Stockton Beach, 2010

September 24th, Travelled to Stockton from Tamworth, via the New England Highway. What a trip, very windy road and not very smooth. Val suffers from car sickness, at the best of times, and topped up with the uneven roads and a lunchtime Big M “chicken wrap” with a sauce that doesn’t agree with her stomach, put that all together, and she was not a well girl on our arrival at Stockton Beach Tourist Park.

September 26th, Val perked up a bit to-day, so we went to visit our good friends, Joan & Robert, at Cardiff and picked up our mail. We all had a great meal at the Cardiff Panthers Club and a flutter. We had a small win on the pokies, so we had an enjoyable evening.

September 27th, Went to Salamander Bay to put a few things into our storage shed and take other things out that we needed. We were amazed at the increased size and layout of the Recycling Centre now. You could spend hours there. We had lunch at the Salamander Shopping Centre and then a drive around Nelson Bay before going back to Stockton. To-morrow we leave for Sydney, to catch up with the Family.

Tamworth, 2010

September 14th, We had a wet trip to Tenterfield to-day, with a stop at Warwick for lunch at The Palace Hotel. At Tenterfield we booked into Craigs Caravan Park for 1 night. The rain had stopped but it was very wet under foot.

September 15th, We moved on to Tamworth and booked into Austin Tourist Park (TT) for 9 nights. We had a nice lunch at The Galloping Gourmet in Uralla and we were impressed by the dressed dummies outside some of the shops along the main street.



September 18th, We have been chilling out and adjusting to the temperature change over the last few days. The overnight temps. have been 4deg. except last night which was a lovely ZERO deg. Brrrrrrrrr. Unable to stand it any longer I had to find our little fan heater to-day or else, go and buy one. Happily we found it and now can be comfortable at night.



September 19th, We went into Town to check out the Peel Street Markets. All the stalls were along the very wide footpaths outside each shop front and had a good range of goods for sale. Val bought some herbs and tomato plants as she has the “I need a garden” bug. We did a bit of shopping, had to buy potting mix and pots for Val’s new garden. After a quick lunch we headed off to the Botanical Gardens. The Gardens looked to be on the side of the hill and not impressive, so we decided to give it a miss and went next door to the Victoria Park Model Railway and had a train ride. It’s run by a dedicated group of volunteer model train enthusiasts. We enjoyed our ride, made us feel like kids again.



September 20th, Had to go into the shops again this morning, so drove up to the Oxley Park Lookout, 591 metres above sea level. The view was fantastic.



September 21st, This morning we had a visitor, sitting on the front drawbar of the Van was a very contented “Green Frog”, sunning himself. Val watered her garden and he never moved. We went to the Big Golden Guitar which is an Information Centre that houses a Country Music Wax Museum. The wax models are so lifelike and well displayed. An excellent display and well worth a look. Going back into Town we went to the Art Gallery and was surprised to find they had the 2010 Archibald Prize entries on display, including the “Winner”. Some we liked, some not, but we enjoyed the experience.

September 22nd, We went to Nundle to-day to look it over. It was recommended to us last time we stayed here but we didn’t get time to go then. Nundle was a Town built around the discovery of Gold in the 1800s. On the way we stopped at Chaffey Dam Lookout. It’s a small Dam which holds 62,000 megalitres and is used to supplement the water supply to Tamworth. We were impressed with the very green and lush looking countryside we were travelling through. Nundle is a very small Town with a population of 250. We parked and walked to all the old Stores, some as originally built in the 1800s. The Odgers & McClelland Exchange Store still original and still operating, was a walk back through time. The next interesting place was the still working Woolen Mill, the factory run by 4 workers. Lots of wool and wool products on sale. We had a nice lunch at The Mount Misery Gold Mine, then I had a look through the mine display. Very enjoyable. Then we drove the extra distance out to Hanging Rock Lookout and although not impressed with the roads, the view was spectactular.

September 23rd, Packed up to-day ready to leave in the morning for Stockton.

Toowoomba to Brisbane, 2010

September 1st, We headed off towards Toowoomba and after being on the road about an hour, came to a flag man holding up his stop sign. Another holdup for road works, I thought. To our surprise the problem was a semi, with a full load of pumpkins, had gone off the road into a ditch, lost his load and very badly wrecked his truck and trailer.. There were pumpkins everywhere, a lot broken in pieces and spread up into the bush. We stopped at Crows Nest and had lunch at Trudy’s Coffee Shop and Cafe, where I had a great hamburger and coffee. Crows Nest is another quaint Town, which has kept all the old shops. After lunch we went to Salts Antiques and Collectables, on the north side of Town, and were amazed at the huge array of stock they had. Val is still on a mission to find an antique dressing table for Joan, with the top curved in along the front edge. We booked into the Toowoomba Motor Village (TT) after a stop at the Information Centre to grab a map and some brochures. They were busy so we had to split our visit between 2 sites.Our timing was fortunate, as we arrived to free nibblies and drinks in the Camp Kitchen. It was a Dometic “Follow the Sun” happy hour Promotion, with the team of Jay and Dianne Conclaves. A group photo was taken for the local Newspaper. We were all put into a raffle draw and I won a Caravan Man (Tony Bryant) Coffee Mug.

September 2nd, I went to the Downstream Tourist Railway and Museum this morning and found a small but very busy volunteer group restoring a diesel Locomotive and various Carriages. I was given a personal guided Tour of everything they have, along with their progress to date and what their aims are. It was very interesting and informative. I’m looking forward to our next visit to Toowoomba when I will be expecting to be able to take a train trip.



September 3rd, Packed up this morning and moved to site 45, then spent most of the day setting up and repairing the jockey wheel that I forgot to remove before driving off the old site. I wrecked the jockey wheel clamp as well so had to buy a new one and remove the old one from the frame. Now all I need is a welder to secure the clamp to the frame. The Park Manager is going to give me the phone number of a mobile repair company to see if he can come and do the necessary, welding. I hope I don’t get a flat tyre as I had to use the car jack to support the front of the Caravan.

September 4th, It was very overcast this morning but we still drove, around 80 Klms, to the Dalby State School Markets as Val’s contact for Pandora lookalike beads had a stand there. We were amazed at the size of the Markets which had a lot of good quality stuff on sale. Val spent a small fortune but was very happy. On the way home it started raining, so they were lucky to get their Markets in to-day.

September 6th, It rained all day and night yesterday but the blue skies and sunshine are back to-day. We went into the CBD, Val had to go to Lincraft, so we went to Queens Park Gardens. We were very impressed with the colourful display of flowers and shrubs. We couldn’t help noticing that a lot of the streets in Toowoomba are Tree lined, looks great.

September 7th, As we will be leaving here before the annual “Festival of Flowers” starts, we did our own Tour of the Gardens to-day. We started with a drive by Lake Annand and East Creek Park, which were clean attractive Parks with bridges over the water but no garden beds. Next was Laurel Bank Park which was equally as impressive as Queen Park Gardens yesterday. We drove on to the historic Newtown Park to see the State Rose Garden. Unfortunately there were only a few roses in flower but we could imagine how lovely it would look when all the roses are in full bloom. We drove past Boyce Gardens on the way home. We enjoyed our drive as this is a very large and clean City and we have now seen a lot of its backstreets on to-days tour.

September 8th, I went to see the Cobb and Co Museum to-day and was very impressed. They re-opened 2 days ago after completing extensions and expanding their displays. In the adjacent Park there is a collection of various types of Windmills. The displays cover a lot of local and surrounding areas history, a great Butterfly and Beetle Collection, the local Aboriginal Tribes and a large area devoted to a vast collection of horse drawn vehicles including several Cobb & Co Coaches. They have a large Factory and Blacksmith Workshop that re-builds Carriages ready for Display.

September 9th, We went to re-visit the Japanese Gardens to-day, we saw them last time we were here (around 2 years ago). Nothing had changed but we still enjoyed the serenity that you feel in such a well kept, colourful and beautifully manicured place. We went on to Picnic Point, which is a lovely Park on the highest hill around Town and includes a Lookout. The gardens were very colourful, the view from the Lookout was incredible and Val enjoyed an afternoon Chardy while I had an icecream, at the Picnic Point Restaurant. We had a visit from a local Kookaburra who seemed to find something to laugh at.

September 10th, It rained all last night and has continued on to-day with the added bonus of a strong, gusty wind. I walked up to the Office to get some washing machine change and the wind turned my umbrella inside out. Val has gone to the Hairdressers to make herself beautiful for Sophies 1st Birthday to-morrow in Brisbane.

September 11th, I was very happy at 7.30am when the Mobile Trailer & Caravan Repair Van arrived to weld a new jockey wheel bracket onto the drawbar of our Van, as we were leaving for Brisbane at 10am. He was supposed to call in last Wednesday or Thursday and didn’t make it, then Friday it rained all day. We were enjoying the trip to Brisbane, lovely countryside and scenery, but, as we were travelling along the Ipswich Motorway, doing 90kph in a 100kph limit, an Idiot pulled out from a Service Centre at a slow speed, straight across into my lane, causing me to slam the brakes on while blasting him with the horn. Fortunately we avoided a collision but it shook us up, big time. We booked into the Gateway Village Resort, set up the Van then headed to Brian & Julies place for Sophies 1st Birthday. We had a lovely “Birthday Afternoon Tea” with Rebecca & Nigel and all their friends, then stayed on for a great BBQ dinner and watched the League Final Playoffs on Channel 9.

September 12th, Val was up early to-day to make a couple of quiches for lunch. Brian, Julie, Nigel, Rebecca and Sophie are coming for lunch at our Caravan Park. Brian supplied all the leftover salads from yesterday’s party. We all had an enjoyable lunch at the Camp Kitchen, then Sophie had a swim in the Pool. We were reminded of our Annaliese, as Sophie is just the same when it comes to the Pool and has no fear of water and jumps straight in.

September 13th, We packed up this morning ready to leave to-morrow. Val made a diet trifle to take to Brian and Julies for Dinner. We had a lovely fish and chips takeaway followed by the delicious trifle. We said our goodbyes to all the family.