Western Qld - Mitchell to Chinchilla Weir

Day 20 - Thursday 25th September, 2025

Caught up with Renee before she headed to her new job.  We decided to just pack up and get pies from the Mitchell Bakery again for breakfast since they were good on the way up.  Visited the butchers which was next door and grabbed a few bits a meat too, and for some reason the pies just didn't taste as good as they did the first time.

Our destination today is Chinchilla Weir (with School Holidays in full swing, I convinced Craig the Chinchilla Brewery was not the place for us this time), we've never stayed at the Weir but our neighbours have on their trip last year and said it was a really nice spot.  First things first though,  we will need somewhere to stop for lunch.....  and that will the Dulacca Pub (the Pink Pub on the hill), never been there before so lets give it a go.

What  great pub, with powered and unpowered camping out the back with amenities, dog friendly covered deck at the pub and beer garden, complete with lawn bowls green in the beer garden - how cool!

The food was delicious and the staff were so friendly and helpful.  Recommend stopping in here.

Back on the road to Chinchilla to find the Information Centre to make our donation to camp at the Weir, well wasn't that a cluster puck trying to get to the Info Centre and get a park, we wanted to do the right thing and got there eventually, but holey moley I think Craig's patience was well and truely absent by then 🤐😖

That done, we headed out to the Weir, found  spot and set up.  Craig and Barney went for a sleep, because nobody likes a cranky Craig.  Once it had cooled down and the boys were up from their nap, we went for a walk around the entire camping area - WOW how great is it!  Great amenities, powered sites with fire rings, BBQ areas with seating, pontoon and boat ramp, just awesome!  There were still a few powered sites left, but it's very caravan park type set up and it's nice to have a bit of space around us.  Craig did announce "oh maybe we should have driven up here for a look when we got here" I certainly wasn't going to suggest that then and nor was I saying anything now 😄

Re-heated leftover Butter Chicken curry for dinner tonight, then early to bed.

Western Qld - Tambo to Mitchell

Day 19 - Wednesday 24th September, 2025

Later start this morning and we are parting ways with Doreen and Razzle today, who need to head back to Emerald to have their Ranger serviced before continuing on to Gladstone to meet other friends and we have to be home in three days.  We decided on breakfas at the other cafe in Tambo - Mary and Martha's Coffee House, so we packed up and said our farewell to Doreen and Razzle.

Breakfast we really yummy at the cafe and reasonably priced.  We ran into Doreen and Razzle coming out of the Tambo Teddy shop, she had to buy a teddy for their grandson.

Tonight's destination is a free camp just outside of Mitchell called Fisherman's Rest.  As like many places on this trip, we stayed here about 20 years ago and remember it to be a very nice spot.  We arrived at Fisherman's Rest around 3pm and it still looks lovely, right on the Maranoa River with a drop toilet and some rubbish bins.  There are a few people camped here and unfortunately the best spot right next to the river are already taken,  of course, so we found ourselves a little spot down the end that was a bit sandy so we just put our mat down. 

About 4.30pm we hear the roar of a V8 come in just near us and low and behold it's the Lady Renee who was camped behind us at Tambo, who is travelling with her two dogs, a pet snake (yep you read that right) in a Landcruiser 79 Wagon and kick arse caravan, really great set up for her home on wheels.  Renee is really lovely and her Beagle pup loved playing with Barney, but not so much the older and cranky chihuahua.  It was nice to see her again and I had told her last night we were headed to Fisherman's Rest today, although her destination was elsewhere Renee had received a call in Augethella this morning offering her a job around Dalby on a property, so she decided to head here instead on her way to the job.

A quite night with a campfire and some butter chicken, rice and popadoms cooked over that fire. 

Western Qld - Lara Wetlands to Tambo

Day 18 - Tuesday 23rd September, 2025

Today we are moving on from Lara Wetlands to Tambo and finally, we are going to the CHICKEN RACES at the Royal Carrangarra Hotel in Tambo!!!!!  

A straight through drive today, boring as really.  The Razzles stopped in Blackall to see the Wool Scour, they haven't been to Blackall before, as they really haven't done any travel through Western Queensland.  We continued on to Tambo, we don't need to be in each others pockets all day long.

We arrived in Tambo about 1pm, I had pre-booked two drive through sites for us already, so we booked into the Tambo Mill Motel and Caravan Park.  The lovely owner was so helpful, he showed us to our spot and explained that our friends will be in the site next to us and they can just drive straight in and we'll be facing each other - such a sweet man.

We got the best site with the only tree in the drive through area - nice shade over the caravan on what is a very hot day.  And, what a gorgeous bottle tree it is.

Thought we'd share the love around town and pop over to the Tambo Tavern for lunch, unfortunately they were not serving lunch.  We headed to the Royal Carrangarra Hotel to see if they were doing lunch, but no luck so we had a drink and I grabbed a T-Shirt and Stubby Cooler for the chicken races.  We walked through town, where we found a Furphy Water cart, then headed to Fanny Mae's Cafe for a light lunch, which was directly across the road from our park.

There was a bit of napping after lunch, while we awaited the Razzles arrival.  I am glad that I booked our sites, because as the afternoon went on every drive through site filled up.  These chicken races MUST be very popular 😄

Really nice facilites at this caravan park, it's a combo toilet/shower room and very roomy and plenty to cover the number of campers.  Also a laundry and dump point and everything in town is within an easy walk.

A few arvo drinks with Doreen and Razzle after they arrived around 3pm, we all got freshened up with a shower and put on our going out clobber, it's time to head to the Royal Carrangarra Hotel for these chicken races! Yay, I'm so excited 👏

It is very popular, even this late in the racing season which goes from April to October.  We grabbed a drink and headed out the back to find a seat in the Schnitzel Stadium 😆  The pub is extremely dog friendly, the only places dogs cannot go are in the two dining rooms inside and have two pub dogs themselves that roam around. The anticipation is high throughout the punters, the chickens are auctioned off for charity, so Doreen and I put a plan in place for our little syndicate to buy a chicken but we left the bidding to the boys 🤔  We did not get a chicken 🤦‍♀️

Barney's never met a chook, let alone even seen one before, so this could be funny

Blessing the girls before racing 😄

There may only be one chicken race, but you have the lead up commentary, then the chicken form information, which is like the race guide on which chook has won how many times, when and why (eg.  cheated). Now we move onto the form lap, so you can have a look at the chooks in action, then the shameless advertising to plug Ben's Chicken Racing merchandise (his words, not mine) 😆 now we start bidding on each chicken, then chickens are given some encouraging words from Ben and then we are racing - 4 laps and the winner was Sparkles the Chook!  The punter that bid on her, came away with a $429.00 prize pot - not bad for an afternoon's work at a chicken race, is it.

We had dinner at the pub which was packed, and the food was delicious, then strolled back to camp for an early night - all that excitment from the chicken races just plum tuckered us out 😄😄😄

Inside the Royal Carrangarra Hotel

The sunset in Western Queensland are just glorious

 

Western Qld - Lara Wetlands

Day 16 & 17 - Sunday 21st and Mondy 22nd September, 2025

I will just summarise the next 2 days, we decided Sunday afternoon that we'll stay another night, Doreen and Razzle went for a paddle in the Artesian pool, we did some cleaning of the van and de-dusting of seals etc.,  

Barney played in the dog park a heap of times, went for a walk all the way around the Wetlands.

We celebrated Doreen and Razzles 34th Wedding Anniversay with a charcuterie board lunch and bottle of champagne.

While we were at the office booking in for the third night, we saw a couple of Brolga's having a nap on the edge of the Wetlands nearby.  While it was overcast and windy the day we arrived, the other days we were at Lara Wetlands were blue skies and hot!

We found a tick on Barney (yes, he is on Nextguard Spectra, we get ticks at our property also).  We spent the days relaxing, going for walks, playing in the dog park, relaxing by the campfire at night and Craig was happy to not drive for a few days.

Camp Kitchen

Another view of the Wetlands and sleeping Brolgas

Relaxing by the campfire and my not so good star shots

The sticky beak

The funny dunny

Sunsets were beautiful

Last but not least, the Artesian Pool, where you can only spend a small amount of time in the water due to the temperature, there is a sign that explains it.

Campsite fees are $35.00/Per couple per night.  Well worth the stopover if you are going through Barcaldine area.