Hello again one and all, not a lot has happened since my last missive but a few places have been visited, hopefully this will bring you all up to date with my travels.
So I got away as planned from Pallamallawa on the Monday morning had went of eastwards towards Glenn Innes, which I arrived into early afternoon. Stayed at a lovely campsite about 2kms out of town on the Armidale road. Glenn Innes is the Highland capital of Australia and I dont mean the metres it is above sea level. Its like driving into a small town somewhere in Scotland lots of shops selling tartans and wool clothing and all things Gaelic, its all very ooh aye the not (sorry shelly). Its quite a small township with only one road holding all the shops, and every year they have a large Gaelic festival when all the Irish Scots Bretons and a few other from the Celtic background all get together for a bit of a shindig. Apparently its very well supported but its not held to September so I couldn’t stick around that long to find out. Also in Glenn Ines they have some standing stones called Australian Standing Stones, must have took them months to come up with that name. Now these are not to be compared or confused with Stonehenge or the standing stones in Orkney, which date back to the neolithic era, these one go all the way back to 1992. They are nevertheless quite impressive and are set in a beautiful garden on top of a nearby hill.
From Glenn Innes it was a very quick run up to Tenterfield which was only about 100kms to the North. Again I found a lovely small campsite just on the edge of the town and duly set up home there.
Tenterfield has a lot of history to it, some of it I’m afraid to me is wasted on me as I dont have the background in Australian history to match the relevance. But it was here in October 1889 that Sir Henry Parkes gave his Tenterfield Oration laying out the framework for Federalising Australia, having one Federal government and to unite all the militia into a single army. It also laid the groundwork for standardising the rail gauge for trains. Im sure there was a lot more to it, but these were the bits that stuck in my memory. There are a couple of lovely touristy type drives of about 30kms long which take you off the beaten track and up to the top of Mt Mckenzie which is the highest point nearby. Its not a drive you would want to do in a standard car as in places you do need a drop more than your standard clearance, as over half of the drive is on farm tracks and gravel roads. Just to the North of Tenterfield by about 5kms there is a place called London Bridge, where during the Second World War over ten thousand troops were stationed as the second line of defence if Australia was invaded. Nothing much remains of it now and you would quite easily drive past without realising as there is only one board with the info on it. They also laid a long line of what they called tank trap, which were basically large tree trunks sunk into the ground and rising a couple of metres out of it, whether these were actually to stop tanks or just vehicles in general is not made clear. Most of it now has been overgrown by the forest, so its hard to discern which are fallen trees and which are the deliberately placed ones. All around the hills to the East and South of Tenterfield there is a huge area of burnt forest, they had there main fires come through last Feb (2019 and a few smaller ones earlier this year. Although you can still see all the burnt trees its amazing how much of it has regenerated in less than a year. Its also quite scary to see just how close to the township it got. I would say in places no more than 200 metres. Now from Tenterfield I had every intention of heading off North up into Queensland but while I was there the toilet in my caravan broke, well not the toilet as such but the holding cassette, so I couldn’t close it. It was something that I need to get sorted as soon as otherwise I couldn’t use it. Now the nearest Caravan dealer of any note was in Coffs Harbour 300kms away, so that was where I headed off to after my week in Tenterfield.
The first thing that struck me when I got to Coffs Harbour was the traffic. It was like rush hour all day long, so as soon as I parked up I went off to the caravan dealer and got the parts I need to sort out my toilet, I only booked in for two nights as I couldn’t put up with driving around bumper to bumper. Sorting out the toilet went according to plan and it was all sorted within about 15mins. just a case of out with the bits of the old mechanism and in with the new. So it was a very short sharp visit to Coffs Harbour and I didnt like it at all, maybe a better place to visit in the winter months. As I was over on the East coast I decided to stay there a while and drove north to Byron Bay.
I didnt actually stay in Byron Bay as the prices for parking up a caravan were stupid expensive, some places wanted over $70 per night, so I found a nice place at the Rugby League club in Mullumbimby about 20kms outside for $30 which is more my price range. Now for those of you unaware Byron Bay is the hippy laid back in place to be seen on the whole East Coast. And for those of you into to that kind of thing its also where the Hemsworth brother (Liam and Chris) have their homes and where the Hollywood set come visiting. Now wandering around Byron Bay in my shorts and shirt I felt very over dressed by their standards. Most men were shirtless (not my thing at all) and most of the women left very little to the imagination. But walking around it was very obvious and easy to differentiate between holiday makers, locals and those with a bit of money. A very quant town but always very busy, but some really nice artisan craft shops. I drove up to the Lighthouse which is the Eastern most point of Australia, but they wanted to charge $10 to park the car, which I thought was a rip off, so I told the parking attendant I was just going to turn around and drive back out, when he said to me just as well as you can’t park up here with dogs in the car as they aren’t allowed. So I glimpsed the lighthouse and drove off. Anyway the little town I was in Mullumbimby was a lovely little place, lovely shops, good coffee and even a supermaket (Woolworths, not to be confused with what was F W Woolworths in UK). So I was more than happy to potter around there for the shortish time I was there. I also drove out to Brunswick Heads which appeared to me to be Byron Bay lite. very busy and full of surfie types.
From here I decided to head back inland a bit as I didnt fancy going much further North into the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, and then Brisbane, So just found a route on the map and thought I would follow it. Well that plan lasted all of about 5kms, I pulled into a nearby reststop as I had left one of the roof vents open so quickly put that to rights, and when I came out I took the wrong exit from the roundabout and found myself on a little back road. I think to myself I will find a spot to turn around, about 15kms later I thought I may as well stay on this road and see where it leads. Well I ended up at a place called Murwillumbah, where yet again I missed my turn and found myself heading south towards Kyogle where I stopped to get my bearings and a cup of coffee. On looking at my camping app I noticed a place called Woodenbong had a recommended campsite for $15 a night, so tally ho and off we set. What I hadn’t factored in was the going up and over the border ranges to get there, some quite steep and very windy roads were encountered, but it did take me through some quite remarkable little villages, well when I say village, more like a cluster of 4 house and a barn. So after quite a decent drive I got myself a spot at the Woodenbong campsite.
No much in Woodenbong just one road through with houses and the odd shop, petrol station, but what it has got is Lynda’s Pit Stop cafe. Great coffee, beautiful BLT’s and as for their big breakfast, I must admit I did treat myself to one and I couldn’t finish it which is most unlike me, and if you sit in the courtyard bit, you can have your dogs with you as well. So it was a morning walk up to the garage for the paper, then across the road for a coffee and a sit and read in the limited sunshine. I must admit I only had the one BLT and only one breakfast, but it was good to give a little bit of money to the local community. Had quite a bit of rain here I think we had a shower or two most days, but it was still badly needed even if everything looked very green. But being up in the mountains they probably get more rain up there anyway.
Leaving Woodenbong on a wet morning I started to head north again and not 15kms down the road I finally crossed over into Queensland. I managed to get myself lost in Toowoomba, as far as I could tell the through routes are not very well marked, so I had to put the gps on just to get me out of it and onto the right road. I was aiming to a little town called Dalby for my next stop.
Well Dalby came as a bit of a shock, I was expecting a small country town as it didnt look too grand on the map, but Dalby is a decent size, and fairly well spread out. It has all the usual major shops, and a large amount of industry geared mainly towards the farming community, Not much here for the general sightseer, but for $15 a night power and water, and brand new shower and toilet block the only thing to complain about is the pesky flies. I still haven’t figured out how they find your ears and nose with such unerring accuracy and monotonous regularity. Still only one bit of rain for a few hours since Ive been here, I will be on my way again on Monday morning. I stayed here a bit longer than planned as there had been storm and cyclone warnings being issued earlier in the week, so thought it prudent to sit still until they had passed.
Not sure what I have in the photo department as again its been slim pickings but will have a look see
Geoff1511 Travels 
So beautiful!
LikeLike