Camping Tour of New South Wales and Victoria

Several years ago I spent some time researching a camping tour around Australia however changes within the family had this plan put in the "go sometime " file instead of the "doing it soon" file, eventually dropping right out of any file at all.  After all, being able to be part of our grand children's daily lives beats any such trip! Last month, eight years later, we suddenly had a couple of months where we could happily take off, knowing that our family were also having a holiday of their own.

A round Australia trip was no longer feasible, not only because of time issues but also distance factors for a sole driver, so we looked at a small part of our huge country that we were interested in seeing. We decided to head down to the Canberra area then down to the New South Wales South Coast and follow it westwards into Victoria as far as the end of the Great Ocean Road. After that the plan was to head homewards via Ballarat, Bendigo and Dubbo.

This trip would cover many, many kilometres and would involve setting up camp quite a few times so we decided to travel light and camp simply. We sleep in our Toyota van, have a fridge and microwave installed there too, as well as a gas cooker for places where electricity is not available. Our second largest tarpaulin with poles and a few smaller spares plus a light weight tent replaced our usual luxury gear. We use the tent to keep our table, chairs and gear in while we tour around our base. As we were hoping that my sister and her husband might join us for a few days in Victoria we added two extra chairs.

Despite several friends' concerns with our "freedom" travel style - no firm itinerary and no accommodation booked ahead with the highest of the peak holiday season imminent, we were confident that all would work out well for us. One of the beautiful things about driving around in your travel home is that you can stop wherever you like the look of the place and keep going if you don't or if there is nowhere to park it!
 

Departure Day arrived! After leaving home before 6am we made good time arriving at Toowoomba where we joined the Gore Highway to Goondiwindi, on the border of Queensland and New South Wales. 

Gore Highway

 After we left Toowoomba we were soon driving through a dry, yellow and brown landscape. Such conditions were to be very common on our almost 6000km journey. As I edit this post places we passed through and even stopped for lunch are currently burning fiercely. Bush fires are a constant threat in our land.

Lunch break was at the Lions Park in pleasant town of Millmerrin where the ipad enabled that all important check on all important details. If you have an ipad, then you can carry your office wherever you go!

 This little park with undercover picnic tables proved to be a popular rest stop with travellers. I was interested in three bottle trees there. These are similar, but not the same, as the Boab trees we saw in Western Australia. In this dry area they certainly would need an adaptation to store water which it does by storing it between the bark and the trunk. The trunk can grow to as much as 2 metres in diameter.

Queensland Bottle tree - Brachychiton rupestris

From Goodiwindi we picked up the Newell Highway which continues towards Melbourne. We were hoping to get as far as Narrabri where we wanted to have our first stop.

Corn fields near Pittsburg

Nearing Narrabri and after driving long distances on a straight flat road, I was excited to see the silhouette of mountains in the distance.  Could they be they Warrumbungles?

Warrumbungles in the distance

One sleep, then, Warrumbungles to explore again!