Toowoomba to Coonabarabran

Hi All,

Yes we make it Melbourne for christmas. Some photos of November on the road.

Christmas @Jayco Owners Club rally @ Ballarat. Marilyn & Karen Louden

Issac using the Cb in the truck with Alex suppervising

Parks Telescope

Vintage cars @ Inverell Motor Musuem

Bird in tree @ Moree

Qantas plan landing over park @ Moree

Views of the Warrumbungle Ranges NSW

Siding Springs Observatry

Short walk in the bush, very hot & dry

some of the strange rock formations on the walk

Bye for now see you all soon Marilyn & Ian

Toowoomba

Hi all,

We spent about a week in Toowoomba & just loved the town, on arriving on the Friday we had the fridge fixed again "thermostate" this time.

One of many beautiful old building "old court house"

The Flag pole is large & very impressive.

Compass & the Picnic Point the views here are great, so are the meals. We spent most of Saturday with my cousin. We also did the tourist drive round the important places, got ourselves lost & went up a 4x4 track that was not on the map guide, but had lots of fun. 

Me at the flag pole

Toowoomba has the most beautiful Japanese gardens, lots of peace.

Some of the wild life of the gardens "Bats"

Turtles in the pond

& many water birds

Ian & I at Highfield just north of Toowoomba. We went up for the drive. Great Patchwork shop in the back ground, the chocolate cafe is good too. We also went to the Southern Cross Windmill museum which was interesting.

Coal train in valley below lookout on the way back into town.

Coach in Cob & Co Mesuem which is excellant & well worth the visit

Outside of Cob & Co is a windmill display many different windmills

This Jacerandra in the national rose garden was just perfect. 

On our last day in town we went to Ipswich to see the National Railway Musuem. This has got to be the best of it type, so many engines, tour of work shops etc. the workshops have been there since 1865 some off the origonal buildings are still in use today. 

Thomas the tank engine was park in the workshop waiting to go out on Sunday

We left Toowoomba in the middle of rain storm that started on the way back from Ipswich.

Gympie to Toowoomba

Township of ESK

View from look out @ ESK

Wivenhoe Dam

View of wild life on Wivenhoe Dam

The drive from Gympie to Toowoomba was quite uneventful. We shot down the freeway & took the turn off for the Australia Zoo, thought we would have lunch in the car park. Ha Ha Ha the only one we saw was small & full of cars, so we continued on & had lunch @ a wayside stop near Kilcoy, very steep winding road to that point. The rain started after we left our lunch spot on & off the rest of the way to Esk. 

The huge flag pole @ Toowoomba

We stopped in Esk for a couple of days. The park was lovely, large, treed & green with a huge rock outcrop behind & a little creek beside it. Just as we arrived the weather turned & it started to rain, the down pour lasted for hours, luckerly we had the  awning out but little else. We went riding & walked all round town. The town has a beautiful Patchwork shop which I enjoyed some time in. Nice places for coffee.

Somerset Dam wall near Esk

Bridge over an arm of the dam, you can't camp here due to the Blue Green Alge in the water

Really nice coffee shop across the road from the patchwork shop

We moved onto Toowoomba after washing the awning due to the bats (mess) flying over every night. This was a really nice place to stay & will next time we pass this way.

Rockhampton to Gympie

Hi all,

The trip from Rockhampton to Gympie was a nice drive in the heat. Left Rocky for an overnight at Gin Gin but we made that by lunch so proceeded onto Gympie.

Resident Rainbow Lorikeet at the Gympie Caravan Park he can every day for a snack on the tree.
We encounted this large load after passing a 7mt load which closed the road to let the traffic pass, this one was a Locomotive on a low loader with 12 duel wheels on either side, the truck behind had the locomotive doggies, this made one long load. The Locomotive truck driver told a cop that it was 170 ton so if he would like to start it again he would pull over for the following traffic. Going out off Gin Gin up hill he had to stop as the load moved on the bend. We stopped for lunch and got this photo of it passing.
This is us passing the load up hill, I was quite happy with the shot through the windscreen.
In Gympie we had SnowFlake (truck) serviced and did a bit of looking around.
The marina at Tin Can Bay, lots of very nice boats, we missed the dolphin feeding as it was at 8am, we had lunch in the cafe at the marina.
View of Wide Bay from the beach @ Tin Can Bay
More of the marina, left side has transportable homes that are let for holidays & quite expensive to purchase but the Caravan is much better.
We went on the RedRattler train to the Mary Valley, this valley was under thret of being a dam for Brisbane. The yellow marker shows the level that the water would reach.
The Mary River from the train, quite a pretty river but not a lot of water in it.
Turning the train engine @ Imbil, we had lunch @ the pub.
Rail way station @ Kandanga, which had a market for the passangers on the way back. half way to Imbil, 
How the road worker work in Gympie, note the umberella's on the ashfelt layer.
This is what happens when a 4.8m high roadtrain meets a 4.6m high bridge. It broke, there are plenty of signs before the bridge but this driver new better & went straight through.
Imbil from the look out. We had a great day on the train & drive a few days latter.