Denise and Barry's Caravan Travels: September 18, 2016

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Moree

Upon arrival at the Gwydir Caravan Park we were allocated a site in our requested area of the park only to find the ground to be quiet boggy and wet, it ended up being one of the better ones as there were quiet a few sites that have been roped off due to damaged caused by vehicles during the wet days.

We were expecting more rain yesterday but it did not come to later in the night so we managed to squeeze in a couple of dips in the thermal pool during the day. It rained constantly all night, as the ground was already saturated there are now larger areas of water laying around the park, we did think it was clearing around lunch time today only to get another period of heavy rain.

As it is not very pleasant to use the thermal pools here at the park today we took the opportunity to visit their other facility that is being developed into an accommodation complex with an indoor 25mtr spa pool with cascading water outlets.

Our water logged site at Moree

Indoor 25 metre spa pool

Enjoying a water massage

Inside the complex other pools have been filled with cement

Yelarbon

Friday we left beautiful blue skies and sunshine on the Gold Coast and headed out through Nerang taking the hwy to Warwick which meant we had to pass over Cunningham's Gap, a good test for the replacement engine in the Paj. Baz was very satisfied with the way it pulled up the range giving no indication of letting us down, looks like it will get us back to Tassie ok.

The only rain we had was a small shower as we were climbing the range, but as we approached Yelarbon where we had planned to spend the night, we could see low lying areas inundated with water. The area had constant rain for the previous couple of days so the small river near the recreation ground at Yelarbon had broken it's banks with a good flow of water.

Wow! how things change after only 400 klms heading south west, the previous night when we were on the GC we were laying on top of the bed to sleep as the night was warm and humid, the night at Yelarbon we were under the doonah with an extra blanket on top also the gas heater set on the thermostat to come on when it got really cold in the early hours of the morning. It sure is getting harder each year to head south to the cooler states. I think that after eight years of spending our winters in the North we are getting acclimatised and are not handling the cold very well!

After a good nights sleep snuggled up we were on the road heading to Moree by 8.30 am, rain had been forecast for later in the day so hoping to get there and have some time in the thermal pools before it returned. We encountered lots of pot holes and road damaged with road maintenance crews being kept very busy trying to repair the damage from the recent rain. North of Moree there was water over the highway with most vehicles taking care as they drove through it, we would hear on the CB that a few would hit it at high speed not thinking of the consequences to themselves or others.