With our dear friends Sue and Trevor taking delivery of their shiny new Majestic van, we had the perfect excuse for a quick overnight getaway. We were off to Swinging Bridge campground at Cooyar again.
For perfect clarification, ‘Swinging Bridge’ is not a group of oldies trying to recapture their youth swapping partners under a bridge. It is a legitimate campground near a bridge that just so happens to swing from side to side as you walk across it. Are we clear?
Sue and Trevor, accompanied by Henry ‘the travelling dog’, headed up Friday afternoon in a shakedown trip that included but one instance of a semi driver running them off the road in a death wish overtaking manoeuvre. Alive but shaken, they settled in with a fire constructed from gifted wood. The previous owners now on the road again.
Early Sunday morning we hit the road for a quick flit to the van in storage at Landsborough. A snappy hook up, food in the fridge and a check of electrics had us on the road headed for a weekend of swinging (see above for explanation).
As much as we miss our Defender ‘Puma’, there is no doubt ‘Panther’, in all her black glory, is a far superior towing vehicle. She literally flung G-sting around like it was made of a new age elasticised, feather weight fibre. We roared towards Kilcoy, save the non-roaring bits where roadworks stretched for miles and we maxed out at 60km/h.
This Sunday we noted there was an horrendous amount of traffic on the D’Aguilar Highway headed west. So much so that as we hit the outskirts of Moore we felt the dire need to have yet another medium box of the world’s best chips from Tilley’s café. They didn’t disappoint.
Tilley’s was abuzz. There was us and at least three other people there. A highlight was a lady with her Dash Hound saying gidday to everyone. Well, the dog was. The lady not so much. A group of old cars caught our eye. There was a Valiant Hemi 245 ute, a restored LJ Torana and a couple of Fords. Each from an era when grease on your hands was a rite of passage and air conditioning was for the rich and famous. The bunch told us they were from Blackbutt and ventured down to Moore every weekend. Understandable with Blackbutt being widely known for its extensive list of things to do on a Sunday morning.
126 shared chips later, we hit the road again with Panther flying up the Blackbutt range, G-string cling desperately to her behind, and onto the town that shares its name. Yarraman came and went before we found ourselves following another van into Cooyar and the campground.
First to greet us was Henry with his tail wagging at exactly twice the frequency of his little bum. We had not seen the little fella for a while and the excitement was mutual. Trevor and Sue followed with not quite so much vigour, yet greeting our friends was indeed a treat.
The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent snacking, getting a fire going and catching up on the latest world news (gossip). Central to most conversation, followed by a personalised tour, was the inevitable inspection of Sue’s new van. And what a spanking van it is. Shiny, with all the new vehicle smells, it was definitively a great acquisition.
Late afternoon a ute pulled up. We naturally thought we were about to get a warning about our fire or some other minor infringement of the swinging rules. Not to be. It was Peter the local school bus driver, rubbish collector, power station electrician and who knows what else. Local Pete stayed for a good half an hour and gave us the Cooyar insider knowledge of who was who in the zoo, what the elephants had been doing this week and the how badly one particular baboon had behaved recently. Pete was a great bloke and a worthy bank of wisdom.
With dinner forgotten, only because I can’t remember what it was, we settled into a freezing night. We were cosy in the van as were Sue, Trevor and Henry in theirs. The morning revealed a good drizzling of frost across most of the landscape giving a magical vista as steam rose off the creek and paddocks nearby.
Henry headed over to have morning slurp from his water bowl but pulled up short when he realised the top 10 or so millimetres was frozen solid. Sue was able to extract a plate sized ice slab from the top, before Henry was yet again free to drink his fill.
With work beckoning Tuesday, G and Pete packed up just after lunch on Monday and headed home. Nothing eventful altered our plans other than a visit to the Blackbutt Bakery for a magnificent pie and vanilla slice. So magnificent, we ordered a couple of roadies for dinner that night.
Yes it was short. Just an overnighter. Yet this swinging visit was just what we needed. We’ll be back again.