The winter journey to West Australia begins

We set off from Canberra for winter away, aiming to get to the Murray River for our first night.

We camped at Quick's Beach near Barooga which was described in our older Camps book as in the Murray River Regional Park which allows dogs.  In the meantime it has unfortunately changed its status to a National Park which does not allow dogs. We stayed anyway and luckily no ranger came to evict us.

Here is our Winnie back in harness.

House boats on the Murray.

A Murray paddle steamer taking tourists around.

Echuca historic port.

Another nice camp spot on the Murray, Gunbower Creek near Koondrook.

Hogwash Bend, near Cadell.  So much for social distancing.  RVs cheek by jowl.  We kept well away.

Toorongo Falls, Victoria

After several months we were finally delivered a new gearbox.  We then had to take Winnie for a test drive. We decided to visit the Struiks in Glen Waverley and the Thomsons in Healesville. On the way south we detoured through Beechworth and the Milawa cheese factory before overnighting at a nice campsite at Edi on the King River. The two family visits were most enjoyable and also gave us a chance to see the various renovations.

In between we travelled out to Toolongo Falls near Noojee. The campsite was right beside the Toolongo River which had lots of icy water flowing rapidly through the valley. Great way to cool off on a day when the temperature was near 40 degrees.

Shows Winnie at the campsite.  We, and one other vehicle were the only campers there.

There was a 5km round walk to see both the Toorongo Falls and the Amphitheatre Falls.

An ignominious return to Canberra

Sadly, Winnie let us down badly on the very last day of our winter sojourn.  Just as we passed Gosford on the hilly up and down road the gears started acting up and it seemed we had lost 6th gear. As we progressed through Sydney it seemed that 2nd and 4th were also noisy and we consulted transmission specialists by phone. Andrew was hoping that the remaining three gears, 1, 3 and 5 would allow us to get home but alas, just at the Campbelltown turn-off, 5th gear also gave up the ghost and we were stuck.

We had to be transported all the way to Canberra.

Had we not been facing departure overseas for two months in five days time, we would have had the insurance people get us to a repair service centre in Sydney somewhere. With the car they would have provided we would have driven on to our home destination in Canberra and returned to Sydney to pick up the truck when it was ready.  As it was, we had many things with us that we needed to take overseas, so we decided it was more convenient (although much more expensive) to be towed all the way home.  On the next available working day we will once again have Winnie freighted to a transmission repair shop locally and repaired while we fly off to Scandinavia.

Morayfield - almost like a farm stay

We are doing our last house sit this winter and we are among a number of animals which we really like.  The two dogs, Kipper and Hendrix are ball mad and they would like it if we threw the ball for them all day long.  Maxi has proved herself well able to cope with having bigger dogs around her and whilst she is not friends with them, she tolerates having them around.

Kipper is the older and cleverer of the two dogs.  He is a confident dog and he has made himself quite comfortable on our bed.  He also sometimes sleeps on Maxi's blanket.  Basically, he considers himself the cock of the roost.

Talking of roosts, there are four hens who lay lovely tasty eggs.  This photo shows Maxi, quite happily sniffing around the hen pen.  The chickens are allowed out of their pen for a about an hour each afternoon so they can graze on nice grass.  If any of them get a little lost in the very large yard, Kipper will helpfully round them up if we ask him to.  He does this without hurting the chickens.

Belle is a former race horse and she is lovely.  Like all horses, she loves her food and she likes an extra apple, a carrot, a corn cob or even the corn husks.  It is really satisfying not to waste any food scraps as either the chickens or the horse will eat all edible food stuff that is excess to requirements.  Here, we have little wet rubbish as I forgot to mention, there is also a worm farm for the food scraps the chickens and the horse don't want.

As well as the animals, there is also a nice bridge club at Caboolture with bridge sessions three times a week so our social life is also catered for.  The Caboolture library is a nice one too and as we did in Shailer Park, we use it on a regular basis.

After a hard day's bridge, feeding all the livestock, etc, here is Nikki relaxing in front of the TV with the dogs.

Rob and Denny, who are staying at their Bribie Island holiday home where we were 3 months ago, came for lunch with Denny's sister Beverley.  It was a lovely sunny day and Andrew and Rob carried the table and chairs out onto the grass.  You can see the two big dogs, Kipper and Hendrix, in the photo but the two small ones, Maxi and Bella are out of range.  Nevertheless, all the dogs had a lovely day.  We even let the chooks out and all the livestock were wandering around quite happily.

We spotted a couple of kangaroos in the horse's paddock and I was quick enough to capture kangaroo and horse in the same frame.

We Canberra city folk are getting our dose of animals at this very pleasant house sit.  All the animals are a joy.  The dogs with their incessant ball chasing, the horse with her lovely nature and the chickens who provide our daily eggs.  This is better than a farm stay by far.

This will be our last memory of Kipper and Hendrix with Kipper's friendly paw over Hendrix's shoulder as they sleep on the couch.  Kipper often preferred our bed as the first photo showed but they also spent evenings with us as we tried to watch tv in the small space they left for us on the couch.  They exhausted themselves chasing after the ball as much of the day as they could persuade us to throw or kick it to them.

Shailer Park

We are now at Shailer Park, house sitting for a couple who used to live in Canberra and are visiting their daughter in the US (all very familiar) and Canada.  Benji, the lovely Golden Retriever is our charge and he and our little Maxi have developed a familiar but stand-offish alliance.  They stay and look after the house while we are out.

Benji is quite a big boy and he loves his walks.

He has also discovered Maxi's rope toys and he loves a tug-of-war with it.  When we come home from somewhere, both he and Maxi proudly bring us a rope each.  Very cute.

Mark and family spent a week in Byron Bay during the Victorian school holidays and Andrew expressed a desire to visit them there, so we went for part of the day and we had lunch together and a nice walk on the beach.

Andrew with Sean and Josh at Byron.







We finally went into Brisbane itself and visited the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) where the Margaret Olley exhibition is on as well as Bill Quilty's works.  Quilty was one of Margaret's numerous protegees.

Here is Andrew with Cathy and Ashton who are visiting from frosty Canberra.  We are at the GOMA cafe along the Brisbane riverfront.

A triptych of Olley.

There was a family setting at the gallery for children to draw their faces a la Quilty which Nikki had to try.  Here is her creation.

A nice old Queenslander in the city.

The former Treasury building which is now a casino.

The foyer with the chandelier which is in the form of two snakes intertwined.

There is a steak house restaurant in the casino and this is the showcase showing the various types of excellent Queensland meats.

The old windmill, built by convicts in 1828.  It was used both for grinding corn and punishment (as often the wind was not enough to run the mill and humans then did the turning).

Brisbane from the river.

We caught the ferry city-hopper which is a free service up and down the Brisbane River.

A visit to the Koala Sanctuary at Daisy Hill was also on the agenda.

The koalas, these adorable furry creatures, just sit there sleeping all day long while people come and admire them and take photos.

Wine tasting at Moffatt Beach

We went to a wine tasting at Jim Sutton's house in Queensland.  Normally, we go to his brother John Sutton's in Canberra for the wine tasting but as we are currently in Qld and we were playing bridge at Caloundra Bridge Club, Jim invited us to the tasting he and his wife Diane were holding.  It was good timing for us, on our way from Harvey Bay to Shailer Park so we accepted Jim's kind invitation and tasted some good wines and enjoyed excellent views.

Here we are at the tasting.

This is the Sutton's building at Moffatt Beach.

This is the view from their top floor apartment.  I have to say. this is the best view we have ever experienced at a wine tasting.  Diane would acknowledge that Ann Sutton is the superior caterer and Ann would also admit Diane's views are the best.  We are indeed lucky to enjoy both.





After we left the wine tasting we drove on towards Brisbane past the Glasshouse Mountains again and Andrew and Maxi went up to the Wild Horse Mountain Lookout where Andrew took these photos of the mountains once again.

A small panoramic view of the Glasshouse Mountains.  They are rather beautiful and well worth more photos.

A quick visit to Hervey Bay

We stopped off for a couple of days to stay with Marcel and Mattie, two bridge players originally from the Netherlands who now live at the Bay.

We also caught up with David Priol and his wife Gigi.  David is another bridge player whom I have known for many years.  He used to live in the Blue Mountains as did Marcel and Mattie.  They now all live at the climatically more pleasant Hervey Bay.

We had an excursion to Poona beach where Andrew took a photo of this osprey.  He was trying out our new Sony camera.

A shot of a clump of very attractive fungi on the forest walk to Lake Poona.

And some picturesque gum trees at the lake.