FRIENDS, FAMILY and HAVING FUN

7^th April, 2013

Two months have flown by since our last blog and it only seems like yesterday that we were camped beside the Murray River.  We spent four days at our first camp and then travelled downstream to another freecamp near the town of Finley.

Camped beside the Murray River near Finley

We spent two days at this camp site and each morning and afternoon large flocks of corellas (parrots) flew along the river.

Corellas flying down river

Thank goodness their night time resting place wasn’t in the trees near us as we would never have been able to sleep.  They are very noisy birds and continually talk (or screech) to each other as they are flying.  If we could understand ‘corella talk’ their conversations might be very interesting.  The super hot days seem to have left us now and the temperature is in the low 30’s – still quite warm but bearable.  We leave the Murray River behind and head north through inland New South Wales passing through the towns of Forbes and Parkes.  Of course when travelling country roads and highways one must expect to run into the odd domesticated animal and be prepared for drovers with their herds of cattle

Move along there little moo cow ...

 and flocks of sheep.

Come on guys ... you're following one another like sheep

North of Parkes we stopped for a look at the Parkes Radio Telescope.

Parkes Radio Telescope towers over the visitor centre

Some of you may remember the Australian movie ‘The Dish’ which tells the story of the important role the radio telescope played in the Apollo Missions.  The facility has been upgraded since then and still plays an important role in space communications.  It is quite fascinating to see the dish change positions and it can go from being horizontal to vertical in a matter of minutes.

The dish on the move to 'vertical'

We left the highway and travelled twenty kilometres to the southern end of Goobang National Park.  After a slow drive up and down gullies and across washouts on a very narrow rough dirt track we arrived at the campground.  We had not seen a sign of any other vehicles since leaving the highway so were not surprised to find that apart from a couple of very timid wallabies and some emus we had the whole place to ourselves.  No-one else would be crazy enough to try and get in here!  Famous last words!  Two hours later we could hear the sound of a vehicle coming along the track and to our surprise three 4 Wheel Drives with caravans pulled into the campground.  They were all from Queensland and like us thought this camping area sounded easily accessible from the ‘handy dandy’ Camps 6 Book we possessed.  Of course once one leaves the main road and starts down the track there is nowhere to turn around so one is obligated to keep on going.  Once they were set up we joined them for ‘happy hour’.  They were headed south to do a couple of weeks exploring Tasmania and we swapped information about camping spots along the way.  In the morning Wok was doing his usual check around the van before leaving and spotted a crack in a weld on the chassis.  This was exactly the same problem we had with the chassis in the Northern Territory – only on the opposite side.  Very carefully we left the campground and Wok drove as gently as he could until we reached Dubbo about 70 kilometres away.  After checking at a couple of likely looking places we finally were directed to a guy who could do a quick weld of the chassis.

The van inside the workshop

This would at least hold us together until we returned to the Sunshine Coast and get a better look underneath the van.  From Dubbo we turned east and made our way towards the coast.  At Scone we camped overnight at Lake Glenbawn

Our site at Lake Glenbawn

and the next day visited Cheryl (a childhood friend of Wok’s) in Scone and then continued on to Newcastle where we met up with Ken and Margaret Smith at Stockton Tourist Park.

Ken, Wok and Margaret in our office at Stockton Tourist Park

Ken and Margaret have been our friends for what seems like forever and although they live in Brisbane they had come down to Newcastle for five weeks to look after Ken’s mother (who is 99 years old and still living at home) while his sister and husband had a well needed holiday.  They were staying at the park in their caravan and checking in on Ken’s mum each day (as his sister does) and catching up with relatives and friends while they were there.  While in the caravan park Margaret celebrated her 70^th birthday and this was the reason we had decided to return to our home town instead of staying south for a further couple of months. 

Margaret, Sharon (their daughter) and Ken

The caravan park at Stockton is situated on the beach on the northern side of the entrance to the Hunter River.  On the southern side of the river entrance is the city of Newcastle and from the caravan park we can see the many freighters that come and go to this busy coastal port.

Freighter heading out the Hunter River - Nobbies in the background

We also have a wonderful view of Newcastle from the breakwater

On the breakwater watching cruise ship leave the harbour - Newcastle in background

and wave to the passengers on a cruise ship as she heads out through the heads accompanied by two tug boats.

Cruise Ship 'Rhapsody of the Seas' exits the heads - Tug Boats returning

Over the next two weeks we catch up with our son Trent and visit or get visited by family and friends.  We have never eaten out so much in years and it will take months to take off all those extra kilos we seem to have put on.  It was great to see everyone again – many of whom we had not seen in several years.  We had planned on travelling back to the Sunshine Coast via the Pacific Highway but a couple of days before we planned on heading out a rain depression formed off the east coast and floods were once again punishing the coastal towns.  Many communities that had only just started to get back on their feet after the late January floods were once again inundated.  The coastal highway between Newcastle and the Queensland border was cut in three places and all traffic was being diverted to the inland New England highway.  We decided to travel even further west to avoid the nightmare traffic conditions being created on this highway and use some of the lesser travelled country roads to get us north to Queensland.  At lunchtime on the first day we stopped at a rest area near Merriwa and took a stroll to see Battery Rocks.

Wok checks out Battery Rocks

Although these rock formations look as though they were man made, they are in fact a natural phenomenon.  It looks as though someone has just clumped a whole lot of giant grey stone toothpicks all together and pushed them into the ground at an angle …. very interesting.  Turning north we passed through Coonabarabran and it was hard not to miss the many billboards and signs dedicated to our solar system.

One of the many 'space' billboards near Coonabarabran

The reason for this of course is the Siding Springs Observatory located in a National Park west of the town.  We had camped in the park and visited the observatory many years ago when our kids were little but two months ago a raging bushfire engulfed a fair whack of the park and the observatory was lucky to survive.  We decided to keep heading north and postpone a second visit to the observatory and park until a later date.  We camped out at different spots along the way and it wasn’t until we reached Cecil Plains west of Toowoomba that the rain finally found us.  We camped beside a weir on the Condamine River where the water rose about a metre overnight so in the morning we made a beeline for our daughter’s home on the Sunshine Coast before we got stranded by the floodwater in-between towns.  We arrived in time to go out to dinner with the family to celebrate our grandson Josh’s 17^th birthday.

Talia wants some of that HUGE ice-cream dessert of Josh's

Over the following weeks we received many quick visits in the van by the family – well we were sort of parked right in the middle of their driveway -

Not sure what Josh, Tina and Ranger (the dog) are looking
 at outside our van but it did make for a fun photo.

and got the chassis checked out re welding repairs.  Wok did some maintenance, we had our usual doctor check ups and flu shots etc. etc. etc.  Of course we also managed to fit in a couple of Josh’s Futsal (indoor soccer) games and watched his team win the finals as well as Shakiah’s first calisthenics competition for the year where she managed to place third in her first solo performance.  Being a grandparent sure can be fun!  Easter has come and gone and we are now back on the road.  Our first stop wasn’t a long drive away – Toogoolawah Drop Zone.  We had come to the Rambler’s Parachute Club to see an old workmate of Wok’s – John Blane (aka Blano).  The facilities at the drop zone are adequate and they have a camping area for permanents as well as a paddock for tourists to camp in.  There are some electrical outlets available so we have set up near one of these.  At $12 per night or $55 per week these powered sites are a bargain.

Our campsite at Toogoolawah Drop Zone

Not only do we have a nice quiet farm type environment we also have free entertainment.  We can watch the skydivers exit the jump plane from our site and marvel at the aerial manoeuvres as they scream in for a landing.

Blano on his first jump of the day ....

Just to prove that this is not a sport for the faint-hearted Blano received a dislocated shoulder on his second jump of the day when another parachutist barged into him when exiting the jump plane.  He managed to open his parachute despite his damaged shoulder but had to make a dicey landing as he only had one arm to operate the chute.  Needless to say a visit to the local hospital to get his shoulder put back in was in order and is now OK but he won’t be making any more jumps for a while.  Well guess it is time to relax and have 'happy hour' and watch the last sky dive of the day along with the mob of kangaroos and bevy of bunny rabbits that have take up positions along the edge of the drop zone.

Kangaroos watching all the action at the drop zone

Ahhh!  This is the life …..