Lathams News: DAY 5 - ON THE MOVE AGAIN TODAY...

We are on the move again today... It was a pretty early start to the morning, especially for John and Barb, as they had a tent to pack up as well as all their kitchen, beds, chairs... you name it they had bought it...

Amazingly, we were all packed and ready to leave just after 9.30am. We had two options en routes to travel today.. We could go south and travel out through Mt Perry which is near Gin Gin, although we were reading mixed reports about road conditions if we headed that way.

The alternate route was travel north to Calliope and then head west to Biloela and then south towards Monto. In the end, this was the route we chose, even though it was probably a good 50 or more kilometres longer to go this way, but we opted for bitumen the whole way and the reviews for this route sounded a lot better...

Our plan was that we would fill up with fuel at Fox Tail Flats near the turn off into Mirriam Vale and then meet the others at the Big Crab roadhouse in Mirriam Vale, where we all planned to buy some crab sandwiches to have for lunch when we stopped in Biloela.

Yummy Crab sandwiches for lunch

Once we had all bought our lunch and put our sandwiches in our fridges, we hit the road again, this time heading to Biloela where we planned to stop for lunch and then to refuel before we undertook the last leg of our journey for the day.. The trip to Biloela was actually very scenic and really quite green as we climbed up onto a tableland. This was new road for us as normally if we drive to Biloela it would be from Rockhampton and not down through Calliope...

We arrived in Biloela around lunch time and headed to the Lion's Park for lunch. One of the Big Aussie Icons that I wanted to check out was the "Big Director's Chair" which is in Biloela. It just so happened that the first park we pulled into had this icon here so we were able to kill two birds with the one stone..

Lunch was enjoyable, we all enjoyed our crab sandwiches, except for John who doesn't like seafood. He had ordered something different. After our cuppa, us girls went for a walk to check out the Park as well as the Big Director's chair...

After checking out the playground and having a bit of fun there, we headed further down the park to the main highway where we found the Big Director's Chair. We had to be careful where we walked as this park is full of bindi's and we didn't want them stuck to our shoes and transporting them else. We found the large director's chair with the name "Billie Brown"embossed on the backrest that was erected in the Lions Park as a tribute to the boy from Biloela. He is one of the area's favourite sons as he was born and educated in Biloela. It was right on the main highway...

This director's chair was erected in 2003. "The Boy From Biloela" Bille Brown, as the detailed plaque explains, was the local Lions Club Youth of the Year in 1969 and they obviously chose well because he went on to spend 12 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England; he played the lead role in Hamlet; and he acted in the well-known Australian movies - The Dish and The Man Who Sued God. He was a fine example of a person from a modest country town who went on to follow his chosen profession with considerable success.

Barb and John left a little before us, as we along with Ian and Kathy wanted to refuel our vehicles whilst prices were cheaper in Biloela than what was recorded for Monto. John and Barb were going to wait for us at the turn off to Cania Gorge.

After filling with fuel, we took off and about 10kms before the turnoff to Cania Gorge we found John and Barb parked on the side of the highway near a cattle grid over a dirt road.... Apparently their GPS wanted them to turn there and they didn't like the look of the road so thought they would just wait for us...

The road that John & Barb's GPS wanted to take them.

They ended up following us but the funny thing was, that less than 300m further up the road there was a sign for directions to Cania Gorge. They were about 10kms short of the turn off...

We arrived at Cania Gorge mid afternoon and after booking in we set up our vans. Our set up here for he week was great with Ian and Kathy and us parked one behind the other, and John and Barb next to us. With them having a tent, they could face their tent so that it opened out facing our annex with gave us a great living area all together...

Our set up at Cania Gorge.

The caravan park had two swimming pools

Once we were all set up, a few of us decided to go for a wander around the park to check it out and get our bearings. There were two toilets and showers close by to where we were camped but the main amenities block was a little walk away, so we wanted to check out where it was as we wanted to also check out the laundry...

The caravan park is quite old and could do with a bit of a tidy up. At the moment they are operating on very minimal staff so it was a little disappointing that the amenities were not cleaned every day. Still we have seen worse on our travels...

Someone at the park had been quite artistic though as there was lots of art on the buildings. The cabins looked awesome as they were all covered in art work or Australian animals.

Kathy checking out the camp kitchen

Each cabin was adorned with art work...

Even the amenties block was given it's own artwork as well. It was quite playful and added to the uniqueness of the park...

From the campsite, we headed over towards the non powered part of the caravan park which was set beside a gully with towering sandstone ridges above. I was looking to see if I could recognize any of the landmarks from when we camped here over 40 years ago, but unfortunately, none of it looked familiar...

Our dream caravan pulled in...

checking out one of the many firepits located in this area of the park...

Lovely sunset...

As John had some meat he wanted to cook up, he offered to cook us a nice stew for dinner tonight. It seemed like a great choice and the weather was turning and it was getting quite cold. Also we were not yet quite set up to have our fire pit this evening, so we needed something to warm us right up.