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 27th May: Had a more relaxed start to the day seeing the sights of Barcaldine. We started with the Barcaldine historical museum full of collections of stuff, the more recent versions of which were certainly within my memory of being used in my childhood! The only thing really to capture my attention was a beautiful set of wooden Tools made by a Barcaldine cabinet maker Johann Blase who was in Barcaldine 2 years after the town was established. We then visited the AustralianWorkers Heritage Centre, celebrating the lives of Australian workers, starting with the Shearer’s strike of 1891 in Barcaldine. This strike, although ultimately unsuccessful, is credited with being the event which started the Australian Labor movement. The strikers met under the Tree of Knowledge, eventually poisoned more than 100 years later and a young tree propagated from the old one is thriving in the Hertitage Centre precinct! We spent several hours wandering around the many exhibitions celebrating police wo...
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 26th May 2026: We went to the Charleville Bilby Experience at Charleville Railway station, which  has 2 trains a week from Brisbane but currently not running.  This is part of a project to increase Bilby numbers  by developing some large fenced off areas within national parks where predators (feral cats and foxes) are kept out and bilbys are reintroduced into these areas. There is a breeding program in Charleville to provide bilbys from genetically different populations to populate these areas. They rotate a few bilbies from this program to an area which serves as a viewing area so that the public can observe bilbies in artificially dark conditions so they may be observed under red light. This raises awareness and money for the Bilby cause! We then drove along the Matilda Way, stopping at Blackall to observe the Black Stump- used by surveyors to anchor their theodolites in the 1888 to accurately survey outback Qld.The original stump burnt down in 1987. It presence h...
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 25th May: Filled up with diesel ($2.67/l) at main Bourke Ampol which only had 2 functioning pumps and  only sold  91 petrol and diesel. This time the Mitchell Highway was a scene of much more activity! We saw emus( I was too slow to photograph them as we drove past..), goats, kangaroos, sheep and cows, only one bird of prey ? A whistling kite and lots of crows. We also saw quite a few caravans going in both directions! We stopped at Cunnamulla for a coffee and quiche- another town with half the shops closed down- the final sale items still sadly on display in locked up shops..  We wanted to go to the night sky viewing in Charleville at the Cosmos Centre, but the sky was completely overcast so what was on offer was a video of last night’s sky viewing which we declined. Instead we are going to see some Bilbys in the morning before we leave at the “Charleville Bilby Experience”. We couldn’t face another random meal at maybe the only place open in town, so I cooked us a...
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 24th May: Left Forbes travelling via Bogan Gate along the Bogan way for about 90km! We didn’t see any actual bogans or any living thing really, just derelict houses with piles of junk on their verandahs along the way! We passed through Tottenham and Nyngen to reach the Mitchell Highway leading into Bourke. This road was lined with Mulga scrub with deep trenches on either side of the road, presumably for the wet season. There were many, many goats along the way, unperturbed by cars and too sensible to end up as road kill! There was hardly another vehicle on the road, let alone any caravans, so we were very surprised to find the caravan park full! (We had booked in advance luckily!). Bourke looked like it was a dying town with many deserted houses and boarded up businesses, and those occupied residential properties all had high security fences. The Port O’Bourke Hotel- thriving last time we were in Bourke- was almost deserted and not serving any meals tonight! We had a mediocre Chin...
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Canberra to Cape York 2026

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 23th May 2026: Our departure was complicated in the short term by late night fridge cleaning (S) and compost burying (N), early am vacuuming and lost sunglasses(S), and in the medium term by installation of a new diesel hot water and heater, and a new Anderson plug on our drawbar to provide power to our new remote control Optitec caravan mover(AKA marriage saver). We dieselled up at Costco ($2.26/l) and set off for Forbes, appreciating our very stable easy to drive caravan! We arrived at the Apex Riverside Caravan park around 4.30pm, set up the van and walked 2km to the Riverside takeaway when we sat down to eat delicious fish( barramundi) and chips! We walked briskly back by the light of our head-torches as we walked over suburban Forbes nature-strips in the absence of any footpaths!A  Ginger beer followed by a Matcha tea saw us ready for bed!                                       ...
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 August 7th: woke up to a very misty morning in Gundagai and it had rained over night. We packed up early and headed into town for breakfast of eggs Benedict at the Niagara Cafe. The mist cleared so we had a good view of Burra creek. We then headed for home, reaching it at about 1 pm after stopping for diesel at Costco and being turned away by a 2 hour wait at the Hume Truck wash. The house was in great shape when we got home and the garden looked amazing thanks to Kim’s efforts. We spent the afternoon unpacking the caravan and then had Pesto for tea with. Bottle of Gibson’s “Dirtman” Shiraz which we had carried for the whole trip and not drunk! For those interested, we actually travelled 19,850 km over our 119 day trip! Burra Creek beside the camping area, Gundagai
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 August 6th: Left Griffith and headed for Leeton along non busy roads through agricultural land- the continuation of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation area with citrus, grapes, rice, canola. Leeton is another town designed by Walter Burleigh Griffin but the central feature now seems to be 2 water towers with amazing crenellations around the tops of them! We had coffee and cake at Stir Expresso and then travelled on via Narrandera, Grong Grong, Martian, Ganmain, Coolamon to Junee, all agricultural towns and finally Gundagai- all on secondary rural roads with crops on either side, except for areas of the Murrumbidgee National Park. We set up in Gundagai at the free 24 hour camp near the Murrumbidgee river, or rather its Burra creek tributary, with a few other widely spaced out vans. We walked into town to the Criterion Hotel for an unexceptional meal. Leeton water towers
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