After Briony's birthday celebrations Colin and Yolande plus Barbara and Rodney (who had travelled from Adelaide in their respective caravans for the wedding), left Canungra where they had stayed and went to Toowoomba. We had arranged to catch up for a few days before they started their return to Adelaide.
The catch up coincided with a campdraft and horse auction at the Toowoomba showgrounds. As we arrived a day after the others we were made aware of the campdraft starting at 5am so opted not to camp next to them but up the hill a little in an attempt to avoid the flies, the early morning speaker announcing proceedings, and all the horses. By the time we had set up the others had returned from a half day tour of Toowoomba, which they said was excellent.
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| So many horse floats and horses either waiting for the sale or the campdraft competition. |
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| The others camped amongst the horse floats - not there when they arrived but moved in during the day. We opted for a spot further up the hill. |
We only stayed a night so wasn't too bad then Colin had heard about a free camp which he wanted to have a look at and possible stay for a few days, as it was coming up to a long weekend. We headed off in the morning to Cecil Plains Apex park about 70km from Toowoomba. As it turned out the toilet block was under renovations and the camping area was fairly close to the road, so we had a coffee and moved on towards Yarramalong Weir, another free camp Colin had found.
This was much nicer and as we had arrived on the Friday before the long weekend we were able to get a reasonable camp spot. The others camped next to a picnic table and under the shade of some trees - we found a spot just a little further away from the shade as we prefer sun for the solar panels.
This turned out to be a good spot so decided to stay for the whole weekend before we headed back to the coast and the others back south to Adelaide. Over the few days we had a great catch up, was able to make scones in the weber collect enough wood to have a small fire as the nights where becoming cooler. Additionally quite a bit of red wine was consumed - kept us warm!! Rodney and Barbara had been having problems with the house battery in the caravan and each night they lost power - they were keen to get to Goondiwindi after the weekend to have this looked at. There where some nice sunsets for Barbara and I to take plenty of photos, I managed to get up and get a couple of sunrises as well - not that this is surprising. Lucky enough to have a tawny frogmouth fly in one night.
After a great weekend we said our farwells, the others headed south and we went back to the east coast. When I went to start our car I too had battery problems. Over the 3 days one of my cranking batteries had given up - not a surprise as it was an original battery and 4 years old. When we set off our destination was to Warwick to pick up a new battery - the sky was looking quite stormy and rain was predicted. Certainly did not want to be caught in the black soil in the rain!
Travelled from the Weir through Tummaville, Leyburn, Victoria Hill to Warwick where we bought a battery. Had lunch at Aratula (nice bakery) then drove to Canungra where we stayed the night at the Showgrounds.
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| Yarramalong weir at sunset |
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| Yarramalong camping area |
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| Sunrise - I showed pictures to the others as they were all asleep! |
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| Happy hour around the campfire |
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| Colin's brazier, his pride and joy with a copy of my kangarro on the side. Works well!! |
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| We camped away from the trees, reflections at sunset. |
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| This Frogmouth dropped by at night and sat on top of a sign. Suffering red eye from the flash. |
