Christmas 2010

real free camp Childers

Well this Christmas takes the cake for being the wettest on record,the monsoon trough came down and has set an anchor out, some areas have recorded up to 19 inches. Any way we finished our Christmas trading with the best Christmas we have ever seen and planed to get away to possum park near miles but the road is flooded at Theodore, so a trip down the new England highway was plan B, sues mum got sick so we decided to stay a few days till the rain cleared up.Then with 300 to 500 mills of rain everywhere plan B turned into plan C which is the Pacific Highway. Well we left on Tuesday and got through to Childers where we stopped for the night in a car park due to road closure at Isis River, it has been raining all day. The next morning the road was opened so we headed south through a severely potholed road. The freeway through Brisbane was a welcome relief with an overnight stop at a caravan park only recently reopened at Tyndale just north of Grafton, finally the sun was shinning and the afternoon sunset saw us have a pleasant night.

Tyndale

The next day we passed through Coffs Harbour where we had traffic light trouble pulling the van up on an amber light seems like you have to go though the amber. We arrived in Newcastle at my Brothers place late afternoon and set up under the big tree for a 3 day stay and New Years with my parents.

Nundle

Robs place Newcastle

Wool Mill

Chaffey Dam

Leaving Newcastle we headed up to Nundle 30km south of Tamworth, it is an old gold mining town and also has a working Wool Mill, we did a tour through the plant taking the fleece from the raw stage through to the ball of wool ready for sale which was a very interesting process. After a 2day stay we headed up to Chaffey Dam and came across some canoeists they are BOG members NIKNOFF it was good to place a face to the name, a rain storm interrupted our stay so we continued into Tamworth through very heavy rain refueled and drove up to Cranky Rock rest area 8km east of Warialda.



Cranky Rock

 Cranky Rock is a rest area come camping area with 3 power points for caravans, a caretaker runs the kiosk with a nights stay costing $20. The walk up past the animal enclosure with kangaroos and emus to the lookout is a must .

Cranky Rock Gorge

Some rain overnight but has cleared this morning so we headed up to Glen Innes where it started raining again and turned cold 15deg. The plan was to go to Leslie Dam up though Tentafield to Warwick but the rain is so heavy all the creeks and gully's have become torrents of waterfalls all through this area with major flooding this has meant the Leslie Dam has had to be released and has flooded Sandy Creek so NoGo, plan B head to Toowoomba we did and the road was closed behind us.so overnight in toowoomba and yes it poured all night.