Day 28 all over Queensland & NSW
Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 02:50AM Apologies for no blog yesterday, I was mentally exhausted! We had a few close calls with the floods.... well not really close calls but just a few occasions where we could have been stuck in Qld for days while the water went down.
Let me take it from my perfect day the other day, after slipping & sliding through the mud we headed to a place called Theodore, (Ted for short) and decided to try to get to Miles, via Taroom. When we left Theodore there was a sign across the road saying “Road closed” but it did not say where it was closed, SO Ness & I decided to go for a drive & see exactly where it was closed. We drove & drove and did not see much water, now Taroom is 90km from Theodore, so you can imagine when we got to 75km & still did not see water we were getting excited as we thought we would get to Taroom & then on to miles.
WRONG!..... with about 10km to go we came across a flooded river that was deep & across the road. And I mean flowing fast & deep. You would be hard pushed to get across in a boat never mind a car!
So that meant we had to backtrack 80km to get back to Ted..... Bugger!
Anyway it was late when we got back to Theodore, so we decided to stay there for the night, we drove through town & everything was closed except the pub. We kept driving & came across a park with toilets & a couple of other vans were parked nearby. Perfect we thought & found a place to park down the road a little and settled in for the night.
Woke up the next morning & our first words were “SHIT”....we looked out the window and the water was 2 meters from the van. Needless to say we packed up & were on the road within 20 minutes, the local council guy came past & said to us if you are planning to leave town you better go now. This town has now been cut off for the last 24hrs & probably will be for the next 3 days..... good thing we got out when we did.
To get to our next stop we normally would have only had to travel 240km, but because of road closures & flooding we ended up travelling 700km extra.
So there is our travelling woes, we eventually made it to Cobar tonight where we have met up with Phil from Sydney, so Ness is cooking us all dinner & we will catch up on stories.
A few funny & interesting things we have seen this trip, lots of wildlife, because of the floods they are looking for higher ground & often head across the road to get there. We nearly hit another 2 echidna’s, Kangaroos, Wallabies..... and a huge eagle... this was amazing, it was sitting on the road eating road kill & a car came the other way, it flew up but directly into our path, luckily I had slowed down & it missed the top of the van by inches. Saw several turtles on the road but Ness would not get out & move them!
Some of the towns we travelled through were interesting too, we had to pinch ourselves to make sure we had not been transported back in time with some places.
Have any of you ever been through Walgett, I used to go there a couple of times a year when I lived in Gunnedah, we used to take off for weekends & go to Moree, Walgett & then drive across back to Gunnedah. Walgett is exactly the same today as it was 20 years ago! I reckon even the shops are the same!
Ness will post some pics of our travels the last day or so, so make sure you have a look at some of our adventure.
We also took some video footage of some of the creek crossings, we will post it to you tube & give you the link in a future blog.
Ok have to go, got a couple of beers to drink & have to get to know Phil.
Goodbye, & if you cross a creek get your partner to walk through first!
James
Reader Comments (3)
You were right about Walgett - It looks the same as when I was there pig chasing in 1989, we actually went through the main street at midnight one night to take our pigs to the chillers and there was a riot in the main street - complete with petrol bombs!!!!!!!!!!
I got out of there real quick.
we have nearly moved in the new house - I just have to share this quote from Brad with you both,as Sandy and I thought it was the funniest thing we have ever heard.
he was in the outside spa and after pressing all the buttons he couldn't get it to work properly so Sandy started reading the manual out to him and he said
" I will get Vanessa to show me how it works, she worked in the spa industry for years!"
I think he pictured Vanessa with a toolbelt installing spa's LOL!
Can relate to your travels guys; we've been through Walgett too and our lasting impression was the bars on almost every shop window! We've also camped at Theodore (in more favourable weather!) and at Dingo!!! We actually had a memorable night there with a young family camping. We set up our TV outside and played videos for the kids while sitting around their BBQ. We had the only site with a cement slab and power - for $5 per night (we actually stayed two niights and did some walking in the nearby national park).
We also camped at the old resevoir at Cobar - it was bone dry then - bet it's wetter now.
Did you go through Burren Junction (with the famous Buirren Bore)? That IS a memorable place - we wound up spending 23 nights there!
Travel safe,
N&M
Treat it as a compliment Ness, I don't know many girls that can explain the funtions of a spa bath !!
P.S. Walgett looks like my kind of town ;-)