Category: Adventures

Pleasantly surprised with the lack of cold in the town known for its fridge like climate, we woke at an alarm free hour and slowly got ready for the day.

A short drive of about 20 minutes had us firstly visiting the Storm King Dam for a look and a few ooohs and ahhs. Particularly we ahhed at transformation of this place. Having only ever seen it on TV when it was bone dry with water being trucked into town to sustain it, it was now full. Bird life had returned, deep green grass grew everywhere. The area was alive.

We cruised on for a bit, missed the turnoff to Girraween National Park, then came back. Given Girraween is hidden way out in the bush, it seems a good dollop of people seem to find it. The place was packed. We grabbed the last available car park, read the track signs, remained totally confused and set off. Today we would see the Pyramids.

Hats off to National Parks, their tracks are first class although not easy to follow. We trudged along at a brisk pace, side-tracking to the Arch, taking a few pics and kept going. More than a few rock steps greeted us as we began climbing. G noted that the steps were set just far enough apart that you used the same leg to step up each time. She was right, requiring a goose step every now and then to readjust save walking home like a lame duck.

Steps gave way to track, gave way to ‘holy big rock Batman’. At an obvious bail out spot complete with bench seat we looked up. In anyone’s language the rock in front of us was massive. Massive, totally dominant and bloody steep. Without a handrail or safety feature in sight, Peter set off following but a sporadically dotted white line towards the top. G sat contemplating what she would do with Peter’s fortune should he not make it back.

Peter trudged foot after foot ever up hill. He popped out above the chasmy thing to march across the face of a rock with only a 150m drop to rocks below for company. After about 20 minutes he emerged on top of the Pyramid to be greeted by stunning views. Stunning views and a balancing rock.

This balancing rock was no ordinary one. It was huge and balance on not more than one metre square of its base. People pushed it, lay under it, hugged it and basically played with it like it was their own. Peter could not help but think, that all of the massive rock falls in these areas happened at some time on one day in history. Do these people ever stop to think that for this balancing rock, today may be the day?

After sympathising with the bloke who was trying to console his wife because her legs were jelly with only half the journey done, Peter set off back down. The views were magnificent, the knees were on fire. By the time he got back to G, she had made friends with a growing group of people who agreed her elevation was enough for them.

Heading back to the car we did the somethingorother loop, passing around, over and through a beautiful creek with freezing cold water. We had a yarn to anyone who came out way and listened carefully to the accents each had. Peter got it horribly wrong though when he asked a Scottish gent if his accent was English. Whoops.

By now our stomachs were singing a might song with base rumbles setting the beat. Lady Google directed us to Jersey Girls. This tin shed is a quirky little place with horrible service just off the Warwick road from Stanthorpe. Its name however is a cracker as it is a cheese making enterprise. The reference to Jersey and girls is that of Jersey cows. A great play on words and a brilliant business name. We ate some nice cheese. G wined. Peter had a salty caramel hot chocolate with marsh mellows and cream. Poor service forgiven!

With not quite enough sugar swishing around in our bodies we jumped the highway to munch on home-made apple crumble and ice-cream at Suttons juice factory. It’s amazing what crossing a road does. The service was outstanding and friendly. The crumple equally so.

We waddled to the car. Moved out seats back a notch to fit and headed back to G-String. The afternoon pleasantly wore on with snoozes being in order.

As dusk set, we noticed the temperature start to dive. It must have had scuba gear on because it continued to dive and dive. Tonight would be cold. At least by sunshine coast standards. It could even get down to 20 degrees.

Despite the odd grain carrying B-Triple road train threatening to slide into bed between us, the night in the middle of the bush was peaceful and without drama worthy of A Current Affair.

Morning wasn’t welcomed with much zest leading to us finally heading towards Monte Cristo about 9.30am. As alluring as the name sounds ‘the Cristo’ turned out to be naught but the intersection of two major roads. Still we can now boost our stocks at a BBQ by nonchalantly mentioning the day we travelled to Monte. (That’s what us locals call it).

Goondiwindi was as Goondiwindi is. Frankly a really decent, vibrant large country town that welcomes visitors. G, as always, boosted the western economy by visiting at least seven shops for stuff we desperately needed and could not do without.

After coffee and better than decent scones we headed towards Texas. After heading towards Texas we did a u-turn in NSW and headed back towards Texas. First however we dropped into a weird metallic art set up on the side of the road just east of Gundi. Obviously some people have an over-abundance of skill and an equal measure of time to produce these structures. The results are quizzical and entertaining at the same time.

At stop at Yelarbon to photograph the painted silos followed. These are magic. We wondered a very long wonder as to how the artist mega-sized a small picture to its current dominant size. There is obviously some vision involved there. And a ship load of paint.

Inglewood was next, producing the worst pie of the trip. Soft, soggy and doughy it barely left the brown paper packet before it back flipped into the nearest bin. The rest of the town was spectacular. The entire town was freshly mown. Not a piece of rubbish to be seen and toilets that were not the makings of nightmares.

Texas. Yes not only have we been to Monte Cristo, but we have also been to Texas. Seasoned international travellers no doubt. Unlike the USA equivalent, this Texas was small, tidy and a place we will definitely spend more time in on another trip.

The road from Texas to Stanthorpe was a cracker. It climbed, twisted, turned, folded back, dropped into causeways and was plain fun to drive. Panther dug deep; really deep on some of the long hills. Steep and unrelenting they stretched the elastic between the black beast and G-String. Peter thought long and hard about how wonderful this road would be on a motorbike ridden with vigour. Vigour until the multiple signs warning of people being killed from animal strikes hit home. Fifteen in five years apparently. Three per year……..calculating the odds.

We ambled into Stanthorpe about threeish or a bit after and dutifully slowed for the school kids to cross the road to meet their lovely parents who dutifully parked in the No Standing Zones to pick up the little darlings. Our van park at the top of town advertised they were a 20 minute walk to town. After driving the long way out to it we were not sure which town they were referring too, but it wasn’t Stanthorpe.

We settled in. Peter met the Dashhound in desperate need of a date with Jenny Craig stationed within patting distance behind our van. The dog was just lovely. The owner a step to the weird side of just lovely. All was good in the granite belt world.

An hour or so later we went for a walk in the opposite direction to town happening upon a dead end near the show grounds, another dead end near the new housing estate and a hundred or so of the little school kids trying to kick a soccer ball. One such future star had the whole delayed reaction thing going on in the goal mouth. The ball would fly past and without fail the goalie would give no reaction at all until the ball hit the back of the net. At that exact point she would launch her substantial girth horizontally in an attempt to save a certain goal. You pay good money for entertainment like that at the Ekka!

G is still recovering from Peter cooking pork chops for dinner. Not that the chops were off or anything. Just the fact that Peter cooked. Tomorrow looks like a trip to Girraween National Park is on the cards unless Stanthorpe turns on the now very late cold snap.

Panther sat waiting a patient wait outside the new apartment. In real terms, totally unprepared for what lay ahead, she had been barley washed, quickly checked over, then thrown into towing duties. The recent house move had put car things on the backburner. Easter was upon us. Easter in the country at Roma was beckoning. G-String was hooked up and a willing partner for the journey ahead.

As far as adventure goes, Panther is a little underdone compared to Puma she had replaced last year. There is no adventure rattles, no adventure break downs, no yelling at passengers just to have a yarn. Everything just works in a most un-adventuresome style.

Accordingly Kilcoy flew past. Blackbutt popped up almost unexpectedly where the bacon and egg delicious went down a treat. Left at Yarraman and a few sentences later Dalby came into and went out of sight. We noted all roads appeared to be leading to Roma. Trailers with motocross bikes, trailers with mud dragsters, trailers with misbehaving kids strapped to the rear and after Chinchilla, three tools from the cutlery drawer.

Launching from the depths of the spoon drawer was Henrietta in her Hyundai, followed by her second son to her fifth partner in his soft top Perentie Landover, followed by a ring-in wannabe relative. All were driving at just over 80 km/h in the 110 zone. All within a redneck’s axe handle length of each other. Impossible to tolerate, impossible to overtake, our trip came to a crawl. Somewhere between backofnowhere and Roma Heights we wound Panther up and overtook in style. G gave each driver the ‘G’ stare as we motored by.

Roma was bursting at the seams. Cars everywhere, people flooding the streets and mums lunch. What’s not to like.

Saturday was the famed street parade. A fantastic affair. Good old time country entertainment viewed from the confines of the breakfast bar at whatever hotel it was. Police motorbikes, drag cars, school kids on floats, dancers, but unfortunately no goat races thanks to uneducated fools claiming animal cruelty or global warming or the dying Barrier Reef or some other rubbish excuse. Whatever, there is now at least twenty otherwise fully capable goats in Roma claiming unemployment benefits.

Family took up Saturday afternoon, as did Peter finding a couple of old cricket bats he remembered fondly. He packed them away in Panther ready for refurbishment in order his burgeoning over 50s cricket career continue to flourish.

Easter Sunday started with a visit to the now semi-famous Moreland’s nursery and café about 20ks north of Roma. Being a favourite of Peter’s mum, the food was fantastic, the plants as good as plants can get and the setting outstanding. Greeting us at the entrance was a group of ceramic dog statues. Two were obviously not with pulse, but the other being a black and tan mutt, had us guessing. Guessing to such an extent G was convinced this one, if it didn’t have a pulse, was the subject of some talented taxidermist. Convinced that it would willingly pee on the first tree it saw, if only it could walk!. Taken by its reality, G went so far as to warn the moving farm dogs that they should be wary, for one wrong move would have them stuffed…..literally. We enjoyed the rustic feel of the place and put it in the must visit any time we are back in Roma book.

Heading Somewhere:

An early morning training session for Peter at his sisters studio set up Monday nicely. Leaving Roma at about 9.30am we had no real plans other than to get to Texas or Inglewood or Stanthorpe either today or maybe tomorrow.

Panther purred along the highway between Roma and Surat, G-String in tow. Nothing had really changed since last time we had come this way a lot of years ago. Until……Woolshed Creek not far from Surat was almost a banker. The water was high and running fast. Trees submerged, water spread across paddocks and not a cloud in the sky. We were not sure where the water had come from, but it was a typical western Queensland dry flood. Water dumped hundreds of kilometres upstream making its way across the land giving new life and abundance.

Not to be outdone, the Balonne River at Surat produced more of the same, only bigger. The bridge on the outskirts of town provided the perfect vantage point. And the midges attacked!

This was obviously a planned attack. First the lookout pounced to make sure our flesh was the eating kind. Then in a flash his mates came in battalions from all angles. There was no retaliation possible. Running was the only strategy. Tactical retreat we will call it. Either way, we ran back to the relative security of Panther before dropping into town for a coffee.

The coffee was great, the yarn with the locals from Roma was equally so. We were assured the Cobb and Co Changing Station, now a gallery, was worth a visit yet forgot to visit until we were half an hour out of town.

We motored on mostly southish, before lunching under a tree at Meandarra and visiting this beautifully kept little town. We chose not to go to Bungunya, instead favouring a heading towards Westmar where we fuelled and had ice cream. Westmar ice-cream is worth the trip.

With the afternoon now wearing on and no hope of Texas, Inglewood or Stanthorpe popping up before midnight, we chose to find a gravel siding wherever we could. Ultimately we selected a solid gravel pit at Lundavra on the way to Billa Billa. With no traffic, our afternoon was one of solitude and relaxation. Just what we needed.

The reasons were two fold. Firstly we had not been away with G-String since our mid-year Western Australian sojourn, and secondly we desperately needed to see how Panther performed with the van in tow. With good friends Sue and Trevor, accompanied by ‘Henry the travelling dog’, urging us to join them for a week-end at Cooyar, we had both the motivation and the destination sorted.

Leaving afterwork on Friday afternoon, we soon realised that the trip would be a far less stressful one than if Puma had been the Choo Choo in front of this freight train. Panther powered down the highway, keeping up with other traffic and importantly, not holding anyone up. The real test would be the Peachester Range.

Tight, relatively steep and always heavily trafficked, the range must have been on a week-end away too. Panther hauled up the hill, not once dipping under the speed limit and pounced out of corners with authority. We were not disappointed.

Kilcoy came and went as Kilcoy mostly does, with the dreaded D’Aguilar Highway unfolding in front of us. As the afternoon wore on, so did our ever increasing hunger. Moore necessitated a stop at Tilly’s Cafe. Not much to look at from the outside; or the inside for that matter, Tilly’s is the bomb. For the princely sum of $12 we were served two full grown milk shakes lapping the top of huge containers and a medium chips.

Let’s put this into perspective. Not only were the chips the best we have ever eaten. Yes, I will repeat it, ‘the best we have ever eaten’, there was enough in the medium box to feed a mid-sized African nation. They were not the big ‘M’ fries that look as though need a good feed themselves, these were freshly cut out of gorilla sized spuds at the local sawmill.

We choofed on towards Blackbutt. The fabled range was nothing but a nonchalant pimple to Panther as we continued to work our way through the best chips we had ever eaten. As we entered and left Yarraman we realised that we had never seen the countryside so green. Recent rain had transformed what is normally a dismal brown landscape into a vibrant, lush, almost English setting. The change was inspiring and a good sign for the week-end ahead.

At about wine o’clock we dropped down into Cooyar, flicked left at the pub, then left again into the Swinging Bridge camp grounds. If Yarraman is usually brown and drab, Cooyar is usually doubly so. Not this week-end. The town was stunning. Green grass everywhere, creeks flowing and good friends waiting.

Henry saw us first. We are not sure what he recognised, but he welcomed us with a screeching bark, a scream and a rapid fire yap all wrapped into one. His little backside shook the rest of his body till finally a belly rub settled him down to an almost silent ‘I’m in heaven’ growl. Henry is always so happy to welcome us to his piece of Australia.

We sat, we talked, we enjoyed what is an amazing spot to camp. Cooyar has set about welcoming visitors. It has done so brilliantly.

We say we do it to support the local economy. Truth is we did not feel like making breakfast this Saturday, so ventured the few hundred metres across town to McCoys Cafe for a feed. Not before passing and having a wobble on the Swinging Bridge. So named as it is a walking bridge strung by wire rope across Cooyar Creek enabling the easterners to walk into town as opposed to driving the kilometre or so around the long way. As we stood in the middle, we had to question the journeys taken by those who chose to have a barrel full at the pub then took on the bridge in late night darkness.

Breakfast was up there with the best. Ex-GP motorcycle racer Gary McCoy has very successfully turned his hand to making one of the most succulent bacon and egg rolls in the land. Washed down with great tea and equally good coffee, we were set for the day.

Piling into Panther we headed towards an old rail tunnel that was apparently a great spot to visit. As we hit dirt we noted that Panther didn’t rattle, we could barely feel corrugations and we could still talk at a normal level. G was smiling a very happy smile.

We arrived at a fence with a gate seemingly in the middle of nowhere. A sign on the gate told us we were at the Muntapa Railway Tunnel. A bigger sign a few meters away told us that the tunnel took an army of people, a very long time to dig a very long tunnel so a very long train could find a way through a mountain. It said absolutely nothing about the mosquitos!

As we walked down to the mouth of the tunnel they started. A couple at first, then a few of their mates, then the whole mosquito clan all wearing their own Tartan, desperate to suck the blood from intruders. We quickened our step only to be run down. We zigged, we zagged, we slapped, we swore, but nothing could defer the onslaught. Bigger than small ponies, they galloped toward us stinging with authority through our shirts, pants and at one time I’m sure, my hiking boots.

Given the war we were fighting with nature, the tunnel visit was fleeting. We marvelled at it’s enormity. We looked for the bat colony living inside, but figured all the bats had been eaten by mozzies. We sped back to the car; but not before visiting the other end of the tunnel to be engulfed by the stench of bat poo.

Don’t get us wrong, we loved our visit to a hidden piece of Australian history, but the sanctity of Panther’s air-conditioning devoid of buzzing and biting was welcoming. We headed off with the in-car navigation and Google arguing which way was which, so ended up following our noses on dirt tracks till the tracks became roads, became bitumen, became Cooyar.

At sometime during the day. Honestly I can’t remember when it was in the order of things, we dropped into the usually dry falls at Maidenwell. With all the recent rain they were now a veritable level three dribble spilling into a stunning murky brown pool, beckoning us to strip down and take a dip. We didn’t. It would take another 10 inches of rain before that hole was washed clean enough for us to jump in.

Our afternoon was the way week-end away afternoons should be. We did not much. Being well practised now, we figured we did it pretty well. A BBQ at the pub went down well as we had a yarn to a few locals and a few new residents claiming to be locals. The band was equal to the best we’d ever seen in Cooyar, with entry tickets taking us back a few generations to a time we barely remember.

Sunday morning saw us injecting yet more funds into the economy at McCoys. The coffee was as it had been the day before as was the bacon and egg delicious.

About 11am Pete and G headed off, leaving Sue, Trevor and Henry to enjoy one more day in this little piece of paradise. We saw Yarraman come and go, Blackbutt halt our trip for some bakery delights and Kilcoy throw us a very nice pie.

The week-end away had done it’s job. We had genuinely relaxed away from house cleaning, mowing, washing and all the must do chores life necessitates. Cooyar had delivered in spades. We will be back.