Wednesday 27 July – Woody Head to Bonaldo
With the beautiful weather holding, and our next chosen destination only a few hours away, we didn’t leave Woody Head too early, and just enjoyed the view and sun.
Once driving again we stopped for fuel and lunch in Casino, a nice town inland from the coast. We walked through the town and had a lovely lunch in the sun.
We had pre-booked at a small caravan park in a tiny place 20km off our main route, called Bonaldo. The road in had suffered badly during the recent rains and floods and the potholes were quite spectacular to say the least; all our toiletries were on the bathroom floor when we arrived, but thankfully nothing was broken or damaged.
The caravan park is community-owned and run by a couple who stay in their van for free in exchange for running and maintaining the park. It is cute and though with old amenities, all was clean and in working order. Other than the caretaker and 2 other tradies, we were the only occupants.
The caravan park was flooded in February and as the river lies quite deep, that meant over 8m water height and the park had to be evacuated.
Thursday – Bonaldo
Beautiful day for a load of laundry and Arno played a round of golf at the local golf course and Jen brought out the yoga mat in the sun. In the afternoon we explored the lovely Bean Creek Falls and Clarence River with its rapids (the latter not that spectacular).
We had a surprisingly tasty dinner at the bowling club – 50 metres walk from our site. Tomorrow’s job is to secure all toiletries as we have to go back the same pothole riddled road back…
Friday – Bonaldo to Texas (QLD)
Headed off around 10.30am and came across roadworks filling potholes on the infamous stretch of road, yay! It had definitely improved since our trip in 2 days ago. We aimed for Tenterfield; the route we’ve been taking since Casino is via country roads with very little traffic and hardly any trucks.
Stopped for lunch and a town walk in Tenterfield, the birthplace of ‘The boy from Oz’ Peter Allen and home to Barnaby Joyce’s office, just to name of few interesting facts 😃. The town is surrounded by hills and it has a fair few historic buildings and a cute main drag with plenty of shops. With the sky as blue as blue can be, we took plenty of pictures.
After Tenterfield we crossed into Queensland, which is a major achievement after our twice-aborted plans to visit this state, due to border closures thanks to COVID and (in our humble opinion) a silly and overzealous government.
Anyway, we took a detour via the Glenlyon Dam, the only other traffic we saw there was dead kangaroos. What a spectacular drive and dam, it is huge!
Was definitely worth the time we took to get there, and we were, needless to say, all alone.
From the dam to our next stop – Texas, Queensland – some gravel road, and arrived around 5pm in time to enjoy the sunset and a beer!
Saturday – Texas
Texas is a small, cute, cheerful town with wide roads split by trees down the centre.
We are so lucky with the weather. The nights are crisp (ie very very nippy; around 2 degrees centigrade) and we are so happy with our heating, gas or electric, the van is so cozy! The days are stunning with blue sky and (even with a bit of a chilly breeze in the morning) absolute shorts and short sleeves temperatures after 10.30am or so.
We went to see the Beacon Lookout only 5 minutes away but it didn’t warrant a picture… we did pass some nice Texan (Queensland) silo art which did qualify…
We continued to see a bit more of that in nearby Yelarbon, which claims to have the best silo art… 8 silos with a story. A beautiful viewing area was built with all explanations of the depictions.
Texas has its annual agricultural show this weekend and with the Showgrounds just up the road from the caravan park, we went to join in the fun.
There were cow mustering (I think) competitions, freestyle motorcross (similar to Evil Knieval but younger, ha!) and rodeo performances. Good atmosphere and fun.
There were the stands with food, arts and crafts, local charities, jumping castle, a big climbing wall etc. And all under the most unbelievable weather conditions. No mud on this Showground! $5 entry (senior’s that is) which was the same price as a can of Great Northern beer…
In the evening we watched the fireworks in front of our van (though it was too cold to go back for the big bonfire and the live music; could hear it from our van).
Tomorrow we’re heading for Goondiwindi (pronounce GUNDAwindi) about 100km west, where we plan to stay at the Showgrounds.
Schitterend weer, een verademing na al de overstomingen in omgeving Sydney lijkt me
Je hebt je lekker kunnen uitleven met de acriefoto’s Arno, dat is genieten!.
Goede reis verder
Groetjes
Weer genoten van de update.
Dat Texas in Aussie, wel bijzonder en ook nog met rodeo shows!!
De beschilderde silo’s blijven mooi, erg goed van de gouvernement of het dorp om het uitzicht daarmee te verbeteren .
Ik heb het kaartje gemist klopt dat?
Fijn dat het bij jullie goed gaat, veilig verder reizen maar met steeds beter weer xx
Ja, dat klopt, het kaartje miste, ik had geen tijd…!! Ik heb hem erbij gezet-click op de laatste regel…..!xx
“and (in our humble opinion) a silly and overzealous government” 😁
Fijn dat jullie nu wel de route kunnen nemen! Ziet er allemaal erg Amerikaans uit! Komt vast door de similar name 😉 Geniet van het mooie weer en veel veilige km”s!
Hi worldtravelers.
Genieten met dit weer. Moeilijk voor te stellen voor ons dat het s’nachts zo koud is in de maand juli. Wij vonden de beschilderde silo’s ook mooi. In Belgie hebben veel dorpen hun watertoren ook beschilderd. Altijd mooi om te zien tussen het landelijke uitzicht.
Veilige reis, knuffel
Ah kaartje gevonden!
Met veel dank 🥰