Category: YouTube – @colinspain1078

6. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Kynuna QLD

Known as the Blue Heeler, this pub is very busy with one night stays of passing nomads and farm contractors. Before arriving at Kynuna, we travelled through wide open space of grasslands and rocky mounds. The pub was very old fashioned and the food wasn’t something I would go back for again.

Our “lineup”
Tumbleweeds

McKinlay

This town is known for a lot of laughs; crocodile Dundee laughs. Amazingly, while we were using the outside dining area to have breakfast, sharp on 10:00am, the doors opened for tourist business. There are many memories from the movie, all relating to the humour style of Crocodile Dundee.

The jalopy car hadn’t been brought back from the McKinlay horse races held two days before our arrival; the car standing outside the “Walkabout Creek Hotel” is a great memory we saw last year on our Darwin trip.

Crocodile Dundee Pub
Entrance to the ladies loo.
The Library in town.

Corella Dam

We had passed the turnoff to this dam last year on our way to Darwin and the reports told us not to miss out on this hidden gem. On arrival, after shutting the farm gate entrance and travelling a dirt road just a short while, we realised this was not a one night stay but at least a two night stay location, even longer. With a blue lake before us and many spots to camp at along the shore, we made the decision to do just that.

Lake Corella is a concrete faced rockfill dam built between 1956 and 1957 on the Corella River to provide town water for the Mary Kathleen Uranium Mine. The dam originally had a gated control structure which was removed in 2004, lowering the spillway and reducing the full supply level. When full it has a surface area of 200 hectares and holds 10,500 ML of water.

Mary Kathleen Mine

Mary Kathleen was a mining settlement in north-western Queensland, Australia. It is located in the Selwyn Range between Mount Isa and Cloncurry.

With the mine long closed, the structures of the township have been all but removed. Mary Kathleen’s secrets are not hard to uncover, you’ll find the old town fountain, outline of the pool and the concrete slabs where homes once stood. Follow the road to the abandoned mine and marvel at the sheer expanse of the pit.

The entry road is good for having the motor home do the rock and roll, in slow motion. Even at almost walking pace, the motor home rocked with every divot in the road. You drive about 2km into the now ghost town of Mary Kathleen. In the 50s, 60s and 70s, Mary Kathleen was the town where the miners of the uranium lived.

There are literally hundreds of concrete slabs to camp on. We found a parking spot beside what was the floor to the cafeteria; I’m still waiting for service. I’d like some hash browns for breakfast, please.

Many countries in the world have benefited from the uranium for their energy needs but Australia has reneged on using this clean energy resource.

History tells us that politics has played a major role in allowing the operation of the mine in the past and then politics eventually stopped the mining of uranium for domestic energy purposes. Always something to “wonder why” when you’re a logical thinker, which I tend to be.

Mary Kathleen open cut mine
Hold on! Three in the front of the two door Suki

The night skies do justice to the statement “the heavens declare the glory….”

Mt Isa Qld.

This town has been a lead mining town for many years. The mine is central to the town’s business area.

Our mission in Mt Isa was to collect a parcel at the post office that had been sent from Tamworth to enable us to use less power on the Starlink setup. The parcel was initially to arrive on Monday next week, but came into Mt Isa on Thursday this week. Good service Australia Post.

We had a bit of a hiccup coming into the town. The steering sensors went on the Iveco and showed an error on the screen. Fortunately, the Iveco service Center was able to rectify the problem and after $330 worth of computer checks and labour, we were on our way.

There are quite a number of free camping rest areas along the Barkley Highway. We decide on the WWII Historical Site Rest Area for a two night stay. We have missed out on a stunning Friday sunset, sorry to say.

5. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Mitchell Qld

Just before Mitchell was a small village that proudly showed off a Model T Ford. It was “encased” in its own building and was extremely well preserved and displayed.

The main reason we stopped at Mitchell was because the sister’s maiden name is Mitchell. Secondly, the third sister had planned to meet up with us there and to continue the Lap 24 venture. And thirdly, Mitchell has some Artesian Heated Pools available and we thought it was time to have a shower. For those who don’t free camp, the shower amenities are normally not provided.

The Neil Turner Weir is a free camp site with more than 100 spots to park and have a pit fire. The toilet block was a long walk away, so far that when you made it to the amenity, you forgot why you were there. Age does funny things to funny people. The Friday evening sunset was a treat when fluffy pink tinged clouds filled the evening sky. Outback Queensland knows how to show off at this time of the year when the grey nomad masses pass through.

Saturday, we decided on a camp oven cooked stew. (Poking around the fire is a great stress reducer and we wished we had a homely fireplace at our place. The TV would be left alone.) Camp damper came out and was added to the stew.

Artesian pools are a great alternative to the open air bush shower and a 3 day pass for $18 became a good spend. Scones with jam and cream were on the cafe menu but we had to contend with banana bread instead of the scones.

When Lyn came in from the meal, she noticed her glasses were missing. Found, outside in the dust near the fire, with a broken frame. (More later)

Might have to get a special frame for this photo.
The camp oven meal/stew
The three sisters.

Morven Qld

Arriving at Morven, you are greeted with a bright pink painted truck selling coffee and bags. The entrepreneur has become an icon in the area as “the bag lady”. Her wit and Aussie slang is an added freebie. Apparently the town used to hold goat races (the ads still show on the public toilets) but went out of fashion as time gets in the way of daily life.

Augathella Qld

Tambo Qld

Many of the free camping grounds in this outback Queensland territory will be total bog holes when it rains. The weather man is very kind to us and there’s no rain due while we are enjoying the water holes and big expansive camping grounds filled with grey nomads from the south. Tambo is one such town. However, Tambo offers chicken races each night from 5pm. The local pub sends out a bus to collect us to, go experience a different game of chicken. It’s a great way to get customers from free camping to be donors to the Flying Doctor Service. Pick them up and drag them into the eating and drinking center of the town. Oh, and while they are there, we may as well have a chicken race. The publican has washed his chooks in colored dye and auctions them off calcutta style, with the highest bidder “owning” the chook for the race, when we eventually get to the starting point. If the chook wins, the owner gets half the total money collected and the rest goes to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. To date, they have raised over $70,000 for the RFDS. (We will visit their display in Darwin in a couple of weeks). The winner tonight took away $640.

After the race, your preordered meal is ready to enjoy. The menu? Chicken Snitzel or last night’s race looser.

Now here’s a chicken race of note.

Barcaldine/Ilfracombe

Barcaldine is the starting point for the Australian Labor Party. I have to be careful here because I’m not one of the party’s avid supporters. In the Main Street are 5 hotels. How fitting! There’s a monolithic, 3 dimensional wooden structure, which replaces the old cathedral, country towns often used to be proud of when the bells sounded each Sunday morning. Today, they have a wooden clunk sound whenever the wind blows through.

Exit from Ilfracombe Caravan Park

Longreach

There’s two major tourist attractions in Longreach that all visitors make a point of experiencing. As we had visited the Qantas museum and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame last year, we had a “relaxing” day of catching up on work and flying the drone. Rod and Earlene took the tours over two days. The “sun on body” got a little bit of a workout too.

If it were to rain at the Apex free camp near the Thomson River, there would be at least 120 RVs needing to be pulled from the ocean of black mud. A quagmire of mixed up vehicles is the last thing any grey nomad wants.

The sunrises and sunsets in the outback have been special moments of sky beauty. Each has its special commitment to performing on a wide open stage. If there’s some cloud in the right form and position, why would one not want to shoot the memory.

Driving into town to refill our gas bottles, we found this exhibition of women’s bras on the fence of the local radio station broadcasting location. Must have had a fund raiser for breast cancer at some point.

You’ll remember Lyn “lost” her glasses around the campfire in Mitchell. Optometrists are hard to find in the outback and if you find one, they are only in town a day a month, or some other outback arrangement. Lyn’s was in the right town on the right day. She now has her old lenses in new frames, at outback prices.

A good 120 RVs here
Anyone for a haircut?
Bras are off in this town. lol

Winton Qld

Winton is well known for the “Waltzing Matilda Museum and the history of the writer, Banjo Paterson. It’s a very tourist active town with interesting opal shops and of course, a number of quaint pubs. The outback is famous for the old pubs that all towns seem to use for not just pictures or writings on the wall, but general gabbing on about bygone days of “what and how we used to do things out here”. Each town, or even pub, has distinct characters who are symbols of those times.

We found a free camp just south of Winton that gives us a few free nights and lots of birdlife to enjoy. I hadn’t seen a spoonbill for years so spent a few walks around the weir looking for him to include in my memories of our lap.

We kept up, what has become our tradition on this trip; brilliant Friday evening sunsets. This one was glorious in a new and different way. The colour stretched from the horizon back across our heads and to the horizon behind.

4. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Evans Head NSW

We had spent a week at Evans Head last year and felt it was worth more time to explore the area. It worked out a good place to stay as one of our party had their drivers licence suspended due to an error on the GP medical report to the licence authority. The authorities needed some time to sort out the problem and correct what had been reason for the suspension. We enjoyed the meals at the surf life savings cafe; John found the lentil burgers were his favourite. The town is in need of increased retail trade to get it ‘going’ again after a long lay-off of holiday makers. There is an RSL with a busy restaurant and also the bowls club has an asian menu most nights of the week.

Evans Head NSW

While driving north towards Evans Head, Earlene called to say they passed a Paradise Motor home in a rest area, so we pulled into the same rest area and parked beside the Paradise. Paradise owners tend to have lots in common and since I run a Facebook Page for Paradise Owners, we were on to meeting up with these guys. After an hour of chit chat, we said good byes and on to Lennox Head.

Lennox Head NSW

Lennox Head is another coastal beach town in the northern part of NSW, just south of Byron Bay, the young people’s capital of Australia. We noticed each day, schools had surfing and board riding classes for sports activities; how lucky they are. An hour before sunset, the surfing zones were very busy as the sun was setting. Pelicans gracefully pass to another location to sit out until it was time to vanish for the dark hours. ‘Dive-bombing’ marine birds were very busy gathering feed for their young on their return to the nests hidden somewhere.

Byron Bay is an expensive yuppie town. There are many good eating places run by the alternative lifestyle fraternity. Housing is expensive as is the camping facilities for visitors. We took the bus up to Byron, and first strolled through the alternative, or natural, farming markets before going across to the beach to meet up with a surprise visitor from New Zealand. You may remember our story of meeting up with another guy with a brain injury, and his wife, in Zurich. Well, after Lyn posted to Facebook that we were in Lennox Head, MerryLynn noticed the post and called to say they had come to Australia for a family meetup and holiday at Kingscliff just north of Byron Bay. We had to meet again. They drove down to meet us for a meal at Manna Restaurant. What a catchup again … and the food was excellent too. The plan is to meet up again in Tauranga in January while we are cruising New Zealand.

Next are we are visiting is the south west corner of Queensland.

3. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

The rush was on as many left the grey nomads convention we had attended for last ten days. Attendees headed in various directions, some even headed home. Why would you not tour a little to see more of the great landscapes Australia has to offer before arriving home? We headed north for two hours through Coffs Harbour to Grafton to spend a few days with our daughter. Many left the convention with varying degrees of flu or Covid. We had runny noses and Lyn had a throat cough. But now we are on the mend.

Grafton is a small town widely known for the annual Jacaranda Festival. The streets are bathed in purple during November and full of Asian day tourist catching the colourful streets as backgrounds to their selfies. While there, the son-in-law cooked a very tasty meal using his camp oven expertise.

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Camp Oven cooking
A tight fit at daughters place in Grafton

Brooms Head is just an hour away from Grafton on the coast from McLean NSW. Our arrival welcomed us with brilliant sunshine. The campground has both powered and unpowered sites but the unpowered sites have the best location right on the beachfront. We’ve chosen the unpowered site but didn’t realise that we have a large Norfolk Island pine tree smack in the middle of our view and, the solar power source for our house batteries to top up. Lucky our daughter was joining us from Grafton in a few days so she was able to bring a remote solar panel for us to plug into and set away from the motor home in the sunshine. Problem almost solved – but we got through.

And so Brooms head is our spot for a few days
Drone view of the area
Low tide allows a good morning walk
An American friend called these storks.

Once set up, we had some beautiful days with warming sunshine. The views of the ocean and coastline were clear and colourful. Pelicans entertained us as they flew around the lagoon finding a spot to fish or get away from other menacing birds. I wanted to see a morning sunrise and got up to check it out and when I went outside, there was a family of kangaroos feeding on the grass close to the beach. Worth getting up for.

I got up to shoot the sunrise. These guys made it a great sunrise shot.
Drone fun
Great spot to do some droning from.
Interesting runway for a drone.
Great spot

Our next stop is at Evans Head

2. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

Welcome to the blog of our trip around Australia.

Our first day of the lap was done with sunny skies and that rare feeling of “bye home, we’ll see you in 6 months”. We have travelled this road many times up inland Victoria and into New South Wales along the Hume Highway. We are more eager to get to our first camping spot at Jugiong than to take notice of what we pass. Toilet stops are frequent in the mornings but the one at Lake Nillacootie now has a coffee trailer that provides ’not bad’ coffee and chai latte. This became our first “extended” stop off.

Jugiong is over 500km from home and a regular overnight stop. There is a large recreation ground that the community makes available at a small donation fee. Camping is available along the Murrumbidgee River or on the oval. The autumn colors are still showing before dropping to become mulch for the ground. There is a cafe that provides good old country meals which we always enjoy. Some friends happen to be here and we have a good time reminiscing old days; Fred went to the same school as me back in the 60s.

Entrance to Jugiong NSW
A very leafy restaurant
The Sir George Pub
Great place to eat and purchase quaint souvenirs
Lyn hard at work in motor home using Starlink for speed

We decided to stay a second night as the morning provided blue skies again and the weather report said lots of rain ahead towards Sydney. Lyn has run a travel agency for over 30 years and now works from the motor home while traveling. She has some of the best office locations one could want for. Today was the first time we tried our Starlink internet system while traveling. It provided excellent speed and access which made Lyn happy.

On days we travel, we find it better to wake up, pack up and get going for an hour before having breakfast. We make our way onto the Hume Highway at 7:30am in the morning chill, but the promise of a good day. The Hume Highway is a divided highway and is used continuously by trucks or lorries carting produce between Australia’s two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne. Today is very busy and at times we have 5 or 6 trucks passing us at once (we travel 10 or 15 kph slower than the trucks).

Normally, we make sure Lyn is the driver through the busy city of Sydney to save $90 in tolls while I sit in the passengers seat giving directions through suburban Sydney. Today we decide to do part of the drive through Sydney paying tolls and part on a renowned section of road that used to be a very congested part of the journey. Having 5 or 6 semi-trailers around you as you’re driving can be very daunting.

We head further north up through the distant regions to the north of Sydney, and to the Pacific Highway which runs up the eastern coastline of New South Wales and into Queensland. On last years trip north, we found a new campground that is just 400meters off the highway where we stay for the night. Due the recent high rainfall, the owner of the campground requested we set up on the road to prevent ground damage in the camping area.

The following morning, we had made a meal reservation at an Artisan Restaraunt. This restaurant was built by a guy with a ‘dream’ to provide a highway stopover providing food all grown on his property. The meal is delicious, again.

While we were at The Artisan Farm, Lyn’s sister and husband caught up to us from Melbourne, and we travelled on to a free camp near a tavern for a night of rain and cards. Our short journey took us to a convention site where we will be for 10 nights before travelling on to Grafton, NSW.

1. Great Life lapping Australia 2024

A lap of Australia in our motor home GR8L1F, has been on our bucket list for quite a few years. Covid prevented us from doing it when we wanted to but we have set this year as the year for us. Many in Australia plan to do it sometime in their lifetime either as quick as possible (I’ve heard some in 3 weeks) others, 10 years. We have decided to leave near the end of April and return around the end of October. There is a map of Australia suggesting the best months to be in various parts of the country. We are going to follow that as a basic plan.

There are various ways to do the lap, but most do it clockwise or anticlockwise. Doing it anticlockwise, some say, uses less fuel because of the following westerly winds across the Nullabor plains from Perth towards Melbourne. Doing the lap clockwise uses up noticeably more fuel. Fuel prices on the Nullarbor become very high at some roadhouses.

The list of things to do before departure becomes longer as you get closer to the day of departure. We have a pristine garden, and enjoy working it, but we still like to have it in good order for the gardener who cares for it while we are away. The hedges need a ‘final’ trim, the edges of the lawn make a good yard a better yard when trimmed right. The motor home and Suzuki 4wd, which we tow, need to be washed and polished (did you hear there is less drag when the vehicles are polished?). We try to leave with only clothes for all seasons that will be used many times before, maybe, throwing them out on our return.

We were busy getting our garden ready for absolutely no one to enjoy. Isn’t that silly?

Our itinerary is only ‘rough’ as we leave, but generally, we will firstly head north to Stuarts Point in New South Wales (NSW) for an annual Grey Nomads convention we attend each year. Our daughter lives in Grafton NSW so a few days of catchup will take us there. Then our lap really begins. We plan to head up to Toowoomba, Queensland (QLD) then to central west QLD and on to Mt Isa. From QLD we will slowly move through the Northern Territory (NT) to Darwin, then across to West Australia (WA) down to Perth. In October, we then take the Nullarbor Highway back to Melbourne.

I’ll start posting a weekly blog each week. I hope you enjoy and make a decision to do the same when time allows.