For the next week, we are staying at the Mantra as previously mentioned. So I will split the holiday up as two trips. This post will be the final numbers.
Facts and Figures From the time we left home until arriving here in Brisbane we have..
Been away for 16 nights
Spent a total of $4227.59
Travelled 3464kms
Spent $233.60 on fuel, which breaks down to fuel usage of 4.33l/100km
Our $$ spent per day averaged at $264.22
Our $$ spent per km averaged at $1.22
Many “grey nomad” travelling websites have a dollar/km spend of $1.00 is a good budget to stick to. I am more than happy with our spend of $1.22
If we had chosen to cook all our meals ourselves we would have spent far less than $1.00. However, even though we enjoy cooking, we enjoy eating at “better” restaurants too. We do not tend to go out for a “Pub style” Meal often, as we are perfectly able to cook that sort of meal ourselves.
What went well…
I was pleased with how we packed the car. We had the Engel fridge on the back seat, along with a smaller car fridge. In the boot were our two suitcases, (plus for the first week a few bags of Christmas Presents)
The car fridge held just Milk, Eggs, Bread and a couple of small bottles of water. The Engel initially held the food we brought from home and then we kept it topped up with meat, vege, cheese etc along the way. This kept us with 3 days food in the fridge. To make it easier to unpack, all the food was in two eco-shopping bags this meant rather than hauling fridge in and out of the car, we only had to lift out the two bags. The food was going from the car fridge to a kitchen fridge. When we were leaving, we ran the car fridge for a while as we were packing up and the cold food was always the last to pack. This worked well, I had a small fridge thermometer and checked the temp regularly for the first couple of days until we were satisfied that we were not going to put ourselves in any danger of food poisoning š
We packed our two large suitcases a little differently to usual.. In one case I had all our clothes. My clothes on one side and his on the other.
The other suitcase was packed with zip up insulated shopping bags which were packed as follows.
* “Bathroom” – All toiletries, medications, combs, brushes, hair dryer, shavers, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Dishwasher tablets and Laundry powder were also in this bag.
* “Electrical” – A powerboard with USB outlets, chargers for phones and Ipads., our Apple TV box and HDMI cable
We also packed our good medium sized non stick frying pan.
This configuration worked pretty well. It was easy to bring in just 2 suitcases. then the small car fridge and the food from the Engel.
I tried to book accommodation that had laundry facilities and was able to wash pretty much every 3rd day without having to pay for laundromats.
What didn’t go well…
Honestly not much. I could have done with an extra pair of socks and we forgot tongs š We did not bother to buy them along the way though, as most places had them. We did buy a set of flexible cutting boards, as many of the accommodations either did not have a board, or they were tiny or they were stone, so we decided that cutting mats were $5.00 well spent. I remembered pack swimwear for the Spa Pools at Moree, but forgot beach towels. Luckily we did have an old towel in the car so we did not have to take the white towels from the motel.
Why do we choose AirBnB’s? Over the years we have always preferred to stay in places where we can self cater as often as possible. Both of us prefer to have a cooked breakfast rather than cereal or toast, so motel accommodation has traditionally not been much of an option for us, as most do not have kitchens.
Apartment/Suite style hotel accommodation is often very expensive or has a minimum nightly stay of 2, 5 or 7days depending on the time of year.
Caravan Park cabins have been a good choice for many years and we have had lots of great holidays in these.
Then…..along came AirBnB š I admit I was a little cautious the first couple of times I used it, but the more I looked into reviews I became more confident. Now I am happy that it is a safe way to travel.
When I am planning a trip, I know roughly where I need to be staying, so my first stop is always AirBnB. You can search by location, then you use filters to narrow down the choices available. Firstly I always filter by “entire place” this means that we have a place to ourselves, not sharing a room in somebody’s house. Sometimes an “entire placeā is a suburban house, sometimes it is a granny flat or unit within the grounds of the host’s house, but always you have the place to yourself with little or no interaction with your host. My next filter is to find properties with a kitchen, free off-street parking, air conditioning, WiFi and laundry facilities. This will usually give loads of options so then I will narrow the price range down to $100 per night. ( sometimes I need to raise this to $150 to get more suitable properties. Then I will compile a list of options to show hubby and we make a decision together.
We have never had any problems with AirBnB. They have always been clean and each host has been lovely. We have found that, especially in county areas, they are often cleaner and nicer than somewhat overpriced, rundown motels that have had little maintenance for years and are run by burnt-out despondent owners. Each AirBnB listing has a review section you can read and from I have read, AirBnB does not allow many bad reviews before kicking people out of the programme.
All in all, we have had a lovely holiday in comfortable accommodation with no regrets.
This was the last day of our “RoadTrip” The next week we have booked a room at Mantra. This will not be as much of a “budget break” š we love eating out at good restaurants, so the Entertainment Book will be used as much a possible š The package I booked is Room and Full Buffet Breakfast each day, so we are planning on having a big breakfast, later lunch, then light snacks in the evening.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Toowoomba is only a short drive from Brisbane city and knowing we could not check in until 2:00pm we were in no hurry to leave.
I wanted to travel back to Brisbane on the new “second crossing” of the Toowoomba range. Last time we were in Toowoomba, we had seen the construction works happening and were keen to see it finished. This new bypass should help keep large trucks out of the Toowoomba City centre.
We found the entrance to the new highway and it was funny watching the navigation system in the car having a little “panic attack” as the new road has not been updated to the system yet, so the car thought we were driving through a paddock and kept telling us to “turn around where safe”
We arrived at South Bank at just after 11:30am. We did not expect our room to be ready, but we knew that the Mantra would put our luggage into the storeroom and park the car for us. This left us free to have lunch at one for the many restaurants nearby.
We chose Ahmet’s Turkish. We have not been here before and were very pleased we did. It was really nice. We took our time and choose a couple of small plates as starters then split a main meal between us. We also enjoyed a couple of nice glasses of wine. Ahmet’s is in the Entertainment Book with a 25% off voucher.
After lunch, we were still a little early for our 2:00pm check in, so we decided to take a short walk up to Woolworths and buy some cheese and cold meats ready for a few light dinners. We got back to the Mantra and our room was ready, so we headed up to see our home for the next week.
We are members of the “Mantra Plus” programme so we get bonuses such as free Wi-Fi, food and bar discounts, late check out and often an upgrade in the room type. Of course, the upgrade is subject to availability but most times we have been upgraded.
When booking a room, I always book the minimum we are happy to stay in and if we get an upgrade it is a bonus. For a one week stay, we decided on a One Bedroom Apartment which gives a little more space than a Studio Apartment.
When we got up to the room, we had been upgraded to a City View Apartment, which gives us views over the roadway and city rather than looking out over the train line ?
We unpacked our clothes and sorted out the bathroom, then settled in for a quiet afternoon.
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 āproperā 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 hourā¦ 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 āGunsyndā 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 š
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 āChicken Wellingtonā 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 ākitchen bagā 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 1970ās. 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 āburiedā in the ākitchen bagā 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 ā¹ 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 surpriseā¦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 ā 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 āgreen vegeā 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 Ā½ 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 forā¦ 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 Dadās 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.
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. š
