Day 32: Home

We had a lovely time with Patrick and Sally in Gympie, then turned our heads for home.

Altogether a wonderful trip with lots of variety – lots of walking, lots of friends, lots of great scenery, campsite gems discovered, luxury and celebration and finally home to spend time with family, prepare for Christmas and the New Year and plan our next trip.

Day 1: Home to Judds Lagoon

Despite the best of intentions we weren’t all packed up and ready to leave early – but we weren’t far from it. We’d only been back in Australia for two weeks following our great China-Europe adventure, still recovering from jet lag. During those two weeks we outfitted the back of the Pajero with a Drifta drawer system, a fridge slide that drops down and a cargo safety barrier. This we managed between us with a lot of stress and cursing. Tip: if you can get something fitted by a professional, DO!
We both had a fair bit of work to do on our business too. They were busy days!

Excited to be leaving.

Excited to be leaving.

11am we left home, trusting the care of home and business to the very capable hands of our daughter and her husband. West along the d’Aguilar Highway to Nanango, across to Kumbia, Jandowae and Chinchilla, with lunch at Kumbia was the plan. Steve has the Hema maps app on his iPad and we could see lots of country roads, some sealed, some not – ahhhh that’s what I love when we travel, little country roads with hardly any traffic and lots of interesting countryside, little creeks, farmhouses, animals and people to see.

The favous Bottle Trees.

The favous Bottle Trees.

Kumbia is a delightful little town with a lovely shady free camp site in town, clean facilities, BBQ, and power for a donation. Well done Kumbia – I’ll recommend your lovely town to anyone and hope they support your local businesses well. Thank you.

Once back on the highway at Chinchilla we headed for Judd’s Lagoon, just east of Roma for the night’s camp. Another free camp with clean Eco-toilet, shower room (byo water) and lots of area around the lagoon for setting up camp.

Our first night.

Our first night.

Arty (our roof-top tent) was set up quickly, a pleasant walk around the grounds saying hello to folks and back to Arty for a delicious hot tomato, vegetable and chicken casserole cooked to perfection in the Dream Pot while we drove. LOVE my Dream Pot.
The kangaroos and bird life around the lagoon was fantastic, and we were finally serenaded to bed at dusk by the kookaburras, who were, unfortunately the first to wake in the morning too – but hey, I’m not complaining. The magpie song followed and set us off in a happy mood for the day.