Again, a slow breakfast and slow pack, saw us back on the road and eager to explore roads much less travelled. On leaving the park, there was a park ranger repairing a cattle grid, and having noted the maps of this area, we sounded out the possibility of heading due north of the park on the back roads, to which the ranger confirmed.
So, after exiting the park and following the access road back toward Coolah, at the first intersection, we turned right (left took you back toward Coolah). This was bitumen for a bit then became unsealed.
The road makes it's way up the valley, has a couple of creek crossings (see pics below), until you make your way up to "Pandora's Pass" at the top of this range. This is a very beautiful drive. We did not see any other travellers and enjoyed to peaceful drive.
One of the creek crossings, very beautiful.
As we then decended down Pandora's Pass we were overlooking huge farms, it looked a little like the Darling Downs, however, the Darling Downs looked like it would fit on just one of these farms.
We made our way through back roads, working more on a bearing than anything, until we came to a point that we could recognise on our maps. From here, it looked like there was a back road to Tamworth, so we took that one.
This got us into Tamwoth for a late lunch, then on the New England Highway for the run up the 'Great Dividing Range' over the peak of 1400m at Ben Lomond, down to Glen Innes at 1200m.
Camping in Glen Innes was at the request of our daughter. We used to live here when we ran a motel in town. However for this trip, it was fossicking and horse riding that had the focus of my daughter. She decided to camp at Boolabinda farm stay. Boolabinda is located on Bullock Mountain Road, off the Emmaville road. This property is located between Three Waters farm stay and Bullock Mountain farm stay (which includes Pub Crawls on Horse Back).
During our time here, we also checked out the other two neighbouring properties, and discovered that though Three Waters had won a 2011 Tourism Award their facilities were very similar to Boolabinda, though we noted they had share showers, not private ones like Boolabinda. Of note: they sold bags of fossicking gravel at $25 when the exact same bag at the Tourist Information Centre is $10.
We chose Bullock Mountain for our horse riding and this was excellent. While being slightly more expensive than Three Waters (Boolabinda does not do horse riding any more, cost of insurance being a negative) $40 for the first hour, while Three Waters was $35 for the first hour, we noted that Three Waters was mainly in the sun, riding along the banks of the Reddestone Creek, while Bullock Mountain explored the bush before finally joining back onto the Reddestone Creek, which you had to cross, very exciting.
All three properties access Reddestone Creek, which was the scene for a large commercial saphire mine in days past, remnants still very visable.
We enjoyed what I would say (and the owner of Bullock Mountain also stated) the best camp site along the creek, of all the camp sites offered by all three farm stays. Our location was shaded, overlooking the swimming hole, where we put the canoes in, and the swimming hole also had good fishing for Redfin. Three Waters, we saw, only had grassy, very sunny camp spots, as did Bullock Mountain, however, Bullock Mountain also offers camping over on Beardy's Waters, a Trout fishing spot and from my local knowledge, would make a great camp site, but you would have to be self sufficient and need a 4x4 to access this site.
Our camp at Boolabinda was a short drive to the showers, which are old and rustic, but fairly clean. Tank drinking water is also avialble from the house.
We had no luck with saphires nor fishing, but then we weren't truly serious either, perhaps next time.
Of course we took a drive into Glen Innes, and explored the changes to the town, since it was 10 years since we lived here.
Enjoy some pics of our time in Glen Innes. We spent two nights here, before heading home on the final leg of this adventure.
Camp: Boolabinda Holiday Farm $40/night being $10/pp/night = $80
GPS: 29 36'03.15"S 151 43'35.30E
Weather: Beautiful, perfect, awesome about 25C days and 12C nights.
No comments:
Post a Comment