Lake Blowering aka Blowering Dam

After 4 days at Weddin Mountains,we headed south towards the Victorian border. We passed through Young hoping for an early season of cherries. No such luck. We saw cherry trees with green or at best orange coloured fruits.

Lake Blowering

We arrived at Lake Blowering, in a state forest 50km from Tumut. This is snowy river country. The rain hit just as we were preparing dinner. With the rain, came gusty winds. It was a sight watching the storm over the lake. It rained on and off from evening till the next morning. Then the sun came out to play just before lunch. We decided to stay another day and enjoy a lazy day inside.

The sun is out!

Weddin Mountains

The campground in the park is called Ben Hall Campground. Its a nice area with facilities. There are a few walking tracks from the site.

Weddin Mountains 

Our campground is called Ben Hall campground at Weddin Mountains National Park. From here, there are a few walking tracks, which we did for a couple of days.

View from Eualdrie Lookout 

Add caption

The first trail we did is to Eualdrie Lookout, about 9km return. We also went to Peregrine Lookout, 900m further, where we met a school group from Cowra. The kids hiked from the other side of the mountains to camp at Ben Hall. In the end, we did about 11km walk, which is the furthest I have done for a while.

traffic jam ahead on way to Grenfell

Onward Again

We finally had the Podd sorted after a week and half. On the road again. 

Our first destination, Parkes. Guess what is the biggest and only attraction here?

Hints: NASA, Neil Armstrong, Moon....

Answer: Radio Telescope or famously known as The Dish, featured in the movie starring Sam Neil. The Dish played an important part in the moon landing as it was used to beam the pictures of Armstrong walking on the moon. There are 3 things that I have always wanted to see, Mount Rushmore, Punxsutawney Phil and The Dish. I have covered them all, Yay..

Our campground is in Weddin Mountain National Park, near Grenfell. Nice site with toilets and BBQ. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to light fires although there are fire pits around. Must have been a recent change as there were burnt wood and collection of wood around our fire pit.

Short Break

Due to the unfortunate situation with the Podd, we are stuck in Dubbo. Hence a short break to our travel.

Making the most of it, we spent a couple of hours kayaking the Macquarie river. The river itself doesn’t look fantastic, brown and murky. It was still good to get out and about.

Lucky or Unfortunate????

Today has been good and bad. The bad news.... the tyre fell off the van on Newell Highway on our way to Parkes.

The good news?

- happened in a big city of Dubbo. We were only 20km from the city instead of in woop woop 

- the van did not overturn

- TJ managed to stop slowly and safely on the side of the road

- we waited only about an hour for the tow truck

- weather was sunny but not too hot

- we had insurance cover

Dubbo

Arrived in Dubbo and checked into the Discovery Caravan Park near the zoo. It was a convenient location to the Taronga Western Plain Zoo. Its a big zoo and you can ride bikes around. Its about 6km around the zoo. I must say that it is quite an impressive zoo with a lot of exotic animals.

We also caught up with one of TJ's friends from his old army days.

The Dubbo Gaol

Farewell for Now Queensland

While we want to continue exploring QLD, we have to bid farewell and head south due to the early heatwave. After stopping in Bourke, NSW to see the Historic Cemetery and some groceries, we proceeded to Nyngan. We finally escaped the heat! 

Our free camp is on Ducks Creek. We were the only ones here, which means that we don't have to set up our shower screen! The nice weather did not last long although we did get 2 nights of camp fire. On the 3rd day, it rained the whole day. We decided to stay put for another night and spent the whole day indoor watching movies.

Swanvale Jump Up

We spent an extra night in Cooper Creek after T and family left. It was pleasant enough for another night of camp fire. I cooked my first damper of the trip. It was a bit salty but we still ate it all. Another plus was our camp neighbour, Brian gave us some yellowbelly cooked with batter. It was better than the fish from the shops. We also cooked "Vernon", the yabby I caught a couple of days before.

We headed out towards Stonehenge and looked around Wellford NP for possible camp site. It was way too hot and decided to proceed to Swanvale Jump Up. A free camp with a view. Unfortunately the temperature made it really uncomfortable for us as well as the bees, flies and mozzies. We left very early in the morning without coffee or breakkie.

We drove to Longreach but decided that it was just too hot to stay another night. We made the decision to drive south, as far south as possible. After TJ's photos at the Qantas Founders Museum, we drove to try to outrun the heat. Finally stopped at Cunnumulla after 6pm and parked at Hotel Cunnumulla. Its free to park the night if you eat or drink at the hotel. While its cooler than Swanvale, it was still uncomfortable to sleep.

Cooper Creek Windorah

We left Roma and the 40 degrees heat after 4 days and headed towards Windorah. The plan was to stop at Cooladdi, Queensland's tiniest town with population of 4. From the write-up, it seemed that there is a cool camp site near Quilberry Creek and the Foxtrap Motel is THE place to stop to have yarn with the locals while you get directions from them to the watering hole camp. We arrived, went in but was disappointed. The pub was run down, not air conditioned and the lady wasn't too friendly nor forthcoming with any information. We left and drove another couple of hours to Quilpie.

It was in Quilpie that we had our first wet night/day. It rained the whole night and was still pouring when we left. After an hour or so, we got sunshine again.

Cooper Creek Camp with T and family

 Our destination is called Cooper Creek Campground in Windorah. This is where we met a former colleague, T. We camped next to Cooper Creek and threw in our yabby net. Got our first blue yabby. Not enough for dinner but I would still call it surf & turf since we are having roast beef!

We did a 12km nature drive in Windorah with T and family. Also visited the solar farm by Ergon Energy which supplies the town of 80 people with their electric.

Solar Farm at Windorah