Standown Park - Our Second Visit

After our free night in Gympie it was great to get back to Standown Park on Tuesday 22nd July; we arrived at around 10.00am as the free camp was only an hour away. It was good to get back onto familiar territory and set up for 3 nights.

Neil & June arrived mid afternoon and set up and it was good fun talking about some of the places they had been up north and catching up on other news on friends & family.

The first night was a beauty with 3 large and 1 small camp oven with stews/casseroles in the and one huge camp oven with 3 large dampers. The stews were all finished off with dumplings and washed down with beer and whatever else you could get your hands on. All the cooking was done by the owners of the park Rod & Pam.

Following dinner a singer/guitarist played on singing some great country music; it started to get a little late for me (gone 8.30pm) and it was also getting quite cool so we headed back to the van.

The photos of this visit are below; and I must say if you are ever this way it is definitely worth a stay. Most book for a couple of days and end up staying a couple of weeks; price is $18 per night for 2 or $15 if you are a veteran.

As I am writing this it is 5.00pm on Wednesday; it has been very cold today and has been raining since around midnight. The weather is supposed to be clearing tomorrow; lets hope so as we move to Hervey Bay Friday to see the granddaughters for a few days and then on to Gladstone to meet up with friends for a week.

Post again soon. David & Linda – The DavLin Rig

Blackbutt - Alan & Janets Homestead

Finished off 4 weeks work and we were staying at Aspley during this period; given it was a suburb of Brisbane city I decided not to blog during this period. Following this we stayed 4 nights at Bribie whilst some work was carried out on the car and a couple of mods done to the van.

As Dad is still not well we will still only be able to travel to locations where we can get back if needed within a few days so we are trying to get a little further North to some warmer weather.

Alan & Janet invited to stay for a few nights before we moved off; they have a property at Blackbutt and given there was heaps of room available we decided to stay for a few days. It was good to catch up and have a couple of beers with Alan and Linda was in her element making cards and decorating tins with Janet. Below are photos of where we parked for the stay; this was when we were just about to take off, Alan and Janet are shown on the front veranda of their beautiful country home. Alan & Janet are now both aware that the air conditioner is reverse cycle (private joke). Thanks a heap to both of you for your hospitality and friendship.

After leaving Blackbutt we decided to meet up with Neil & June who were on the way back from up north; what better place than Standown Park where we had such a good time the previous occasion.

We did decide to try a free park for one night on the way just to see what this was like and how many travelers use these types of free stops. We stayed at “Six Mile Creek Rest Area” which is 6km south of Gympie on the western side of the Bruce Highway. When we arrived (around 2.30pm) the place was already filling up and any latter we would have struggled to find a good site. The area is maintained by main roads and has toilets, fresh water and pergola style seating and tables, it is set back approximately 200m from the highway and surprisingly fairly quiet given the expected highway traffic. We ran into several couples traveling around; one couple in particular had been on the road for 8 years and had never stayed at a caravan park, only free sites.

It is okay as far as we are concerned for one or 2 nights a week but having to be very conscious of water usage from our water tanks is not our cup of tea on a permanent basis. Linda called her shower a sparrow bath, with turn on, wet down, turn off, soap up, turn on and rinse off; this all done to try and only use say 10lt of water. Below is a photo of all the vans and motor homes at six mile creek towards the end of the day, we are the car facing you on the left of the photo.

Post again soon. David & Linda – The DavLinRig