Overland Australia

The girls woke us up early today as they were very excited to be going home and to see their Grandma and Granddad. Unfortunately it was raining pretty steadily this morning, as we didn't have far to go and Anna and I weren't in any hurry we decided to try and wait the rain out. After a few hours huddled under the small rear awning (the big awning wasn't setup) we had enough and the rain wasn't looking like it was going to stop anytime soon. We quickly packed up and were soon on the road home and we arrived at Greg and Lenore's house just before lunch, after lots of hugs and a quick chat we had to get back to work and setup the camper to dry it out and pulled all of our gear out of it so we could give it a good clean. The car and the camper are absolutely filthy and I am going to be kept busy over the next few days scrubbing everything to get rid of the mud, dust and dirt. We have made the difficult decision to sell our awesome camper as our future touring trips

Today was a day of chilling out and doing bugger all, we spent a couple of hours hanging out with the kids and discussing our trip and their favourite parts.  I can't believe its almost over with less than 200kms to travel to home and we are all experiencing mixed emotions. We are looking forward to returning home to see family and friends but we are going to really miss this travelling lifestyle that we have thoroughly enjoyed over the past 5 months. Late this afternoon we settled in around the fire and had our final happy hour together. Distance Traveled = 0 km Total distance traveled with camper = 39,324  km   Total number of nights in the camper = 291

We are only a couple of hours drive from home but we aren't really ready to go home yet… Anna and I agreed that we would be home by Friday the 16th as this is the last day of school for term 3 and we want to re-enroll the kids so they can return to school at the start of term 4. So we had a couple of days to burn and after consulting the maps and deciding the back roads would be better than travelling on the main highways we decided to make our way to one of our favourite campsites - Peach Trees in the Jimna State forest. This is the first time in 5 months that we will camp somewhere familiar, all of our other camps have been in areas we hadn't been to before. To get to Jimna we drove through Wondai and Murgon and took the Kilcoy - Murgon road which is a spectacular drive through farmland and state forests. When we arrived we noticed that the recent upgrades had been finished and the only thing left to do is to clean out and rebuild the swimming area which is set to happen

This morning we packed up and were on the road just before 10am, we stopped at a roadside rest area just outside of Injune for morning tea and then continued south to Roma. We had lunch at the bakery in Roma and grabbed a few supplies and diesel before continuing onto Chinchilla. We had an uneventful run  even though the roads here are much busier than what we are used to. I had found a free camp on Wiki camps near Chinchilla called Round Waterhole which seemed OK and we made our way there and was able to get a spot even though it was late in the day. Round Waterhole has no facilities and is pleasant enough, I'd say that the waterhole would dry up fairly quickly as it was fairly low even though there has been recent rain. Distance Traveled = 413 km Total distance traveled with camper = 39,078 km   Total number of nights in the camper = 289

This morning we packed our hiking back packs with our food for the day and filled our water bladders up and set off from camp just after breakfast. The weather this morning was much better and the cloud was quickly burning off to reveal a nice day for walking. Today we walked the main Carnarvon Gorge up to the Art Gallery which is a very large aboriginal stencil and engraving site, there is lots of information here which was great to help explain it all to the kids. I thought it was best to leave it to Anna to explain to the girls what the Vulva engravings of fertility meant... We left the Art Gallery and returned back down the main gorge track and found a nice little spot on the creek to have our lunch. From here we made it to the Amphitheater which was sensational and the girls entertained the other walkers by singing, the acoustics were great and I was very proud of them for having the courage to sing in front of a crowd. We back tracked along the main track until we got to the

We had planned to walk up Boolimba Bluff this morning but the rain had set in overnight and we had a very wet start to the day. As we ate our  breakfast it didn't look like we were going to get any walking done. Luckily the rain did stop and just after morning tea we set out to walk along Mickey Creek into Warrumbah Gorge  which was spectacular, if you do this walk you will come to a sign that informs you the "formed" track has ended keep walking past this and you enter a very narrow gorge that you can scramble up for a few hundred meters. After this walk we drove back towards camp and stopped in to do the short walk to Baloon Cave which is the location of a small aboriginal art site and worth the short walk in. We had lunch back at camp and later in the afternoon we drove out to the Rock Pools to hopefully spot some Platypuses, when we arrived we found a family swimming in the water so decided to walk along the track beside the creek and find some quieter pools. Unfort

Last nights storm blew itself out and we didn't get much rain overnight which was great as we didn't have to pack up a wet camper.. We passed through Clermont and Emerald and decided to stop just outside of Springsure at a rest area that overlooked the Minerva Hills National Park and the stunning ranges in this area. As our luck would have it the weather closed in and we had to huddle in a shelter to have lunch while it rained. We got to Rolleston and filled up with diesel and then continued south to the turn off to Carnarvon Gorge, most of the road in is sealed with only the last 11km to Takarakka Bush Resort being dirt. The rain  over the last couple of days had turned the dirt to mud and the car and camper got a nice coating of muck. The drive into the gorge is very beautiful at the moment with everything being so green, unfortunately the clouds obscured some of our view of the ranges but the clouds and rain had their own special  effect. After checking in we had to give

This morning we drove the 70 odd kilometers into Charters Towers and filled up with diesel and grabbed a few more supplies, it was our first visit to Charters Towers and I was surprised at how big this center is. The country around these parts is very green at the moment due to recent rains and it was nice to see this normally dry area in a different light. Today was basically a transit day with nothing special to report, we stopped at the Cape River rest area for lunch and then continued south through Belyando Crossing onto a free camp not far from the turn off to Twin Hills. This free camp has no facilities but is very large and we were able to set up camp at the back of the area well back from the road. Unfortunately the clear skies from this morning have been replaced with the overcast conditions that have been a constant for the last few days and it looks like we may get more rain overnight. Distance Traveled = 312 km Total distance traveled with camper = 38,217 km  

It rained on and off throughout the night and the camper was very wet this morning, luckily the rain held off for a couple of hours and the camper was fairly dry when we packed up. On the way back down the range we stopped at a lookout that had views out to the coast and the southern part of Hinchinbrook Island but the overcast conditions hampered our view. We did plan to camp at Big Crystal Creek as it was recommended as a great swimming hole but the cool wet weather we are having isn't really ideal for swimming so we pushed on south and bypassed Townsville heading towards Charters Towers. We arrived at the Reid River free camp by mid atfernoon and decided this was as good a place as any for an overnight stop. Reid River is just off the highway and as a result there is quite a lot of road noise but otherwise its OK as far as free stops go and has flushing toilets and non potable water. The weather cleared in the afternoon and we were able to sit out after dinner and stare at t

We had more showers overnight and the camper was pretty wet this morning, unfortunately the weather wasn't looking good and it was soon raining again. We quickly packed up and hit the road back towards Tully, we drove past the big Gumboot yesterday and we stopped this morning so the girls could have a look. Tully's claim to fame is being Australia's wettest town with the highest average rainfall figure of 4.17m of rain each year, hence the Big Gumboot. We made our way south to Cardwell and stopped at the Hinchinbrook lookout unfortunately we couldn't see much due to the low cloud covering most of Hinchnbrook Island. We had been told about a nice little swimming hole called Spa Pool located on the Cardwell Forest drive and took a small detour to check it out. The water level was a little low and it was definitely too cold to swim but its a beautiful little spot and would be an awesome place to stop on a warm day. From here we made our way to Ingham where we topped up

The wind really picked up this morning and it’s the strongest its been since we left Karumba, the skies were dark too and we decided to quickly pack up to avoid getting the canvas wet. We had one final stroll along the beach and then said our goodbyes to our neighbours and hit the road towards Tully Gorge. On our way we stopped in at Mission Beach to restock our supplies and I booked our campsite for the national park. We were soon passing through Tully on our way to the gorge and we started to drive through showers as we made our way through banana plantations and then back into the rainforest. The camp ground at Tully Gorge is a nice open space fringed by rainforest with beautiful luscious green grass, if it wasn't wet I'm sure the girls would have rolled around on it as its been so long since we have seen such thick green grass. We quickly set up and spent the afternoon exploring the surrounds in between showers of rain, the river is pretty low and one of the other campe