The Trip Home

We arrivied home tonight after having just on two weeks on the road. It was good to get away and put our van to good use again, although I think in future if we only have a couple of weeks, we might head to one area only and basically set up camp rather than travel each day. Whilst we have had a great time away, I wouldn't have called it a relaxing holiday.

Anyway we arrived home at lunch time today and have unpacked the van and done most of the cleaning and almost all the washing. Back to work tomorrow.

Another photo share of our week on the road.
We decided to head back to Queensland via the New England Highway. It was one of the routes we had planned to travel on our long service last year but because of all the flooding, we were unable to head home this way. The first day we got as far as Scone in the Hunter Valley. It was beautiful countryside, Lots of vineyards, and horse studs, all very green, lovely fences, fields of yellow flowers, lovely mountain ranges.

We took off early Wednesday morning on our drive to Armidale. WE passed through some lovely little towns.
Murrurundi was one of those pretty little town which some really lovely old buildings. I was really interested to see that the town had a Literacy Institute and wondered what that consisted of in days of old.

It was good to arrive at Tamwork and see the big Tamworth Entertainment Centre which is pretty well known for it's big Country and Western Festivals. Took some photos and then found the Big Golden Guitar,Of course both Steve and I had to have our photos take with the big guitar.

We took off towards Armidale and saw a sign saying Moonbi Lookout, so decided to go for a drive in and check it out. Fabulous views and huge boulders. I can see why this area is called the Granite Belt.

We probaby spent close to an hour here enjoying the view and going for a bit of a walk to check out some of the amazing rock formations. We were so glad we headed in for a look. In fact we were pretty surprised by the number of tourist that just head in from the highway to check it out.

Our next stop was Uralla.
Another lovely little country town. It also houses the Uralla Military Museum. We didn't manage to go through the museum itself but we did stop and have a little break here.

We pulled into Armidale just after lunch. The weather wasn't the best, very overcast, very cold, and the atmosphere was quite misty. When we arrived at Pembroke Caravan Park and booked in, they gave us a tourist map of the area. The Wollomombi Falls ( about 20 minutes out of Armidale) are the 2nd highest falls in the southern hemisphere, so we decided to drive out and check them out for ourselves.

We also went for a drive to Edgar's Lookout and the view through the gorge was just as spectactular there. Just a pity that it wasn't good photographing weather.
On our way back into Armidale, we say a sign saying Bakers Creek Falls, so thought we would head in and check them out also. Beautiful country drive with fabulous views, and from the highway you would never know these great places existed. By the time we arrived back in Armidale it had started raining. We headed to the shops to grab a few groceries and then fuelled up ready to head off again in the morning.

If you are going to Armidale, we can recommend the Pembroke Caravan Park. Nice clean park, and we were camped beside this lovely little area. When we arrived there was no water in the brook, but it was certainly running the following morning when we left.
It was pretty hard to get up, movitated and moving the following morning. The temperature got as low as 1 degrees, and it had rained all night. The thought of going out into the cold and rain to hitch up the van was not a good thought at all. It was still raining quite heavily when we were due to book out and I must admit it crossed my mind to just stay put and spend another day there. Mind you if we were on leave like we had been the previous year we probably would have stayed put, but we knew we had limited time to get home before we had to go back to work.

We finally managed to pull out around 11am, both of us wet and cold, and headed for Warwick. It rained for most of the trip with it just clearing as we headed towards the Queensland border. As we were heading towards Guyra, we were actually driving in the clouds.
Even though it was very wet, there is something about the rain on the land. It brings it too life, the colours are so much richer, a little like the sun is to water. The richness of the earth and the smells made it a really lovely trip.
We had planned to spend the night with friends Mark and Sal at Mt. Colliery just outside of Warwich. They definately like in a lovely piece of paradise.
Steve and Mark went for a drive up the mountain just on Sunset and got same amazing photos. Kind of pleased I didn't go, as the wind was howling and it was very very cold.

They are very close to the border here, and from the top of Mt. Colliery you could actually see into NSW. We had a lovely evening sitting in front of Mark and Sal's fireplace catching up. It has been a couple of years since we have managed to catch up with them, and it was so nice to sit down and chat and pick up from where we had left off as if it were only yesterday since we had last seen them.

We left early the next morning and took a lovely drive through the countryside along the Cedar Route back onto the main highway. I am in awe of this wonderful country we live in, and God's marvellous creation. This trip only helps to cement in my mind that I want to see more of this beautiful country.
To drive back into Brisbane we had to go down through Cunningham's Gap. We were held up here for quite a while because of all the road works. I did not realize how much damage the rain and floods at the start of the year had done to this section of road. It has pretty much washed out great sections of the Gap. It had to be seen to be beleived.
The views looking back once we had come down through the Gap though were really lovely. We arrived back in Brissie just before Lunch. Time to book into the Brisbane Gateway Resort. Great park with lots of great amenities and very close to Sarah's place. We had time to do a couple of loads of wash before catching up with Sarah for lunch. We enjoyed a lovely evening with Sarah, and she came for an early morning jog the following morning and woke us up. She was keen for a little exercise, so they hit the tennis court for an early morning game.

These pair are quite competitive, but I think Steve came out on top at the end. Pete had other commitments on Friday night so we didn't manage to catch up with him until Breakfast on Saturday morning. This called for a special breakfast celebration.
It was good to catch up with Pete although we didn't have enough time together. Still he is coming home for a weekend real soon, so we will have to make the most of it then,.

We took off mid morning, and headed to the Sunny Coast where we caught up with my parents for a couple of hours before heading off to Bundy to catch up with Steve's folk. It was pretty late by the time we got there so ended up spending the night. The trip up the coast wasn't too pleasant as the atmosphere was filled with smoke from all the bushfires. In fact in a couple of places the smoke was almost overpowering, The up side of all the smoke though was that we witnessed a beautiful sunset.
We took off early on Sunday morning on the last leg of our journey home. We couldn't get over all the caravans on the road. I think we counted 109 vans heading south between Bundy and Rocky, and that didn't include all the ones we saw camping on the banks of the Callide River. There were at least 18 there. I am not sure whether there are actually more vans on the road these days or whether it is just because we are now a caravan owner that we notice them more now.

The month of September was sure hectic, it was back to work today, and already I feel like I need a holidays. In hindsight it would have been good to have had a few days at home before heading back to work. The next few weeks are going to be pretty busy as we prepare for our second Teacher Aide Professional Development Day.

Will be back again soon.