So where do we begin?

Thanks for all your Welcome Home comments and emails – we were on the road for a couple of months staying in cabins and living out of a suitcase so it is good to be back in a house with all the amenities (and the clothes) to choose from.

After all that time in the sunshine I certainly found it cold, wet and miserable the first few days back, then the rain stopped and the sun has come out so things don’t look quite so bad.   All the thin summer clothes are back in the wardrobe and its back to sensible warm things suitable for the current temps – read fleece tops and warm pants lol

Where did we go for our Winter trip this year?

I could just tell you we drove through 3 states (Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland) on our way to Cooktown going via Cobar, Charleville, Hughenden, Charters Towers and Mount Surprise, down to Cairns and then on to Bowen (midway between Townsville and Mackay – coming home to Melbourne through those same states but on different roads via Rockhampton, Goondiwindi and Forbes but not many of you would have an idea of where those places were.

So to help you with that I found a map online – added a red line for the out (up) bit and then a blue line for the down.

We broke the trip north at Mount Surprise to stay a couple of days and visit the Lava Tubes at Undara.

With the Kennedy Development Road from Hughenden being closed due to heavy rain we had to go via Charters Towers which meant the total mileage (kilometreage sounds daft lol) from home to there was about 3000kms in the end.  We had travelled this route before and knew what it would be like but it still turned out to be Four Long Days!!

The drive to Cooktown (which is the most northerly town on the east coast of Australia) was a doddle at 500kms compared to the previous but going through the Atherton Tablelands didn’t mean we could take it easy.  Twisty turny is the name of the game and as we’d never driven the road north of Mareeba before ‘taking very good care’ was the name of the game.

Visiting Mount Surprise and Cooktown was on last years agenda but with Aunty Pam dying and us having to return home for the funeral we didn’t get there so I was quite pleased we achieved it in the end.

A short drive (300kms) down the Bruce Highway to Cairns a few days later and we caught up with a very old airforce ‘mate’ of The Golfer’s – stayed a couple of nights and then moved on to Bowen (500kms down the road) for the rest and recuperation part – Six Whole Weeks to do nothing much but enjoy ourselves.

All good things have to come to an end so reluctantly we took the long drive home down the Bruce to Rockhampton and then on the Newell via Goondiwindi and Forbes.  Total of 2500 kms from there to here and with a mileage of over a 1000kms going out and about whilst we were in Bowen the poor car added about 8000 kms to its odometer reading.

Once I’ve sorted the photos out hopefully I’ll be able to tell you a bit about some of those places over the next few posts.
Bye for now
Cathy