Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 5 - Lennox Head to Bowenville Reserve

An early morning walk around the park and across to Lake Argyle for the first of many photographs today. Unlike many of the days recently, the morning is still. The lake is rippleless except for the movement of a surf ski in the distance.

We walked to the beach and marvelled at the spray and the waves onto the beach. We contemplate a walk along the beach, but I have a catch-up meeting at 8.00am I am eager to make and we are bugging out around 9.00.

Initially we climb out of Lennox with a tanker tripping with us. It is all over the road, unable to control the swing from side to side. Silver Leader backs off and lets the potential accident in waiting go. We marvel that there is a highway patrol car on the on ramp to the motorway who, unless he was decidedly blind, must have been able to muse at the tanker, but did nothing about it.

Out of Lennox Head there are lots of sugar cane fields. If you did not know the area better, you would suggest this area is primarily agricultural, but the area is much more than that of course. Byron Bay, Tweed Heads and the Gold Coast are as much tourist destinations as they are anything else. The roads in this area are modern and when we bugged out, flowing well. Only a small bit of roadworks today, and we make excellent time. So good is the run that my fuel consumption for the first time on the trip dips below 20 litres/100kms (as low as 19.6)

We head toward Brisbane and when the view is not cane fields or houses the landscape is relatively green and lush. We turn onto Darren Lockyer Way and almost immediately the vista changes. The drought has well and truly taken hold. Except for the odd pocket of irrigation, the land is brown and bare.

Silver Leader took great amounts of joy the evening before from his 15.5 litres/100 kms fuel consumption yesterday. This he achieves because his total GVM is much less than ours. Even Forbsy has better fuel economy and again that is because of weight.

Into the Lockyer valley and onwards towards Toowoomba, the further we go the browner the scenery becomes. As we close in on Toowoomba there is a hill with a 1 in 10 grade which goes for some 3 kilometres. What was a 19.6 litres/100kms showing at the bottom quickly becomes 21.6 by the top of the hill. It didn’t help that I got caught behind 2 B-Doubles on the way up, unable to change lanes while at speed and restarted the gradient from almost a stand still.

Popping out on top of the hill, traffic lights early on in Toowoomba mean I catch Forbsy. It’s the designated time for lunch and because of the fortunes of the hill climb Silver Leader has jumped out of radio range (or so we think). Forbsy resorts to Siri and we quickly find out that Silver Leader is actually Silver Lost as his Tom Tom has decided to take an alternate route and he is struggling to work out where he is. The Cruiser GPS agrees with Forbsy’s Tom Tom and we pass through Toowoomba without “incident”. I say without incident, but it could have been so much more costly as this town has a red light camera on more traffic lights than it doesn’t!

The haul up the hill, often stuck behind trucks or vans like us, must frustrate many drivers and they apparently take it out on the streets of the town in a vain bid to catch up time. Also, I suspect a very good revenue raiser – but then you might need to be a cynic to think that wouldn’t you?

Finally back in touch with the Silver Leader, he has found himself in the right place and has decided on a truck station for a luncheon repast. We pull in and Forbsy notices a public weighbridge and decides to give it a go. There are green lights, red lights and “OK” lights but nothing that gives you an actual weight of your vehicle. Them’s the breaks. We congregate in the car park and break out the toaster and have toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches. The girls wander up to the shop and grab a cup of tea.

All done and we are back on the road for what is only a short distance to our night destination.

We pull off the highway and travel towards some trees. Such is a free camp site I suspect. When we drive in there is a vast expanse of land beside a lovely creek. The land is bare but that is the drought for you. Population is sparse but all the “good” sites by the creek are taken so we decide on a spot not too far from the spartan amenities (we still haven’t commissioned the toilet in the van) and park. I have some work to do for Rotary so get into that while the others go exploring.

On their return there is talk of a platypus in the creek and signs suggesting there are perch and cod in the creek but eating is a no, no as the run off from local mines and air force bases may have contaminated them. What’s the point of fishing if you aren’t going to eat them…. ?

339 kms today and except for the last 40 or so kilometres all divided road making driving relatively easy. Dinner will be our first barbeque. Steak and salad. We peel and boil lots to make mashed potatoes and potato salad, needing to use up all our fruit and vegetables before we cross the border into Northern Territory. Here the sunset is particularly spectacular. Along with the platypus we see our first kangaroos, moving the late afternoon sun and getting ready to become road hazards in the early evening. At dinner Silver Leader tries to entice a possum into a piece of lettuce without success. The possum does a complete circumference of our vans during our dinner.

The Missing Link (our 4th van that was actually unable to join us) has been ignoring my texts of the trip so far. Would you blame him knowing we are all rubbing it in that they could not be with us. We call him just to ensure the sledging is getting through and we have a great conversation over dinner about the tribulations of his van and the need for re-wiring that just is not happening. The frustration in his voice is more than evident. He is dropping in on the site tomorrow – we muse we might hear of a van sales yard being demolished by an enraged Missing Link tomorrow night.

8.00pm and we are looking to turn in. The van has full TV capabilities as well as HDMI connectivity for Foxtel Go through our laptops, but we are yet to get it out of its box. I suspect it might be a long way into the trip before we do.

We had started with a pretty serious plan for the trip. Because Missing Link has had to stay behind his 14-foot boat is now not available for fishing. His total GVM, Dodge Ram, Van like ours and the boat is something less than 9 tonnes. He actually needs a truck licence to drive it and he HAS to dive into all the weight checking stations. Without the boat (yes the guys are all mad keen fishing folk) King Ash Bay becomes a hit and miss affair. We could save three days by not venturing in and use them for extra days exploring say the Bungle Bungles or getting a blue water charter out of Darwin.

We are nothing if not flexible and that’s the way you need to be on tour. If say, the wind comes up you need to be able to simply sit it out without concern. Whilst Silver Leader and Forbsy both have time issues, they are not such that we can’t add and subtract as we see fit.

So free camping. An exercise in control. We only use them , if we have to, and then in the daylight to conserve battery charge. Rather than the electric hot plate we move to the gas and tomorrow’s showers might be more of a simple wash over. Having said that, tomorrow night is at a camp where there is water so we could shower without too much of an eye on the water gauges.

What was a balmy first arrival here in Bowenville (as opposed to Toowoomba which was very chilly at lunch time) turns cold very quickly as the sun goes down and a very slight zephyr of wind springs up and because of the drought, outside fires are frowned upon, although we notice one or 2 in the park. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 5 degrees in the morning and 27 at our destination. Might go the shorts and run to the air-conditioning in the car after a sleep in allows for the sun to do its bit.

So far we have seen all sorts, yet the expectation of tomorrow and the day after that excite all.