Emerald to Katoomba
On Wednesday we continued our trip to Sydney. We no longer took the coast highway but went inland, 500 km from the Ocean, in two big loops.The first loop was from Townsville to Caloundra, via Emerald (nice railway station) to Roma. On the trip to Roma we visited the Carnavon Gorge with almost domesticated kangaroos. Driving here is quite different from Europe. Most of the time there is no other traffic and gas-stations are sometimes more than 170 km away. Nature wonderful and very varied: woods, pasture,arable land, hills and mountains. On Friday 12 September we went to the Bunya Mountains. On our way we tried to get an idea of the possibilities of renting a cabin or motel room, but nobody could inform us. So we took the risk and there was no problem at all. We could hire a complete house for AU$ 70 a day. In the mountains there were a lot of hiking trips possible and Gerrit did some of them. On Sunday 14 September we drove to Caloundra at the beach, where we had dinner in the evening at the seaside.From Caloundra to Sydney was our second loop. On Monday 15 September we went through the Glasshouse Mountains and Brisbane to Tambourine but then had to change our travel route because of bushfires and therefore we travelled the whole day to end in Drake. The next daytrips were to Gunnedah and Dubbo. In Dubbo we stayed with Dutch people for the night. The next day we visited the famous Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo and then we went on to Katoomba at the Blue Mountains. On Friday 19 September we drove and walked through the Blue Mountains. Very impressive! |
