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 - Muckadilla to Blackall

 Day Three - Monday 8th September, 2025

Pies from Mitchell bakery for breakfast is the call this morning.  Coffee, pack up and hit the road Jack because today is a bigger driving day.  The pies were enjoyable, we stopped at the little park to eat them.  We called into Augathella for a break and comfort stop at the showground, clean toilets and dump point and nobody there.  We pushed onto Tambo, where we stopped at the Tambo Dam Rest Area for lunch.  Wow what a lovely spot, beautiful green grassy area right on the dam, shelters, picnic tables, bins, toilets.  A really pleasant spot to stop for lunch.  Barney had a fat time rolling around on his back in the grass, making his normal happy barking noises while sliding down the slope 😆😆

Well done Tambo.

Our target today is Blackall, staying overnight in the caravan park but there is a free camp in Blackall, however it's pretty hot so we thought air con would be nice.  As I mentioned today was about 5 hours driving plus stops and yeah I know some people will say 5 hours is nothing BUT, old mate isn't young anymore and can't do stupidily big hours driving, he likes doing no more than about 4hours stopping about every 1 1/2 to 2 hours for a break now he's towing the caravan.  He's not 30 years old anymore, he's nearly double that now 🤣  Pushed on from Tambo and I must say it was quite taxing on Craig today, the roads were throwing the car and van all over the place, he was exhausted.

There is a lot of nothing out here, isn't there.

We rolled into Blackall around 2.30pm, the Caravan Park owner Jordan (Husband and Wife team Jordan and Samantha own the park) was super friendly and joking that our van wasn't a Swag, a Swag doesn't look like that 😆(there's always one comedian), I booked and paid for a powered site $41.00/night 2 people, he came out said hello to Barney and chatted to Craig then showed us to our site and directed Craig in on a certain angle so we could hooked up for the night.  There will be live entertainment at 5pm in the camp kitchen straight across from us.

Awesome camp kitchen at the Blackall Caravan Park

Took Barney for a walk around the block after setting up, thought he needed it and perhaps Craig needed a walk too.  As we were approaching the caravan park again some campers didn't have their large dogs on leads and they came tearing up to us and I just thought the worst for Barney.  The owner came racing over very apologetic and thankfully neither of them attacked Barney. We didn't even make it back to our site and Samantha (Park Owner) came running over to ask if Barney was okay and if the people's dogs weren't on a lead.  We said Barney was fine and it was okay, but never have we had a park owner care so much, it was really lovely.

We were chatting to Jordan and he was saying they've owned the park for about a year I think it was and they're working on updating everything slowly but surely, trying to grow the grass so the sites weren't just dirt.  It's a lovely little park.

We had an early dinner of Hamburgers and after cleaning up Craig had a meltdown due to a headache (a result of the day's big drive), he was that grumpy he and Barney went inside and fell asleep instantly.

Sometimes it's better to remain silent in this situation and let the bear rest peacefully 😉

Blackall Caravan Park is a really pleasant little park to stay in.  Owner's are lovely, super friendly and care.  Amenities are old but they are clean, awesome camp kitchen, dump point, cabins, powered and unpowered sites and did I mention really lovely owners Jordan and Samantha.