Peter and Christine's Australian Road Trips

First thing this morning, in Toowoomba, Peter and I met up with two of my Family History associates/friends – Jacqui Brock and Linda Ely. We had a delightful hour or so, chatting, reminiscing, solving the problems of the world, and sharing a beautiful breakfast together. It was not nearly enough time together and Jacqui and I agree we need to make it longer next time. The only thing we forgot was a photo together – bother! As we left Toowoomba, we descended from the Range into a wide valley filled with grain farms.

Our first stop was at Warwick, where we discovered a very large solar panel array. It has been developed by the University of Queensland with the intention that UQ will become fully independently energy sustainable – don’t know whether that statement makes sense but it kind of explains how I understand what they are doing!

The other amazing structure we found in Warwick was the Horses Sculpture – the dream of a guy called John Simpson. I hope you can read at least some of his story here.

On our trip today from Toowoomba to Grafton we have driven through the Southern Downs as far as the border of Queensland and New South Wales at Killarney and continued through the Border Ranges National Park as far as Woodenbong, using The Settler’s Way and Mount Lindesay, with a detour up a No Through Road/gravel track/rutted farm lane called Acacia Plateau Road. care of the GPS in the car – not fun!

The landscape continually changed in this area. This is something that has caught my attention and astonished and sometimes overwhelmed my senses as we have driven around Australia these last eight weeks. Wherever we have travelled the variety in the landscape has left us awe-struck. Today was no different.

From there we joined Summerland Way and travelled through Kyogle, Casino, reaching Grafton just as the sun set. It was quite a murky sunset tonight and, after the last two evenings, we didn’t stop for photographs. I did, however, take more photos of the ever-changing landscape.

Overnight in Grafton is in a very olde worlde B&B – very quaint! Home tomorrow!