Autumn leaves.

Friday 20th  to  Wed. 25th May.

      Shepparton in Autumn is very pretty with lots of tree lined streets.  The autumn leaves are scattered everywhere like a golden brown carpet.  Messy but nice.

Autumn leaves Shepparton.



          We managed to catch up with lots of family and a few friends here over the last few days which has been lovely but the time has come to move on.  Tomorrow (Thurs.) we are heading to Bendigo where we  hope to spend a couple of days having a look around.

Shepparton.

Thurs. 19 th May.  We woke to a very cold frosty morning in Grong Grong.  Being a free park we did not have the luxury of electricity so no cosy heater to warm our toes this time.  After a quick breakfast and a little chat with the other couple (and their little dog) who also spent the night at the park, we headed off towards Shepparton. The car heater was a blessing.

Max chatting with fellow travellors at Grong Grong.

Their little dog named Pansy.

   We crossed over the border into Victoria, at Tocumwal, then stopped to have lunch at a park near Katamatite.  Katamatite is approx. 45 kms before Shepparton.



Memorial Park, Katamatite.

   Arriving in Shepparton we booked in at the Victoria Lake caravan park for about a  week, and got the very same spot that we had last year.  It is lovely to see that they have refilled the lake again.  It had been empty for a couple of years while they cleaned it and messed about.  However it looks great now.

                                         Lake Victoria, Shepparton (viewed from caravan park)

Part of Lake (viewed from road)

Information Centre at lake in Shepparton.

     These painted cows were near the Information centre, but there are many more dotted around Shepp.  We even spotted a Mermaid cow in one of the other parks but couldnt stop to take a photo as we had the caravan on behind. 















Oops I forgot.

Oops !!  I forgot to mention in my first post that we are travelling (with our caravan in tow) down through the Newell highway through central New South wales, to Shepparton in Victoria. Then if all goes well we will travel  west across Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia to Perth.
   Monday 16th May 2011.  After a pleasant night in the caravan park in Narrabri we headed off towards Dubbo, hoping to catch up with friends Pauline and Trevor who live there.  After several phone calls backwards and forwards we discovered that they were travelling a couple of hours behind us on the road to Dubbo.  They were coming back down from Brisbane.  They had been on a trip to New Zealand and had arrived back in Brisbane a couple of days ago.  We decided to stay 2 nights in Dubbo so we could visit with them the next day.

Our site at Dubbo Caravan Park.

   Wednesday 18th May.  The caravan park in Dubbo was very comfortable but we were amused to find that it was surrounded with a very high fence with double barbed wire on top.  We noticed other caravan parks with similar fences.  Apparently Dubbo attracts the rougher element that creates a security risk to travellers and locals alike.
   Dubbo is situated on the MacQuarrie River approx. 400 km north west of Sydney and home to the world renowned "Western Plains Open Range Zoo".
   Leaving Dubbo to continue our journey we had an uneventful day which ended in an overnight stop in a free park in a little place called Grong Grong which is about 20 km north of Narrandera.

Off on our trip at last!!

Hi everyone,  This is my first attempt at blogging.  Hope you dont find it too boring.

        Leaving home (Cooroy) Thursday 12th March, we wended our way through Beewah, Kilcoy, Esk and then on to Gatton.  Turning off just past Gatton on to Heiffer Creek Road, we found the free roadside camp, where we were to spend the night.  There were a couple of other caravans there for company and it was a lovely moonlight night.  Next day, as we drove to Goondiwindi, I couldn't help noticing the patches of prickly pear cactus along the roadside.  It is still a noxious weed in Queensland and was a great problem to the farmers.  I remember being taught at school (many years ago) about the CSIRO introducing a cactus eating beetle to the area to eradicate the problem.  However there are still isolated patches of it still around.

        We spent two nights at a caravan park in Goondiwindi, which gave us time to have a bit of a look around the town.  I thought the Victoria Hotel in the main street was an interesting building.

Victoria Hotel, Goondiwindi

                                              

     Also the we found the statue of the famous Queensland racehorse "Gunsynd" who came from this area.

"Gunsynd", the" Goondiwindi  Grey"

        The owners of the caravan park in Goondiwindi,  put on a barbecue dinner for everyone.  A lovely meal of barbecued fish, salad and chocolate pudding. Yummy! Wish I had taken more photos but I keep forgetting.
       Between Goondiwindi and Narrabri we saw cotton fields.   Scattered along the sides of the road were little puff balls of cotton which looked very much like snow.  In the fields we saw huge harvesting machinery and large bales of cotton covered with tarps waiting to be transported to the mills.
       Today Sunday, we drove to Narrabri and on to Wee Waa which didn't seem very impressive.  Max had a look through the museum there.  We didn't think either of the two caravan parks looked very inviting so we headed back here to Narrabri for the night.