Murray Sunset National Park

We pack up and head into the main drag in Swan Hill, stock up on beer and meat and head off to Murray-Sunset NP. Instead of taking the highway back to SA we plan to drive straight through the middle of a NP on bush tracks instead. We drive to Mt Crozier campsite has fire places and tables as well as a long drop. Tina is attacked by a black spider in the toilet so it is off limits and bush toilet is out. We walk/jog the 166 steps to get to the top of Mt. Crozier.

Another great fire and a casserole in the Camp Oven again. I think we are going to cook with this more often. Tonight we had to listen to Collingwood win and we even hid in the car during a brief shower.
Another great morning not quite as cold as the last few days. We are going to jog up the stairs and we even ended up doing it twice. We have been a little slack in our exercise so we have to put a bit more effort in. A big drive on the cards today and we are going to cross the Sunset track. Tina’s turn to drive and it is not disappointing as 100km+ of sand tracks, water and mud and Tina is really getting quite confident and had a great time. We stop for a while and have a lunch and then it’s my turn to have a go. We make it across and then head down along the border track before finally crossing in SA and we are camping at Karte Conservation Pk. It is another bush camp and has a brand new log drop which I christened with an almighty poo.
We do the local walk which ends up on top of a hill with 360° views. Tonight on the menu is Pork Ribs & Pasta done in the camp oven on the fore again. Another beautiful sunset and we listen to another AFL game this time Freo & the Cats.

Today we are driving back to Adelaide so after breakfast we pack up and hit the road. It is only 250km today but we are still going through the back way until Tailem Bend. It is quite green into Adelaide and we arrive after lunch. The traffic is funny not like the other town it nearly feels like a country town the road is so small and only a few cars. We get to drive through the Anzac Highway tunnel sorry underpass just.
Down to the post office to pick up a months worth of junk. We have a beer at the Rex and then head to Mel’s house. It is good to catch up with Mel & Glen again.

The Tojo Gets bogged

Not me driving

The Murray in Vic

Now I will try not to whinge and complain too much but the Bloody Vics are still open channel irrigating their crops. Echuca is a big town and we pick up some supplies and head off to Torrumbarry Weir. They are letting some water through and we find a camp spot on the river just up stream.

We set up camp and make a fire our first one since Tassie. We haven’t really needed fires in QLD. Tina cooks a beautiful Roast in the camp oven and we are quite happy to be on the river again. Tina really loves the river and I suppose I do to, but I really want to get up to North QLD.
The sun takes quite a while to heat up but we finally get up and we have shrimp. So I’m online and get a fishing license, the water is probably to cold to catch fish but we will give it a go anyway. An afternoon canoe on the Murray in Vic is new for us and the river is quite different to the Murray in SA with much smaller banks. Another fire and cold night.


A chilly morning with the sun really struggling to have much impact. We pack up and get ready to move on but the car wouldn’t start and the battery is flat. Tina walks of to a camp site up the river but the man is out in his boat fishing. We then walk back to the weir and run into one of the water department workers. He gladly gives us a lift back to the car and a jumpstart. The crap leads I have will not start up the Tojo even after letting then charge for a while. We have a great chat and it is information form the source this is his job so he knows a bit about it. Unfortunately it is gloom and doom unless we get rain. Lake Hume is 8%. He drives back to the workshop and brings back some real jumper leads and the Tojo starts no problems.
We are going to drive to Koondrook along the river so off we go. They have had 50m through here about 7-10 days ago so there is plenty of great 4WD driving to be had. It is 75km of free camping winding along the Murray River with tracks everywhere. 1 week ago and this would have been serious fun. We drive to Swan Hill and a Caravan Park for a bit of a clean up and anyway Melbourne were playing in the AFL against Essendon, No luck for Melbourne, but a quite chilly night along the river again and a cheeky baby Possum trying to get friendly.

Adelaide here we come! (Via Heathcote)

We spend the day packing up the car for our trip back to Adelaide. We have gone through the van and found all the things we will take back because we haven’t been using them. We didn’t find much. We have packed up and done all our washing and by the end of the day we are buggered.
We are up at 6.30am and have some quick brekky and a coffee and at 7.30am we are off. We have 1,625km to drive to get to Heathcote. We have decided to pick up the canoes which we left at Joe’s and take them back to Adelaide. We drive 840km today and end up at a place called Gind???. We have tea at the local services club and head out to a rest stop just out of town to sleep the night.
We did not wake up early and had a bit of a sleep in we still have over 800km to go but we don’t have to get there until Wednesday so we don’t have to travel as far. We get underway about 9.30am and we are off again. We have deliberately taken a slightly different route so we can see some more of Aus we haven’t driven through before.
We come across a truck accident where a road train has T-Boned a rig.
We are in Vic and have driven for 100’s of Km’s through Farming land mostly cereal crops they are all green and I hope they get some more rain to make them grow good. All of these areas have had good rains in the last month. We make it to Rutherglen which is on the Murray river and we stayed at the local Caravan Park for the night.
It is bloody cold at night but this is good preparation for Adelaide.
Another bit of a sleep in today so we are in a bit of a rush to get out by 10.00am We have 220km left to get to Joes and we head off. I have changed the GPS to take the shortest distance to Joes and this meant some offroad driving through gold fields. A little bit of making our wn roads but we get there. We pick up the canoes chuck them on the roof and we are off to Echuca.

Fraser Island

Another fantastic morning greets us I know I have said this before but it is no wonder everyone comes here for the winter. It is 20+ everyday and sun shining. It is however getting a bit cold at night and we are expecting minimums down to7 for the next week. Breakfast overlooking the dam this is heaven. This was just an overnight stop we are back off to Rainbow Beach today and then on to Fraser Island. It’s a 3 hour drive and we stop off at Maryborough for shopping. This is a big town but has lost its status a little of the last few years from Hervey bay ( they pronounce it Harvey??). We are camping at Inskip Point again tonight and will head off to Fraser Island in the morning. It is $90 for the barge $38 for a Vehicle permit and then $9.70 /night camping so it stretches our budget but you can’t come to QLD and not go to Fraser Island.Now I have this theory that the tourist operators will always tell you the fish are biting somewhere they are trying to get people to go to. Before the long weekend I saw in the news and on the TV that the fish are running at Rainbow Beach. Now I can tell you there are no fish at Rainbow beach at the moment and nor where there any on the weekend, cause all the people I spoke to said that as well.
Up early today, it has been a long time since we have slept in the car so we have to think hard what to take with us. We are leaving the van in a lock up in town. Next week we are driving back to Adelaide without the Van so some practice will be good. We are not sure which way we are coming back to Adelaide we will think about this later.

Over to the barge and we are on our way top Fraser Island. The tide is just low enough that we can make it past Hook Point. Fraser Island is awesome and we can see what all the hype is about. We drive along the beach for what seems forever and we come across our first Dingo. There are lots of small outlets or small creeks with water pouring back into the ocean. We have seen all photos of the cars washed into the ocean. There are some points where the water is close to rocks. We are always amazed at how much people love to drive in the ocean in their cars. I can understand the hire cars but not your own. The limit is 100km/h but even at 70 it seems more than fast enough.

We pull up at a beach side camp and set up camp. I’m keen to go fishing even though we didn’t catch anything at Inskip Point. Tina caught a nice Whiting but that was all our luck 4 bites 1 fish and it was all over. It is cold tonight and we even have to get the gas heater out as there are no fires allowed on Fraser.
I’m up early in search of fish and land my first ever Tarwine. They are very much like bream there are only 4 bites and I land two fish. We spend the day lazing around and fishing with a couple more whiting landed.

After the recent storms it seems that the every piece of rubbish form the Gold Coast has landed on Fraser Island. We collect 2 sacks of rubbish and that was only 400m of coast. The beach is over 100km long so we just imagine how much rubbish there is here. We think it should be compulsory that every tourist brings back a sack of rubbish.



The Dingos are quite interested in us and follow us down the beach and through our camp. It is freezing again tonight but the moon rise was incredibly spectacular. We receive a SMS form Mel asking if we are watching Spicks & Specks which we couldn’t but we watched the tide come in on Fraser Island instead a good substitute.

Today we are on the move so we drive inland for some sight seeing. It is beautiful place and a bit more hilly than I expected. We head back to the beach and then drive the inland road back towards where the barge launches. We are camping on the western side of the island and the spot apparently has aggressive Dingo’s. It is not as windy on this side and not as cold at night. There Dingo’s are a little more pushy here but we can still scare them off easily. It is a nice night but I think we drank to many Vodka’s.

The Dingo’s are howling at us this morning. We are up early and packed up and back over to the barge by 10.00am Fraser has been great but we are driving back to Brisbane today. The drive is OK and we make it back early afternoon.

Tina & Andy get a job.

We search around for more work but no luck and head to Gayndah where Tina called the local Orange festival office to see if they had any work. Luckily they needed two bar workers because of the compulsory RSA law. We are working on Saturday & Sunday as the bar supervisors.
That night we stayed at the rest stop on the edge of town at Gayndah with another bunch of backpacking fruit pickers.
We drive to Biggenden today where the local CP has stay one night get one free. Power, water, showers & a laundry are always a nice change. We had a good drop of rain in the afternoon. It is Origin night so we head into town for a pub meal and some beers watching the Rugby with the locals. It is a good night.
Today we are doing some sight seeing and drive to Paradise dam which is 74% full after the recent rains. It is a free camp spot and we will return here after the weekend. Next stop Chowey bridge a rail bridge built in 1905. The brochure does talk it up a bit. Although it has rained there isn’t much 4WD to be done.

Mingo Crossing is on the Burnet river which flows into Paradise dam. It has a campground with all the mod con’s and we can camp right on the river edge. There are supposed to be lots of fish but along with myself the locals could not catch anything that day. It has a very interesting history and the river has been crossed here since the early 1800’s and there has been 3 bridges a ford and a ferry over years all steeped with controversy.

Back to Gayndah today as we are have to work today. Yes it is true Andy & Tina got a job, I know only for 2 days but the pay is good and so is the experience. The showgrounds is our home for 2 nights. The Gayndah Orange festival is a big deal and they have lots of events on including the Rodeo which has filled the showgrounds with horses and of course their dogs.

We walk into town and check out our bar, it is a big caravan from about 1950’s vintage decked out and painted bright orange like a Mandarin. It is a pretty quite day really with the work load coming and going during the day. We work about 10 hours between us.
Today we have to work the bar over at the Rugby club from 8.00pm – 1.00am so we have to bum around all day. We walked into town again and had our lunch time beer and even checked out a bit of the Rugby. Back to the van for a sleep and then over at 7.00pm to set up. The Rugby finishes and about 400 people just pack up and leave so they are bit worried about the crowd, but as soon as the band starts and they close the footy club bar people start streaming over. Well we certainly earned our money tonight 1 bar Tina & I serving as well as restocking from the cold room and about 250+ people. It was frantic but we managed to keep up all night.
The band was called Shag and they played some good covers, Kerry the organiser even managed to score Tina a band T-Shirt.
Gayndah is a lovely place with really nice people and we hope to go back there again some day.
We try to have a bit of a sleep in but all the Rodeo folk are packing up so between dogs, horses, screaming mothers as well as trucks there was little chance to sleep.

We packed up and drove back to Paradise dam. It is still packed from the long weekend. Why wouldn’t it be a huge dam good facilities and free camping.

Inland in search of Work

Childers is our destination today, but there are 100’s of backpackers here so there is little work unless you stay at a caravan park for a couple of weeks. All the farmers just ring the caravan parks to get workers and they let the ones who have stayed there longer have the jobs so it’s a little of scratching each others backs. We spend the night at the tourist park listening to the Sale one night stand on JJJ and watching the AFL on the TV

We drive to Woodgate Beach. QLD best kept secret apparently. After checking in at the caravan Park. We went for a 4WD along the beach & NP had lunch and a fish. Caught a huge puffer fish and a big fish nearly snapped my rod but he got off with my rig.
Back at the park and we decide to go to the bowling club for tea and some beers.

I’m up fishing early and within 5 minutes something just bites of the hook and tracer and swims off. There are 2 small sharks swimming up and down the surf just in front of me maybe 25-30m off shore. There are also 2 big sharks terrorising a school of large fish about 100-150m out from shore. I can actually see there fins above the water as they attack the fish. Huge fish are jumping out of the water. And you know what I cant get a bloody bite. It was a good show and the sunrise coming through a huge storm cloud made for fantastic morning show, it’s a shame I can’t catch a fish. QLD is becoming a little like SA where everyone says you need a boat to catch fish.

We pack up and drive to Mundubbera a Citrus town. This place is full of backpackers as well and the Imperials (mandarins) have just finished being picked. So no work here either. We stayed at Black Stump rest stop just out of town.

We are awoken by a big smash and broken glass. Someone has run into our Caravan while we are asleep. It’s a van owned by 3 French Girl Backpackers. The A/C smashed their rear window and luckily only our rear bar was bent. It is only fair that they should have to give us their jobs but I supposed they need it more to pay for the new window.
We search around for more work but no luck and head to Gayndah where Tina called the local Orange festival office to see if they had any work. Luckily they needed two bar workers because of the compulsory RSA law. We are working on Saturday & Sunday as the bar supervisors.
That night we stayed at the rest stop on the edge of town at Gayndah with another bunch of backpacking fruit pickers.