First Stop - Stanthorpe!

Tomorrow we leave Moree and head to Lightning Ridge where we will catch up with a bunch of wild women for a week. We went to fair in Moree displaying the surprisingly wide range of food and drink produced in the area, but most of our time here has been spent in the artesian pools, either at our caravan park or at the Moree Artesian Aquatic Centre which is a fabulous facility. It’s the first time I have been to a public swimming pool where most of the people there were older than me, instead of the usual hordes of children. There is a water slide which was being used by a group of women who had cajoled a life guard to take their pictures as they splashed out the bottom of the slide.

Our first stopover was at Stanthorpe where we experienced overnight temps as low as 4.5 degrees. Had to put coats on the dogs but otherwise we all coped. We parked the hounds at doggy day care for a couple of days. The first day we explored Bald Rock and Girraween national parks viewing the granite outcrops and boulders. On our second dog-free day we enjoyed a lovely lunch with Heather and Maree at Warwick and were impressed by the facilities at their retirement village.

On the drive from Stanthorpe to Texas we saw dozens of kangaroos and other wildlife killed on the winding road. I suspect they were hit by smaller vehicles at relatively low speed as most of the carcasses were on the roadway and had to be avoided. It’s not a road large trucks would use very often because of hairpin bends and one lane bridges and floodways. Between Texas and Moree we slowed for a mob of emus either side of the highway so at least saw some living wildlife.

I continue to be perplexed by absurd rules imposed by caravan parks in relation to pets. For example, our Moree park only allows pets to stay a maximum of 3 days – good thing that was how long we planned to stay because we had no idea about that rule. At another park near Geelong I read through a long list of dos and don’ts governing dogs only to get to the last line which stated cats are strictly prohibited in the park! By that stage we had already booked in and paid so we just kept them in the van for the night. Most of the time our cats are a novelty when I walk them on leads to give them some exercise.