Disheartened journey

Oh My Goodness.
So much for my intentions of updating this at least weekly to keep you all in touch with where we are
up to in our adventure.

We departed Cairns on the 30th Nov, heading South to catch the late season of advocadoes or onions down in the south east, however even the best laid plans sometimes go astray.  Every day we were confronted with some new challenge, whether that being the breakdown of the laptop (first night away) or something slightly more major back home there was always something. After 2 weeks on the road the desicion was made to return to Cairns to sort out the issues we had been facing. We had covered nearly 2000km and reached west of Rockhampton, covering routes we had never been along before and discovering some wonderful camp sites,complete with their unique characters, like at Elphinestone Dam with the fellows who would collect firewood through the day and bring some around to each camp and then use the remainder to light the old boiler so we could all have hot showers at the end of the day. 

Then there was the Bedford Weir, travelling through the coal country to reach it this reportedly oasis in the black. Our itinerary took us down a gravel road, which is fine nothing to stress about, we had been to the tip whats a little dirt now?  Better turn on the Navigator to make sure we're right, yes, just turn left in 300m it says ???? No road appears in 300m, 500m 2km or 5 where the blazes are we? What does it matter, if we keep going in this direction we will hit a main road somewhere, we are self sufficient for at least 5 days longer if we ration the water.  The smoke from bushfires in the district is heavy in the area but not threateningly close. 40km later we came to a junction and a bitumen road, even better a sign post and yes we are heading in the right direction, now anyway.  Not far up this bitumen road we are flagged down, the road ahead into the town of Blackwater is impassable, the fires had brought down electrical lines, hows the road to the weir we ask rather hesitantly but the answer is favourable and no problem to the Weir. It was worth the drama to get there, you can't camp right next to the water like at Elphinestone but who cares, a beautifully treed camp ground and clean amenities, a playground and bbq area by the lake which is only 100m walk, and all they ask is a donation.  Their is a permanent caretaker residing there, has lived there for 3 years, he has nurtured an amazing vegie and herb garden and on our checking gave us bags of cherry tomatoes with the added bonus of please help yourselves to the garden.  The bruchetta and lamb roast had never tasted better, fresh rosmary, basil, spring onions - unbelievable.

 

Moved into Rocky for a couple of days to catch up with the washing and to touch base with Job seekers, missed out on Bundy picking job, never mind plenty more. Decided to head west again and down to St George, another  great camp site found at the Calliopie River just west of Gladstone, and then next stop to Monto, this is where the decision was made to turn around. Day after day of not so good news had taken its toll, so on Sat 15th Dec we headed back to Cairns, and arriving rather disheartenedly about lunch time on Sunday.