This drive would be another long-ish one at 350kms. We know by looking at the map, there is not a lot of towns along this route, but there is always something interesting to see.
As we had the hotplates, were able to cook ourselves eggs
for breakfast. Not knowing we had
cooking facilities, we thought we would have to have only tea and toast for
breakfast, so a “proper” breakfast was a bonus.
A lazy start meant we were on the road at around 9:45am
There are not a lot of stops between Moree and Toowoomba, but we had planned on stopping at Goondiwindi for lunch. We only one tiny issue.. we had forgotten that we would be crossing the border back into Queensland and in doing so, winding the clock back an hour… Moree to Goondiwindi is roughly halfway to Toowoomba at 125km, but in reality, with the highway being a speed limit of 110kmh it is just over an hour away. So instead of arriving in Goondiwindi at close to midday, it was not even 11:00am.
Just before entering Goondiwindi we passed the signs that welcomed us back to Queensland ?
We did stop at the Information Centre and then found our way to the “Gunsynd” Memorial Park for the obligatory photo of the statue of this famous horse. The park is lovely and sits beside the Macintyre River. It has big shady trees and BBQ’s and Picnic tables.
As it was too early for lunch, we decided to keep travelling toward to Millmerran to stop for lunch. Again the countryside is so dry. We noticed that even the prickly pear shrubs, which were obviously very old by the size of their “trunks” were shrivelled and many looked totally dead 🙁
We did not have a lot of mobile phone reception on the Gore Highway, but I did manage to find a website listing for the Mill Inn Tavern in Millmerran. We found the address and made it just before their lunch service of midday. The tavern is quite a new establishment and we were more than happy to wait 15-20 minutes to be able to place our order. I chose to have “Chicken Wellington” and hubby chose the Rissoles and Vegetables. Sadly the Chicken was sold out, so I chose to have the Rissoles as well.
While we were waiting for our meals we thought we would
waste a few minutes (and a few dollars) in the Pokies Room.. We put $1 into a 1c machine and played a few
spins. A couple of spins later we won a
nice prize of $10 !!! That made the total credit of $10.50 we cashed out and let the machine swallow up
the last 50c
Our poker machine winnings offset the cost of our lunch, so
even though our meals and drinks were $30.80, I have only accounted $20.80 on
our costings sheets. ?
We have stayed here before and it was a simple choice to
stay here again. We know it has
everything we need for a comfortable nights stay.
We cooked a dinner using the other steak we had bought yesterday and used up the last of our veges.
After dinner, we took a bit of time to repack our luggage as, for the next week, we will be staying at the Mantra in South Bank Brisbane and will not need to be self-catering, as the packaged I bought is for the room and buffet breakfast each day, and our car will be parked in the basement of the hotel with limited access.
Much of we have previously had packed will no longer be needed. Eg: our “kitchen bag” which has contained condiments, utensils, sharp knives, bread and vegetables. Also not needed will be food stuffs we have had in the Engel..(eggs, meat, cheese, milk) Over the past few days we have made sure that all our perishable items have been used up.
We sat up a bit watching TV knowing that Brisbane is only 120kms away and we cannot check in to the Mantra until 2:00pm
This drive was one of our longer days at around 340kms, but
we were not in any hurry.
The plan was to take our time and stop at a couple of towns along the way before reaching Moree for our check in at the EconoLodge Motel at 2:00pm
This is the only motel I had booked and as such will not
have much of a kitchen. The website
stated that the room is equipped with a kettle, toaster, fridge and
microwave. The motel has a bar and grill
restaurant onsite, so we planned on having dinner there.
We packed up and left Dubbo around 9:00 and travelled to Newell Highway with our first stop being Gilgandra about 1hr up the road. We got out and stretched our legs and headed off again to Coonabarabran. We pulled into the Information Centre for a toilet stop and a look around. It was a surprise to find a large display all about a dinosaur skeleton that had been found in the area in the 1970’s. It was very interesting to read the story.
Our next stop was Narrabri, we found Woolworths to buy a couple of bread rolls for our lunch. We had left over roast pork in the Engel from our dinner the previous night, but the bread was “buried” in the “kitchen bag” and we decided it was easier to buy bread rolls that pull the car apart ? Woolworths was just past the Information Centre which sat on the banks of the ?? River. It was a lovely place to have our lunch. Even though it was again 38 degrees, there was a bit of a breeze and our picnic table was in the shade of a large gum tree.
After lunch, we had a look around the Information Centre and found that the area has a number of farming activities including wheat, barley, chickpeas, sorghum, cotton and canola. As well as these crops, there are large farms of meat sheep and pigs. We bought an ice cream each and hit the road again for the last stretch of the Newell Highway to Moree. The fields here are HUGE. I am sure it would an impressive sight to see the crops growing. As it is the height of summer now, the crops have been harvested and are waiting for new plantings when it gets a bit cooler.
For much of this drive, we followed the train line and passed many big grain silos and loading facilities to fill the huge trains. These trains were as long as the coal trains we had seen in the Hunter Valley, but obviously grain is much lighter than coal as these trains did not need engines to push the trains as well as lead engines.
We arrived at Moree and our motel at just after 2:30 We asked about the restaurant only to be told
it was closed for the Christmas break ☹ WE were told
where our room was and back in the car, we thought we would not go out for
dinner, but would find Woolworths and get a could of microwave meals for
dinner.
We found our room and got a lovely surprise…A double hotplate!! As well as a microwave. ? We are so easily pleased ? That changed our plans somewhat. We went over what food we had left and made a plan to finish everything over the next two days before we get back to Brisbane where we have buffet breakfast everyday and are planning eating out a lot at some nice restaurants.
We found we had 8 eggs and half a loaf of bread – so it will be eggs of toast each for the next two days. We will stop for lunch between Moree and Toowoomba at Goondiwindi. We had a couple of potatoes and carrots left, so we only needed to buy some “green vege” and some meat for the next two dinners. We found a nice tray of two porterhouse steaks that were more than large enough that we only need one ½ steak each per night and I bought a little bunch of broccolini.
After putting our groceries in the Engel, we found the attraction we had come to Moree for… The Mineral Spa Pools.
This area is well known for its artesian springs and the Aquatic Centre has two large heated pools. We paid our admission fees and had a lovely soak in the warm water. If you have ever put Epsom Salts in a bath, you will be familiar as to the relaxing properties of dissolved minerals. It was very nice ? We got out of the pool and drove back to the motel for dinner and a quiet night. The combination of a hot day, long drive, and the spa pool saw us both getting sleepy and we turned the lights around 8:30pm
Although we had not been affected by the bushfires at all this day ( we have mostly blue skies) our family has been in the danger zone at Dalmeny on the south coast of NSW. We had been trying to contact them but they had no reception. Finally, we heard from them that they had got out and were on the way home. What should normally be a 2.5 hour drive, took them 7 hours, but at least they were home and out of immediate danger. We still have some family in the danger zone, but hopefully everybody will be OK. These are some photos of our daughter-in-laws Dad’s house taken just before they left. Scary
We awoke in our Zoofari Tent after a very comfortable nights sleep. Although yesterday was so hot, we went to bed with the air conditioner on full at 18 degrees and the fan on full speed just to get to sleep, at some time through the night we pulled the doona up as obviously the temperature dropped to an ” acceptable” level.
We had set our alarm early so we had plenty of time to have showers and “wake up” cups of tea to be ready for our 6:45am morning tour of the zoo before breakfast.
We had another great tour with our informative driver/guide. On this tour, we had close up, behind the scenes viewings of rhino, lemur, and cheetah ….
before moving on to an immersive viewing of the elephant’s morning routine.
https://youtu.be/l2-Q3tMSWH0
The gorgeous boy we were introduced to had previously been a working elephant in a Thailand logging camp before being brought to Australia. We all marvelled how this intelligent giant has such a close bond with his keepers. It was awesome to see how this large boy, was more than happy to have a shower and show his teeth, feet and ears up for inspection to his keepers. In the video above you can see how much he enjoyed his shower. You may also notice how he fills his truck with water and then squirts the water into his mouth.
After the tour, we were delivered back to our tents for a quick freshen up and a full buffet breakfast. Back in our tent after breakfast, we packed up and checked out. We had admission to the zoo again today, but we decided it was again too hot, so we chose to leave and visit the Royal Flying Doctor Service centre instead.
The RFDS Visitor Experience is a new attraction and was very informative. There were lots of interactive displays explaining the history of the RFDS from its humble beginnings in the 1920’s right up to the great service of today. I highly recommend calling in if you are ever in Dubbo.
Our AirBnB for this evening was supposed to be at a local home . Our host rang early in the morning to tell us that she had had a problem with a broken glass door at her property, but rather than cancelling our reservation, would it be Ok if we would stay at her friend’s AirBnB close by. I said that this was Ok as long it was going to cost us any more.
We found our way to the new (much larger) accommodation via a quick stop off at Woolworths for food and the fuel stop outside.
We were happy to have a quiet afternoon in the airconditioning and literally a “Netflix and Chill” evening. 🙂
We had a relaxing night watching TV and I wrote my blog post. I also Googled a bit about the history of Kandos. It had proven to be a larger town than we had expected, so we figured there must have been something happening in the past.
We were correct, it turns out that Kandos is a town which was created in 1913 to exploit the limestone in the area.
It became a huge producer of cement which gave it the nickname “The Town That Built Sydney”. The cement works closed in 2011
We had a relaxed start as it was only a short 190 kms to Taronga Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo. We were really looking forward to today, as we have booked to stay AT the zoo in a tent right with the animals.
We arrived at the zoo around 10:00 and found the check-in desk. We knew we could not get to the Zoofari section of the zoo until 2:00pm, but we allowed admission to the zoo for 2 days, so we planned on looking around the zoo before our “Zoofari” Adventure. We were given directions of what we needed to do for the Zoofari and also a map of the zoo. Our accommodation package included bike hire to see the zoo, but bikes and I dod not mix well – there is often blood !! I was initially told we could upgrade to a golf cart, but the lady at the ticket counter said this was no longer an option 🙁 We were looking for the place to hire the golf carts when I noticed on the map this….
CAR???? So we went back to the ticket office and asked. Yes!! you can drive your own car around the zoo. They keep that little nugget of information somewhat quiet. She told us where to go to access the zoo circuit and we were off. First stop was Meerkats !!! Yay!! We spent a good amount of time watching these cute animals. We did notice that it was super hot even for Meerkats. In all the TV docos we have seen, we have not seen Meerkats flatten themselves out in the sand like this.
After the Meerkats, we looked at a number of other exhibits. It was SO hot it was not a comfortable day at all. In between each stop, we managed to catch a bit of a reprieve in the car, but as the car was in the sun at each carpark, it took a while to cool down 🙁
By 2 o’clock we were well and ready to head to the Guest House for Zoofari and check in and get out of the 41 degree heat.
We were shown to our “tent” and were glad to be told that the airconditioning was on ready for our arrival.
The tent/room was quite luxurious with a king sized bed, lounge area and full ensuite including a bath. From the deck out the front we could giraffe, zebra, rhino, ostrich, eland and blackbuck….oh and kangaroo 🙂
From our 2:00 check in we had a bit of relaxation time. For us, this included a cold shower and trying to feel sort of “normal” Both of us had a bit of a headache and did not feel “well”.. We figured we had a bit of heat exhaustion from being out at the zoo. 🙁
We had been left an itinerary in our room, so we knew we had to be at our “bus stop” at 4:00 for our first tour.
We boarded our tour “bus/truck” and had a very informative tour of the zoo.
We arrived back at “camp” with time for quick freshen up before heading to the GuestHouse for our included dinner. On arrival at the GuestHouse, we had canapes and wine tastings before being invited to take our seats for dinner.
Dinner was multiple dishes which were delivered in large share platters which we all passed along the table. Dishes included Roast lamb, Meatballs and noodles, Chicken and vegetables, roast veges and salad
After dinner, we went back to our tent and marvelled at the animals right in front of us. It really was like being on an African Safari. Before turning in for the night, we set an alarm so we did not sleep in because we had a 6:45am tour before breakfast.
We were correct, it turns out that Kandos is a town which was created in 1913 to exploit the limestone in the area.
