On the road, only a few days behind schedule :)

In need of water! 

We finally managed to leave lunchtime Friday 20th. Steve worked his socks off to get everything ready, bless him, and so at last we are back on the road.

The Gwyder in flood

Camped right by the Gwyder

So far it has been a bit of a 'find a camp site by the river' trip.  We have camped by the Clarence, Gwydir and Darling (twice) rivers. 

The water was fast & cold!

The Copeland Dam

We've had warm water and freezing water.  Fast flowing and almost stagnate. Flooded camp sites but the Darling river was barely flowing.  It has been very hot, up to 46 dgrs, and then cold at 21.  But we are happy!!  

Cooling off ...

Chilling

 We found a great spot to stay over Christmas where we could canoe and swim, and where Steve could catch a fish or two!!  A trip to the nearest National Park provided us with a lovely 6 k walk overlooking the Gorge. We had lamb and rosemary sausage casserole for Christmas lunch then Christmas Pud and 'stuff' for tea.  Heaven!

Xmas day, cool enough for a climb.

The view from the top. 'Captain Starlight' country

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First catch on Xmas day!

Happy!

Sunset camp on the Darling River

We started Boxing Day off with a canoe and then Steve caught our dinner! It was hot from them on and we were fit for very little else but reading and snoozing😄

Fallen trees, shadows & reflections ....

Sue paddling

Supper!

For those that have asked, we will be posting some details of the new 79 series Landcruiser camping setup soon, but so far it's working really well. 

Hope you all had the best Xmas :)

Heading for Granite Country

After re-provisioning at Theodore we headed for Isla Gorge NP, Expedition NP then Nuga Nuga NP, each one spectacular but different. The drive on forest tracks and through the countryside has been a highlight of this trip.  Both Isla and Expedition have good walks whilst Nuga Nuga has the lake to canoe on.

The Butterflies have been beautiful, and with the lack of birds, they have given me something new to photograph.

Using gps mapping software has been great in finding real out of the way campsites & back roads,  but it is a real pain when the road turn out to be a dead end,  leads only to private property or simply doesn't exist. Several times we've had to retrace our tracks & rely on simply following our instinct.

Judd's Lagoon was a little disappointing as there was very little water and therefore no good for the canoe so after one night we made tracks for Lake Broadwater.

We've been looking at the weather back home and we've definitely been lucky with mostly hot/warm dry days with a few showers in between.  

Looking for a home!!

This 3 week trip was a real test for our new trailer tent.  We have only used it twice, once for 4 days and then Steve for 2.  After weeks of preparation we eventually left our house in the safe hands of our friends Dave and Alison.  It is weird knowing we can't go home because someone else is living there.

Part of this trip was to look around for a new place to live.  We've always liked Gympie and Gin Gin so that's where we headed.

Our first night was spent in the Beerwah State Forest.  I had been given a tip from our friend Adrienne who said it was wet around that area, meaning lying/stagnant water.  She was right, within 2 mins of sitting down we were covered in BIG Mosquitos.  It was impossible to sit outside, even after covering up and spraying with Bushmans, so we retreated into our new home!  How well it works too.  So much room to put the table and chairs.  A king size bed. And with a few little tweaks we were able to sit up in bed and have a cup of tea in the morning. Joy!!

Gympie was recently flooded, the 4th time in a year.  It's much bigger than we thought, a good size town to live close too.  We found a great spot for the night in the Glastonbury National  Park.  It was empty, quiet and best of all, no Mozzies😃  There was a lot to explore. Some beautiful countryside.  We like it here and have looked at house / land p.  Definitely affordable.

Our stop at Booyal was great again but looked completely different to last year.  There were no Platypus to watch.  The Burnett River had been in major flood and everything was flattened.  There wasn't a tree left standing along the bank and we realised this was the river that flooded Bunderberg.  Devastating.  We still had a great time canoeing and fishing and Steve caught 4 fish - his first catch.  Unfortunately they were all catfish and not edible, but he was very happy!

We were 'run out of town' so to speak, by the threat of lots of rain.  We upt stakes and headed West to try and get away from the wet!  We ended up in the Moir Moir State Forest and spent the rest of my birthday by the fire.  Steve cooked our favorite dinner and all was good with the World!!

We weren't successful in our quest to miss the rain.  We managed to find a camp spot in the forest again, set up the tent and just got everything inside before the heavens opened.  We spent two hours cosy in our tent and read our books.  The next morning was beautiful.

The  drive through the countryside was fantastic.  The rains over the last couple of months have devastated the river banks but it meant everything was a lush green.  We found another great spot by the Dawson River and spent 2 days canoeing, fishing and chilling again.  'Ive never seen so many palm trees by a river before, there were thousands of them.  One week gone already!!