for this trip was a day and night at Moffatdale Ridge Winery for their annual Italian Festival. We arrived before 9am and joined a queue of caravans and motorhomes waiting to park, then went to the grassy festival area and met 2 couples from RV Homebase. We joined them and their friends for a very pleasant day of wine, food and listening to the music and singing from the various performers and at the end of the day went back to the van for a good night’s sleep.
On Sunday 10th we made our way home but unfortunately broke the rear springs on the F250 on the way. A phone call to friends who are fellow Southern Cross fifth wheeler owners and they came to our rescue. They towed Stopalot home for us and we followed in the F250.
That afternoon we went to Hervey Bay airport to collect daughter Karyn from Melbourne. We went on a whale watching trip on Tuesday and had a great day watching humpback mothers and their calves lolling around and playing. Karyn returned to Melbourne on Wednesday.
Now we will be staying home for a while. The first priority is to get the F250 fixed, and Frans has to do some maintenance on the van. We may do a short trip or 2 before Christmas, but will wait until Summer is over before doing any long trips.
We are planning a holiday in Belgium in September 2018, doing an extended barge trip for 20 days followed by some train travel to Switzerland and France. On the way there we will probably stay a while in Singapore and Dubai and are looking for other places to stop on the way back, as neither of us is keen on doing long haul flights any more. As this will probably be our last big overseas trip we plan to make the most of it.
Last week our front “lawn” was replaced by a garden bed, complete with rocks, a dry creek bed and lots of mulch. We are planting drought tolerant ground cover type plants and some grasses, and hopefully in a year or so the whole garden will be a mass of greenery which can look after itself when we go away. The before and after pictures tell the story.
