Exploring Oz in Style

MILES – MITCHELL

After last night’s stunning full moon and clear skies, we awoke to an overcast sky and a chilly morning.

We had a peaceful night’s sleep out here on our own with no highway noise to disturb us.

After a leisurely breakfast, we packed up and headed into Miles to stock up – remembering that we have made a conscious decision to shop locally along the way to support small country towns.  A quick tour around the town showed signs of the mining industry brightening up the streets and certainly causing a fair bit of development.

The vast emptiness of this country is evident as the black soil of the Downs gives way to the red soil of the Maranoa District. This is definitely cattle country (as opposed to cotton, sorghum and wheat of the Downs) and lots more scrub out this way. However, large pastures of green could be seen (suspect this is sorghum grown for cattle feed) left and right of the highway.  It certainly was a pleasure to see this as previous trips out here have shown nothing but grey and brown of the drought.

There appears to be much more traffic out this way but we are happy to say not nearly as much dead wildlife litters the road – more evidence of the much needed recent rains out this way.

From Roma, we continued on the Warrego and happily left most of the traffic behind us as they continued on the Leichhardt Highway for their own adventures.

The overcast skies began to break up as we headed into Mitchell for a break and for lunch.  Gorgeous sunny skies but still quite chilly seeing the need for a heavier jumper for me and a beanie.

Sitting in the park surrounded by Happy Jack’s making their noise makes for a peaceful stop.  Make sure you head into the Bakery at Mitchell for a quick meal of a pie or sausage roll or they even do full meals now.  It was packed on this day and we suspect that it was Pension Day as the Bakery was full to the rafters of the elderly enjoying a social get together inside out of the chill of the day.

MITCHELL – CHARLEVILLE

A non-eventful drive to Charleville but it was still nice to see that even this far out, the recent rains have left their mark.

10 MILE CAMP, F/CAMP – CHARLEVILLE

Damian does a fair bit of research before we head off on these short trips.  When we need to be somewhere by a certain time, he sorts out mileage per day and all our camping spots.  Once we embark on our long trip, we won’t be so organised.  At that time, we will just sort of wander until we feel like stopping.  But, for the moment, it’s organised.

We usually rely on Wikicamps and then Camps 6 (the version we have at home at the moment).

This free camp is certainly on Wikicamps.

Listed as: Mitchell Hway, 10 Mile Warrego River, co-ordinates are shown as:

26° 16′ 51″ S

146 18′ 50″ E

It’s free, dog friendly, shady, there’s a river which you can throw a line into or pop the kayak into for a paddle.  You have to find the road to the camp site but if you pay attention to what others have said in the comments section, you’ll find it no trouble and there’s plenty of room for everything from tents to RVs.  It’s quiet and it’s peaceful.

I did a quick video diary of the camp.  I’m new to this Video Diary business and with only one arm in use (the other is suffering from post operative surgery), there may be times I wobble a bit, but there you go…

This country has so much to offer to those willing to give up just some of the creature comforts.

Damian’s Say:

1 beaut camp spot to another – yeay for us 🙂  Another story of common sense triumphing over stupidity to find the ‘hard to find’ camp site.

Traffic today was good.  Not sure about the mining boom – has it burst or is it still going?

No roadworks today and the roads are all in good shape.

Once again, I wish I had the kayak – this place is perfect to go for a quiet paddle along the river.

Also, please a reminder to people to PICK UP YOUR RUBBISH and take it with you.  Why do some people think it’s perfectly ok to leave their rubbish behind?  Vanessa again, did a quick rubbish hunt and we took it all into the closest bin when we left.  Is it so hard?

Anyway, here’s a few pics of the camp site.

Join us in our next post, where we travel from Charleville to Windorah on our way to Birdsville for the Big Red Bash.

Until then,

Follow the Sapper

Vanessa and Damian