End of year road trip, 2016. Day 7.

I woke up to the rather pleasant sound of rain on the roof of the camper at around 6 am. This is a much more pleasant sound than rain on the roof of a tent or awning. As we were in the process of heading home we quickly packed up and hit the road to Biggenden where unfortunately the bakery was closed. So we headed south west to Ban Ban Springs on the Burnett highway where after a quick look at the springs I found the service station sold quite a good sausage roll for breakfast. We were going to head through the back roads to the back of Gympie to Kilcoy but the rain made it seem like a good idea to stay away from the dirt roads.
We continued to head south through Goomeri and Nanango with the rain still drizzling but eventually drying up. The main excitement came when Shane got a flat tyre just north of Harlin, because of the positioning of the guard rail and slope of the ground he couldn't quite get his car completely off the road, so I did a U-turn and came back around to park behind him with the hazard lights flashing to warm the oncoming traffic. He got the tyre changed pretty quickly and we headed into the servo in Harlin to check the pressure of the replacement tyre and have a quick dink and rest.
From there it was a pretty good trip home through Esk, the outskirts of Ipswich and the Logan Motorway before hitting the M1. Shane turned off at Jacobs Well and I continued onto the normal traffic jam at Robina, which I escaped by taking the back roads around Tallebudgera and Elenora to get home. It was bloody hot back home after the comfort of and air conditioned car. All up I had done about 470 km today.

Summary
We ended up having a great seven days away seeing lots of varied terrain, from the bush and scrub, to rainforest and the beach. I got to try Blute out on many different roads and found that it handled everything really well. I was especially happy with how it handled some of the steep rocky roads we drove on in the national parks. Now I'm looking forward to the Victorian High Country trip in February. All up we covered just over 2,000 Kms in seven days and had a very pleasant trip staying away from the holiday crowds.

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End of year road trip, 2016. Day 6.

We were up early and having breakfast so that we could hit the road by about 7 am. We continued into the park and climbed up the side of the ridge before driving along the top of the ridge for quite awhile. After we found the main campsite with a map we decided to backtrack a bit and drop in and see the other camp sites and lookouts. The road was signed "No trailers" and it certainly got steep in a couple places. The Blute traction control came into play a few times but got up the hills with no worries.
After we left the national park we dropped into the little town of Bilburin and had quite a delicious milk shake. Then it was south to Monto to refuel and have lunch. Shockingly over this leg of the trip Shane's patrol used marginally less fuel the Blute. The Blute fuel economy was up around 15.3 l/100 Kms. This included lots of off road stuff like steep and rocky tracks, sandy tracks and mud, and since it was carrying at least half a ton of camper and gear I guess I can't complain too much.
From Monto we headed south and east before stopping off for a look at an old copper mine in Mount Perry, where the temperature was up around 37 degrees. 

We then decided to stay at a spot called Lake Paradise which was located on the side of a dam, but when we got there it was pretty hot and exposed. 

So we decided to continue on, ending a bit further south at a place called Chowey's Bridge which is an out of the way picnic stop at an old Qld railway bridge. 

Shane went for a swim in the water in the creek below the bridge but I didn't like the idea of the walk and climb to get down there. 

We had the place to ourselves so we set up camp for the evening with the plan to head home in the morning. All up we did about 310 Kms today.

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End of year road trip, 2016. Day 5.

We woke up pretty early as there was no real protection from the sun and decided to hit the road straight away. So we got going just after 6 am. We headed south and decided to stop in and have a look at the other campground Eurimbula Creek. On the way we stopped and climbed up to the top of Ganoonga Noonga lookout which was a sharpshooter 800 metre walk. The view wasn't so good as it was overcast. The after the walk down we went onto the campground which seemed quite nice as it was nestled in behind the beach.
Then we headed into Agnes Waters and found quite a good bakery for an early morning tea. The drive to The Town of 1770 was quite different to when I was here many years ago as there has been a lot of development. It was hard to drive around as people seemed to be ignoring the parking restrictions and coming close to blocking off the main road. We went up to the main lookout at Round Hill Head and by now the sky was clear and it was getting hot.

To get away from the crowds we headed back through Agnes Waters to drive down through Deepwater National Park we stopped in at the campgrounds and I managed to catch with Anne and Paige at the Wrecks campground where they were involved in the annual Turtle research.
After lunch and a walk on the beach we decided we needed to head inland to get away from the crowds at the coast. 

We picked Bilburin National park as it looked like it had a few camp grounds and wasn't used that much. So we wandered westwards towards it and after a 14 km drive we came to the first of the camp grounds - Granite creek. It was completely empty so we set up there for the evening. 

Unfortunately it only had very spotty phone coverage, so our internet access was very slow. We got the fire going and settled in for the evening. We had one car come in and then take off to one of the other camp grounds. After dinner we went to bed reasonably early, not staying up to see the new year in. We had a fairly lazy driving day of only around 170 Kms.

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