Berridale Trip - Day 1 to Day 3

Day 1 to Day 3 – 13/4/2017 to 15/4/2017 – Bundaberg to Forbes

We decided to do a quick trip south to one of our favourite regions of Australia, the Snowy Mountains, area over the Easter break. The main purpose was to visit some family and friends that we hadn’t seen for a while. It was still Queensland school holidays and Easter is traditionally a busy period on the roads, so we decided to make a start a day earlier than Good Friday to try and avoid some of the traffic. It also allowed us to take our time packing up and locking up the house. The aim of the first day was not to do big kilometres, but to just get on the road. We didn’t end up getting away until after lunch.

We had a few options on where we thought we might like to get too. In the end, we made to the Stuart River free camp. It was a good spot as it took the pressure off getting to Goondwindi the next day as well.

Because we have done this route south a few times now on previous trips, we didn’t bother taking a lot of “on the road photos” of the towns etc that we passed through, and for the purposes of this write up I will compact multiple days into the one post as well. Links to our previous trips to this region can be found on the pages below

Snowy Mountains 2011
Crackenback 2012
Tumbarumba
Mt Selwyn and Cabramurra Day Trip
Tumbarumba Rest Day

Brisbane to Yarrie Lake

Yarrie Lake to Boorowa

Boorowa to Canberra

Melbourne to Parks

Parks to Goondwindi

On previous trips we hadn't seen as much cotton as we did this time.

Slabs of Cotton

Cotton as far as you see

The second overnight stop was Goondiwindi.  We arrived early enough that afternoon for me to have a swim in the artesian pool, but it was just like any other pool/spa – over chlorinated.

Our first decent day of driving was from Goondiwindi to Forbes.  It was going to be a long day so we were on the road by 8am.

Packed up and ready to roll for the day

Previously crossing over from Goondiwindi to Boggabilla we had never managed to get a photo of the Wobbly Boo Hotel in Boggabilla, until now!

I am sure there have been a few Wobbly Boots in there!

It was all pretty quiet in Moree.

Moree

We stopped for lunch in one of our favourite parks along the way in Coonabarrabran.  We were just at the start of the season when the leaves of the trees were starting to change into the autumn colours.  We were hoping that as we went further south the trees would have more colour due to the cooler climate.

Coonabarrabran Park

Coonabarrabran Park

We arrived in Forbes just on dusk at about 5:45pm. It was a nice small little park on the banks of the Lachlan River. It also started getting cool early and it felt like it was going to be a cool night! We were at least cooler than what we had been in about the last 9 months anyway! It had felt like the Bundaberg minimum temps hadn’t really dropped below 20deg C for at least that length of time!