Going west

We have travelled 1000km so far since leaving and continue to travel west to Charleville made a sandwich down by the river and headed south to The Gladstone Hotel the first in the book.  Our first impressions were amazement to view a street lined with bra's!  It turned out to be a fund raising effort for breast cancer, but with over a thousand bra's lining the street which only went for about 50m it was a sight. 

The pub is as the book says, a plain pub without all the banter on the walls.

Inside and out of The Gladstone Hotel Wyandra

 when we arrived a lady told us of a road across to Toompine, our next destination.  We had a couple of beers and spoke to a property owner who got out his truckie maps and showed us the roads out to properties, we checked in with the local police who confirmed the roads and explained some had been closed 20 years ago and which way to go.  So to the disappointment to the lady serving, we decided to head off and camp by the Parro and head directly west across property tracks.  Great camp site down by the river and a great trip out, heaps of wild life around.  Headed off the next morning, met a couple of cow cockies along the way and they told confirmed the way to travel.  We stopped off at Duck creek for lunch it's an old opal mining area, had a bit of a scratch around, but came up empty.  Got to Toompine hotel around 3.00pm, great set up, free camp, showers and the bar lady told us to throw our swags in the hall as there might be a bit rain (which there was over night).  What a contrast as a pub, good atmosphere, talked with a local property owner and fellow travellers, had a great feed and shower (much to Kevin pleasure).  

 The place has all the history of the pub and surrounding district and samples of bolder opal found in the region.  The beer was cold although no tap beer.  We had to be out of the hall early as they were running a craft class in it.  We took off at 7.00am after having a cuppa with a couple of donkeys and headed north to Quilpie.  The plan was to travel to Blackall via Yaraka, but Kevin suggested that we go via Adavale, although the Yaraka pub was in the book, the write up was not inviting and Adavale had a pub we were told about in Toompine.  So we headed to Adavale, the trip was 150km shorter and as it turned out was a wise move.  The pub at Adavale is a nice looking bush pub run by a lady who was born and bred in Coffs, a member of the local Jorden family.  Is was a good choice on Kevin's part, we had a beer, a mars bar and read the walls.

We needed to get going as it was becoming overcast and given we were still on dirt roads, did not want to get caught.  We left around 11.00am and drove north as the clouds came in from the west, the road was pretty good until it went to black soil with about 80 km's to go and it started to spit.  We got to 25km's out and the rain started to fall, luckily we got to the bitumen strip before it got too heavy and made it to town around 2.00pm.  So been to the Wool Scour great place, full of history, now thinking about what to do with the rain, heading further north or staying put, we will probably toss a coin. - until next time.

Note to Matt - The solar setup working brilliantly and no need for a recovery vehicle yet.