My little road trip

One of the difficulties about living in a place that is close-to-paradise is that residing there makes you reluctant to travel elsewhere.  Especially so since we both travel every day for work. So by the time Friday rolls around         neither of us really wants to spend much time in the car over the weekend. However, while Steve has been in Newcastle this weekend, consumed entirely with costuming Mary Poppins, I decided to take a week's leave. And I decided that I would take myself off on a little road trip to places I'd not been to before but they had to be within a few hours from home. Should I go coastal, hugging the coastline northwards to the Sunshine Coast and perhaps Gympie, or perhaps west to Boggabilla and Goondawindi?  The weather wasn't looking all tha promising regardless of where I went so I decided I would head up to Warwick and on to Toowoomba in the Darling Downs.  I'd never been to either place and I'd add another layer to the trip by making it a second hand bookshop crawl.

So, I packed the car with the little I needed and headed off into a sunny morning through Kyogle and then up the Summerland Way through the little villages of Old Grevillea and Grevillea and eventually on to Woodenbong, which is about an hour from Larnook.

Heading towards Woodenbong, the landscape is dominated by  the oddly shaped Mt Lindesay, which rises up somewhat menacingly from somewhere over the border in Queensland. It was a perfect day - virtually no traffic on the roads, a big blue never-ending sky and sunshine bathing everything in a golden wash.

The first big stop was the town of Warwick, perched on the Condamine River.  Former QLD premier, Annna Bligh, was born in Warwick, although I discovered this fact not in the town itself, but on Wikipedia, I'm afraid.  The town is very attractive with some lovely sandstone public buildings such as the post office and town hall.

I parked out in front of a St Vinnie's store and had an unsuccessful browse through their books before finding the Little Shop of Books second hand bookshop. It's inventory was mostly paperback novels and I only managed a book on the wigmen of PNG.  I do collect books on PNG so it was a good find and a good buy.  I pushed northward for another 45 minutes or so until I reached the very fine city of Toowoomba.

Again, many fine public buildings in this city including this fabulous deco theatre, the Empire. But alas, I visited the site of seven bookshops, seeking out those second hand treasures but alas, most had closed down. The two that were open were Christian bookshops.  In hindsight, apart from ringing each of the shops beforehand, I also should have spent more time at the charity shops (well in fact, any time at the charity shops would have been good).  I overnighted at the Great Divide motel outside of which grew this fabulous bottle tree

The next morning, after a tasty smashed avocado on toasted turkish bread for breakfast, but alas, no Italian dark chocolate hot chocolate because the fabulous Cioccolato, where I had enjoyed this sensational drink the day before, did not open until 11.  I had to push on.  I had already decided by this stage to extend the road trip by another night and my goals today were to visit the Western Darling Downs Zoo and then head on down to the wine growing township of Stanthorpe.

The Zoo is a privately owned attraction which held some interesting animals such as tapir, serval, white lions and a rather lovely anaconda.  The landscape in which the zoo is set is quite dry and it reminded me of Western Plains Zoo - but without the moats. The animals all looked in good shape.

Stopping briefly in Warwick again, where I had a pretty revolting fish and chips, I headed down to Stanthorpe, staying in the aptly named Apple and Grape Motel - apples and grapes being among the (many) forms of agricultural produce grown in the district.

Learning from my past experiences at Toowoomba, I mad emu way to the Salvo's store in the centre of the main street (which itself was a lovely well kept main street with three beautiful old pubs with big verandahs and wrought ironery). I managed to find a couple of books here that I was happy to buy. Just before sunset I made a dash up to a lookout that was situated above the town and watched the sun lazily sink below the horizon.

After an enjoyable chicken parmigiana washed down with a couple of glasses of local chardonnay, I meandered back to my very 70s motel room where I finished reading the novel, Animal People by Charlotte Wood. Apart from being a reflection on human-animal relationships, the novel takes place over the course of just one day in the lead character, Stephen.

Friday morning was quite chilly, the car thermometer reckoned it was 1 degree when I pulled out of the motel at 8.00am, but I'm not convinced it was that cold.  I stopped about 20 minutes later at Ballandean bakery where I bought a pie to have for breakfast and a sandwich to have for lunch which would be taken in Giraween National Park, the Queensland 'twin' to Bald Rock National Park.

I arrived at the park just before 9.00am to be greeted by a mob of grey kangaroos grazing peacefully on the grass in the picnic area car park.

I was to see other greys as I walked along the network of walking tracks which took me to a number of stunningly beautiful places such as the junction pool

and the Pyramid

on the summit of which is perched a number of these huge granite tors.  I wonder when this one will break free from its 'moorings' and hurtle hundreds of metres below. The last few hundred metres of the ascent requires you to walk up a granite slope which I reckon was close to 40 degrees. I was wearing book shop searching shoes rather than bushwalking shoes, so the climb was a little tricky at times. The view though was well worth the struggle.

I left the park just after 1.00 and drove the 20 or so kilometres into Tenterfield, where I was hoping I would find two second hand bookshops.  Well at least that's what I hoped. Of course neither of which was still operating, but I did find the Salvos and bought just one book there - for Stevie actually, not for me.  However, there was the most fabulous antique shop that I had a look at and bought a lovely Chinese ginger bowl.  The lady who served me suggested the second hand shop at the other end of town as somewhere she thought may have some books for sale.  Sure enough I struck gold.  Lots of books here and I managed to buy $40.00 worth.  No real 'finds' of course, but still worth having in my collection.

I headed home following the road past the Bald Rock National Park and its concern for lyrebirds which get too close to the road

and I also stopped briefly at a site I had driven past many times but had never stopped to check out, Thunderbolt's Hideout.  A short walking track meandered through ferny glades to a granite outcrop containing a number of overhangs and deep crevices

where the bushranger, Thunderbolt, holed up, on occasions.  The most spectacular of these is a low 'cave' under  huge granite boulder that could easily fit fifteen or twenty people, and I wondered who else other than Thunderbolt would have sheltered here over thousands of years. I had an uneventful trip home (apart from sighting a road killed red bellied black snake outside Woodenbong, which I thought a bit unusual for that time of the year) and made it back home just after 5.00pm.

So, although the trip wasn't a success, second hand book-wise, it was a fabulous tonic to get me out discovering new places, listening to great music in the car and experiencing some sense of freedom - to get me outside of myself, even if only for a short time.  I can't wait to take Steve and our friends up to show them these places in the future.