Apple and Grape Festival Holiday - Feb/March 2024 - Day 15

   Day 15:  Saturday 9/3/24 - Murphy Creek Escape to Home

Overcast this morning and we had showers overnight.  Just had coffee inside the van then packed up and left.  It's been a rather disappointing last 2 days of our holiday.  Today we are heading home and back to the real world 😔

Crossed our fingers we didn't come across another caravan coming in, thankfully we didn't.  We're going to stop in Esk for a pie at the bakery for brekky.  Markets are on in Esk this morning and I tried to get Craig to stop in Esk for the night in the unpowered campsite at the Esk Caravan Park (they are really nice, grassed area on the seasonal creek), but he wouldn't, just wanted to get home.

We picked up some handmade chocolates and had a very average german sausage on a roll.  Went to the bakery and grabbed a couple of pies and drove to Toogoolawah to eat in the park.  Unfortunately we missed the turn off to go through Somerset.  Esk pies come in at second place, the clear winner is still Deepwater Bakery!!

Unfortunately that is the end of our tale for this holiday.  The remainder of the day we travelled home and unpacked, started washing 😆

We are going to start doing our camping weekends every six weeks again, like we used to do.  Trying to go to a different campground or pub (we have discovered the Country Pub Camping scene now) sometimes with our camping mates we usually go with or might be on our own.  Stay tuned and I'll post up our weekends after we've been.

Apple and Grape Festival Holiday - Feb/March 2024 - Day 14

  Day 14:  Friday 8/3/24 - Lake Coolmunda to Murphy Creek Escape

It blew a gale all night long, then for a brief period early this morning it was reasonably calm, we had coffee inside then got straight into packing up, by that time the wind was already starting to pick up and be uncomfortable, such a shame.

Heading into the Inglewood Bakery for breakfast and looking Husband I don't think he's awoken in the best of moods 😩  Pies for breakfast which we took to the free camp area to eat, which was now vacant.  Not bad pies but Deepwater Bakery still gets the trophy on this trip.

We are heading through Millmerran and potentially our overnight stop will be at the pub in Cambooya the Bull and Barley Inn.  The road the last couple of days have been absolutely horrendous, you get bounced around, tossed side to side, kidney slapping headache making bumpiness - it was actually making travelling very uncomfortable, not fun and making us crumpy and feeling unwell.  The roads are just crap!

We eventually arrive at the Bull and Barley Inn in Cambooya, lovely pretty old pub at first glance from the outside.  Found a park and wandered in, locals not particularly friendly when we entered, I gave a cheery hello and got one bloke "yeah gidday" very unenthusiastically, then dead silence and stares.  Staff behind the bar were approachable, but disappointingly when we went back in to ask when lunch service started and to order another drink, we were told to wait and then ignored while the bartender went around everyone else at the bar and asked if they wanted a drink, then serviced new people that walked in and eventually came back to us and we asked when does lunch start and got a blunt you can't order until 12pm (it being 11.45am at this point in time) and then we asked if it was okay to order another drink......  you can only imagine how impressed Craig was by this time.  I reckon if he hadn't of been hungry we would have just left and probably should have.

I asked about the camping and was told there was camping available on the block next door that the general store owned as long as you were self container.  We back outside and peered over the fence at the block, not particularly inspiring, and being Friday night might be noisy - Craig not impressed so I guess we're not staying here.  We ordered lunch which were just Entrees, my Bruschetta arrived first and I had finished it by the time Craig's meal came out, which wasn't the Entree, but a main meal size and the calamari was not cooked well - geezus this is not going well!  He ate most of his lunch and said very crankily "I do not want to stay here tonight", I can't really share the rest of his sentence or it would just be a long line of 🤬.  Said to him that's fine, you'll just need to give me a couple of minutes to find somewhere else to go.  Fat chance of that with the mood he was in, got in the car and started driving 🤬

Onto Wikicamps and find somewhere not too far away.  Came across the Murphy Creek Tavern and back up was Murphy Creek Escape.  Happy with those suggestion we set off in that direction trying to miss the middle of Toowoomba but being he was in a mood and followed the car GPS and didn't listen to me, well we ended up going through town didn't we - that went well....  After what felt like a very long time we arrived at Murphy Creek Pub,  we drove in and out of the car park with Craig saying it wasn't inspiring and he didn't like the camping area 🫤

Back down the road a few kilometres to the turn off to Murphy Creek Escape, I hope this place is a nice as the website pictures it.  After what felt like an extremely long time, we came to a very low bridge, our Hilux is 1.9m high and the caravan is 2.7m high - left hand side of the road we'd fit the car only under the bridge, right hand side of the road we were close with the caravan, I think from memory the bridge was 3m high.  So you may need to drive on the wrong side of the road to get under the bridge.  The road to the campground was a narrow road and I'm not sure you would be able to pass another caravan on it, we passed a small car and had to come to a complete stop and it was very tight.  You cross over a causeway and the entrance to the campground is up the hill from there on the right.  Driving in it is not what I was expecting after looking at the website, you pass through the unpowered sites, stopping near the office and the powered sites at the end of the property to book in.  Hmmm, powered sites are devoid of grass and just rocky ground, with quite a lot of permanent camps to one side - overall not a good look. 

We booked into the unpowered section and headed back to near the entrance where it was pretty level and not too close to anyone else.  We set up and then went for a walk around the campground, there is an amenities block in the unpowered area that looks like it has quite a lot of toilets/showers.  Most of the area seems to be not mowed or well maintained.  We check out  the amenities and the room is a toilet/shower combo, very basic, old but pretty clean.  Out of the whole building, it was the only door unlocked and by the evening as campers came in, there would have been maybe 20 or so more people for the night - only one toilet/shower open.

We finally had a campfire on our last night, although it did get windy later in the night.  After dinner, we sat around the fire for a while and had a visit from a possum.  We eventually put the fire out, closed everything up because there might be showers tonight and headed to bed.

Murphy Creek Escape:  Powered and unpowered sites, amenities, campfires, pet friendly.  Lots of rules to follow. Unpowered site $28.00/night 2 people.

In all honesty, disappointed with Murphy Creek Escape.  It does not look like their website or photos that I have seen in past years.  We will do not go back.  

Look, we are not caravan park campers, you will see that if you've followed our blog or read about the trips we've done in past years.  We generally like bush campgrounds, less people and the serenity and peacefulness of camping in the bush but we just didn't find this campground nice or enjoyable and there really isn't that many campgrounds that we've felt that way about.

Apple and Grape Festival Holiday - Feb/March 2024 - Day 13

 Day 13:  Thursday 7/3/24 - Inverell - Lake Coolmunda

Moving on today, so packed up the caravan, filled up the water tanks, hooked up and we're ready to go.  One stop before leaving Inverell this morning though, Craig wants to have a look at the Woodturning place just out of town.

Cost is $5.00 per person to see this blokes work.  He and Craig had plenty to talk about while looking around his workshop and timber stores.  Finally he invited us to go inside his shop/display area.  Really beautiful work and some of it was so intricate, it would so tediously time consuming but so amazing and also quite pricey.

This bloke also does metal sculptures which are all around his yard and you are welcome to wander around and look at them.  Some of the sculptures were quite clever, he welds them together some various items and spare parts.

We spent about an hour here all up, but now it's time to head off to our lunch stop in Moree.

Along our way today, we passed some very pretty silo paintings.

Upon arriving in Moree and finding the first pub suggestion for lunch, we felt like if we pulled up we may get mugged.  Sadly it just wasn't a very nice area of town, so we headed off to the second suggestion at Amaroo Tavern, which also has a caravan park across the road.

Amaroo Tavern is undergoing renovations but is still open, thankfully because Craig was getting cranky and I feel that if this place wasn't any good I think he'd be tossing all the toys out of his cot shortly.

Sat down, got him a beer and ordered Nachos and Chicken Wings.  As soon as we finished eating we left.  Heading to Inglewood for the night at the free camp, otherwise back up plan is Lake Coolmunda.

Hmmmm,  stopped at the free camp, the trees are full of bats and you are right next to the highway.  We decided to head out to Lake Coolmunda.  We pulled up at the caravan park above the lake where you have to pay to stay at either the caravan park above the lake or the lakeside caravan park.  Lady at reception said the lake was lovely at the moment, so I made the decision to stay there.  She did say if we weren't happy down there, that we could come back up here and stay.  When drove down to the Lakeside Caravan Park and realised it all looked rather familiar - seems both of us had forgotten that we stayed here 7 years ago 😆  We found a spot away from everyone, which we realised later is about where we camped last time.  What we also had forgotten was how bloody windy it is here - OMG, it is blowing a gale and very uncomfortable.  We set up and went for a wander around the campground, there really wasn't anyone sitting outside their camp enjoying the few and one lot of campers actually packed up and moved up to the top caravan park.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very nice campground, there is old amenities block and a new one that you need to use the swipe card you get when booking in, which also lets you through the boom gates to the campground.  It is beautifully maintained, with picnic shelters around the place, campfires allowed also and pet friendly.  Cost is $30.00/night for 2 people.  It is just horribly windy.

Craig wanted to cook outside and was determined to make it happen, and rigged up wind breaks from our side walls, it did the job but geezus what an effort when there's a perfectly good cooker inside the caravan 😳  We had butter chicken and rice eventually, ate it, cleaned up.  There'll be no campfire tonight and the bugs OMG you'd think they'd be blown away but nope they're all hanging around the lights.  We pulled down the wind breaks and retreated inside for some relief.

Needless to say it was an early night.  We'll do one more overnight stay before getting home.

Apple and Grape Festival Holiday - Feb/March 2024 - Day 12

 Day 12:  Wednesday 6/3/24 - Inverell

A bit to do today - organise the camp site for another night, need to do wages today for work, visit National Transport Museum, visit Pioneer Village, lunch at The Union and afternoon drink at The Welder's Dog, having a holiday can be busy 😆

Not a problem to book another night at the Inverell Caravan Park ✔️

Tidy up the camp site, put some water in the car fridge, sunscreen and hats, laptop/work stuff and onto the National Transport Museum.  First in the door at the museum at 9am, the Lady that greeted us was so lovely, very friendly and happy.  Explain the museum to us, you are free to wander around, take photos, free tea and coffee in the cafe area with seating, no touching the cars or displays.  So much to look at - cars obviously, motorbikes, model trains, memorabilia, a working train model set complete with diorama scenery.  We spent a couple of hours here, not rushing and took lots of photos. ✔️

A few more pictures for you, but you get the idea.  Too many photos to put them all up

After leaving the Museum, we need to take a minute off holidaying while I do some work.  Found a picnic table in the park in town on the banks of the McIntyre River - not a bad temporary office and lovely park.  The river walk goes from our caravan park all the way into town. ✔️

Time for lunch now, plan is to go to The Union Bar and Grill, which is in this beautiful old building.  ✔️

Lunch was enjoyable and was it was pleasant sitting in the old building.

Next we were visiting the Pioneer Village, however we stopped in at the local Butcher (Lennons Butchery)  because Craig couldn't help himself.  Wow what a great butcher shop.  We could smell the smoked bacon, so asked if it was smoked in house - answer from the owner was a resounding YES!  so we had to get us some of that.  I spied some Black Truffle and Parmesan sausages and Italian meatballs, which I had to buy because one of the red wines we had on board from Symphony Hill Winery was matched to Italian meatballs 😁

Throw that into the car fridge and back on track to the Pioneer Village.  A small fee for entry to the Village, payable at the General Store.  Had a chat to the Caretakers as you do.  There is a map of the village you are given which has all the buildings numbered and a description of it.  Make sure you take a hat, put on sunscreen and take some water with you and it'll be happy days.  We spent about 2 hours wandering around the village and it was really interesting and impressive.  Such a wonderful thing seeing the restored buildings and what they were used for.

This home was so cool to walk through

This pub was pretty cool too

Blacksmith shed

Sleeping quarters attached to Blacksmiths shed

Back into town for a drink at The Welder's Dog for our mate Andy.  Wow, what a great bar, great atmosphere and really cool décor.  There is a cellar below the bar that you enter via a lift and it can be hired for private tastings - that would be pretty fantastic.

There is food available from the in house food van on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so no good to us on a Wednesday!  

You could quite easily settle in at The Welder's Dog and relax for an afternoon session, we decided we best leave now or neither of us would be driving back to camp.  Anyways, we have Italian meatballs and spaghetti for dinner and a lovely red wine to enjoy with them!

Inverell what a wonderful little town.