Easter 2012 - Currawinya trip Day 5

We were up fairly early and packed up quickly to hit the road a bit after 8 am. Then onto Goondiwindi for the others to refuel and we had a bit of breakfast. Even after many hundreds of kilometres on the bitumen my Paj was still dropping lots of red dust in the Caltex parking lot.

 

 It was at this stage I parted company with the others as they headed back to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast via Toowoomba while I headed off to Warwick and the Gold Coast. The traffic was fine until I hit Warwick and then every man and his caravan seemed to be on the road back to Brisbane, also there was a very high police presence between Warwick and Aratula. In fact from the top of Cunninghams Gap to Aratula there was just a long line of traffic moving very slowly, much to the disappointment of the police radar trap half way down the range.

I was going to stop at my favourite bakery in Aratula on the way back, however the line up of cars meant it would have been several hours before I could rejoin the traffic stream. Luckily, when I turned off to Boonah just after Aratula most of the traffic disappeared and it reduced even more after the turnoff to Beaudesert. The section through Canungra into the back of Nerang was also a very smooth run, unlike normal. I refuelled at the Caltex at Palm Beach and the run from Cunnamulla had taken 98.05 l of diesel to cover 920.6 kms. Giving 10.7 l/100km which I was very happy with, given the Paj was loaded with camping gear and had the OzTent, Maxtrax and awning on the roof rack. The electronic readout was showing in the low 11's for most of the trip.

Then it was back home to unpack the car, shower, and then relax with an Easter egg or two that didn't get eaten over the weekend.

All up a great 5 days with friendly people and some beautiful scenery.

Easter 2012 - Currawinya trip Day 4

I was up relatively early to pack up the tent and get ready to start the trip home. While waiting for the others to get finished I headed down to the nearby ruins to take some photos.

 

 

 

 Then a bit after 9 we headed off back to Eulo by way of a road through the back of the Park. It was in very good condition and we ended up stopping briefly in Eulo for Adam to add a Jerry can of diesel to his SWB Paj to make sure he could get back to the nearest fuel at Cunnamulla. The other two shorties had Auxiliary tanks so we didn't need to worry too much about fuel.

Then into Cunnamulla for a full refuel and then onto Bollon where we had lunch by the creek. So far there was almost no traffic on the road and most of the towns were closed on Easter Sunday. Then a leisurely drive to St George and finally onto the Nindigilly Pub where we made use of their free camping to set up for the night. 

 

 

 

 

Then happy hour was happening at the pub so we wandered down for a few drinks. We ended up with quite a few drinks and also had dinner there but that was soured by the fact that after ordering at 5:30 pm we didn't actually get our meals until about 9 pm. Still a round of drinks on the house in compensation was a partial relief. Two Road Train burgers were ordered, one for Adam and Cameron and the other for Wayne and Curtis. In hind sight this was extremely optimistic with quite a bit of uneaten burger being taken back to the camp fridges. As we wandered back to camp a fairly light shower of rain passed over but it hardly even made the tents wet.

Easter 2012 - Currawinya trip Day 3

Once again we had a bit of a sleep in and found that a cool breeze had in fact sprung up, so hopefully the temperatures through the day would be cooler. It ended up being about 10 deg cooler for most of the day. The sky also became much hazier, presumably from the dust whipped up by the breeze. During morning tea around the fire we decided to go for a bit of a drive down to Hungerford. We first tried what looked like a back track on the map but it appeared to end up in private property so we came back to the main Eulo-Hungerfordrd road and headed south.

 

 We stopped off at the Woolstores to have a look at the old buildings and had a cruise around the other camp site at Ourimperee Waterhole, which looked pretty nice. They had cold showers and once again there was not many campers.

 

 

 

 

 

 Then it was onward to Hungerford where we ended up having quite a nice lunch at the pub. The road leading south across the border to Mexico had a large gate to keep the southerners out. We lined the cars up for a photo and then headed back to camp for a snooze and a relax around the tent. 

 

 

Unfortunately the mozzies seem to be getting worse. More DEET needed. Wayne cooked up the rest of the yabbies and we had almost a complete meal from them. A bit more cheese and crackers and I didn't even cook up anything for dinner. Another few pleasant drinks around the fire before bed and the sad thought that we would be packing up in the morning.

Easter 2012 - Currawinya trip Day 2

We had a very lazy morning, with a bit of a sleep in and not doing much. Hot cross buns for morning tea around the fire  and discussing where we could go for a drive. Some lunch around about noon and then as it was pretty hot we decided to go for a drive in the nice air conditioned cars. We explored some of the ruins and leftover machinery in the area as well as some waterholes, which looked pretty much like the water hole we were camped on. There were a few other camps over the other side of the creek that we saw but there weren't a lot of people around at all.

 

 

Back to camp for afternoon tea and a bit of snooze before dinner. It was still very hot, around 36 but there was no breeze to cool things down. About 5'ish we gathered around the fire for drinks and nibbles, I provided some cheese and crackers and Wayne supplied freshly cooked yabbies with some sweet chilli sauce. Then the cooking show started around the fire, with Wayne cooking up tons of perch with a crunchy topping in the camp oven. This was after Adam extinguished most of the camp fire when the marinade from his chicken leaked onto the fire. All this time the mossies were being extremely annoying  just by buzzing around, not many were actually biting as the DEET from the Bushman's was pervading the air and discouraging them from landing. We could see the lightning from some storms a long way away and hoped this would bring a cool change.

 

Easter 2012 - Currawinya trip Day 1

The alarm woke me at the ungodly hour 3:45 am. I threw the last of the bags into the car and had left home by 4am. Driving was easy as there was very little traffic on the road. I went up the highway to Nerang then off to Canungra, Beaudesert and onto Boonah and finally the main highway near Aratula. Didn't stop at the Aratula Bakery for a change. A good run up through Cunningham's Gap and onto Warwick now that most of the road repair has finished. Then onto Goondiwindi (about 8:15 am) where I met up with Josh, Kemsley and Adam at the BP/Maccas to refuel the car and the body.
We left Goondiwindi about 9am and headed for St George where we did some last minute shopping and then headed onto Bollon where we stopped at a pleasant little cafe for lunch. Leaving here about 1ish we headed onto Cunnamulla for our last refueling stop.

Refeueling at Goondawindi

 

We saw quite a lot of emus in the paddocks along the road, with one getting very inquisitive about my car, so that I had to stop to avoid it. Onto Eulo and we turned off onto the dirt road to Currawinya just past the town. The road was is quite good condition but the dust meant we were strung out a fair bit so that we could see the road. We missed the turn to our camp site and ended up down the road a few kms until we realized we had to turn around, of course we hadn't actually checked the map before this. 
After registering and paying our camping fees we found Wayne and Anne and their kids and proceeded to set up camp. This was just after 5pm and the temperature was about 35 degrees, although it was very dry so it didn't feel that hot.

Corni Paroo Waterholes camp site more - 2

 

There was lots of annoying flies around which were replaced by annoying Mosquitos as the sun went down. The Bushman's kept them mostly away. After getting camp set up we sat down with a well deserved drink and watched Curtis bring in a varied catch from the creek, carp, perch and turtles. The carp were summarily dispatched, the perch kept for eating and the turtles released under their own recognizance to not get caught again.

After about 13 hours of driving and just over 1100 kms I was feeling fairly snoozy, so dinner was a couple of Easter eggs and after sitting around chatting for a few hours I headed to bed for a very good sleep.