Camping

Granite Gorge – Mareeba

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

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We are into the last week of the school term here – yippeeeee!  I love school holidays and can not wait to have a break from lunch boxes, uniforms and after school activities!  Of course there will be some fighting and far too many ‘I’m hungry’s’, but I really am looking forward to having all the kids at home for a big break from routine! We don’t have a lot planned for these holidays as Matt will be very busy with Mango Madness here on the farm, but we have a visit from the Townsville cousins and the Perth cousins to look forward to, as well as a week away at the beach in January, so still lots of fun to be had!

I am so behind with my blogging that I haven’t even posted about the great day out we had at Granite Gorge, just outside Mareeba, with the Brissy cousins last school holidays at the beginning of October!  So, here’s the details now in case you want to make a visit out there these holidays. Continue reading →

Categories: Atherton Tablelands, Qld Camping, Travel, Tropical North Queensland | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

Gregory River

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

DSC_0596Are you ready to hear about the best ‘bush’ camping we have ever done to date?  As you already know, upon leaving Adels Grove campground, we decided to head back towards Gregory Downs and spend the next five nights free camping in a nice secluded spot on the Gregory River, in a place we had previously located on our way through to Lawn Hill earlier in the week. Matt really doesn’t like caravan park/campground camping and after having a busy, nearly twelve months on the farm with lots of workers and family around, we were really hanging out for some quiet, relaxing family time.  That is exactly what we got on the Gregory River! Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Adels Grove

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

DSC_0459Oh dear – I have just realised that we never finished telling you all about our two week trip away in June/July!! Ooopsy Daisy!!!  Right, back to it then – there’s a couple of awesome posts to come!  So, while we explored Lawn Hill/Boodjamulla National Park we set up base camp at Adels Grove Camping Park.  It was a lovely shady campground with plenty of room for everyone.  No designated sites – just find a spot wherever you liked. As we mentioned in our Lawn Hill post – there is no internet connection available at Adels Grove but the shady sites outweighed that for us as even in winter it was very hot at the National Park!!  Just a word of warning though – it would be very difficult to get much sun on your solar panels in the Adels Grove Campground as most of the park is covered by the leafy tree canopy!  The Top Campground at Adels Grove does allow pets and generators, but it is much hotter and no where near as pretty and leafy as The Grove campground.

Here’s a little bit of trivia for you – the Adels Grove Park was originally taken up by the owner as a Botanical Garden and over 1000 species of exotic and native plants, shrubs and trees were planted there.  The Botanical Gardens in Brisbane still has 536 different samples of seeds sent to them by the original owner!  This really explains the beauty of the campround here!  We camped for three nights at Adels and really enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Lawn Hill – Boodjamulla National Park

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

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Here at last is our wrap up of three days spent exploring Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park at the end of June!!  After two nights at Gregory Downs we had a leisurely pack up and drove the short 90kms down the road to base ourselves in the campground at Adels Grove and spend the next few days seeing all there was to see at Lawn Hill.

The road out to Adels Grove was really great for the first 50kms or so, right up to the turnoff for the MMG Century Zinc mine.  After that, the last 40km’s were pretty rough going – lots of dust, corrugations and a much narrower road.  The Adels Grove Campground is 10km’s from the Lawn Hill National park itself but we are so glad we camped at Adels as opposed to the National Park campground – it was much shadier and nowhere near as dusty!  The only downside was that there was full phone/internet reception available at the National Park but nothing at all at Adels Grove!  I will do a separate post about Adels Grove next, this one will focus on what we got up to in the Lawn Hill National Park, there are just too many photos and to much to tell you to fit it all in one post. Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , , | 16 Comments

Gregory Downs

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

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Right – blog posts are few and far between these days – my comittment to the gym is eating into my ‘free’ time at the moment!  However, the next couple of days are going to be dedicated to finishing off the posts about our little trip at the end of June.  So, where were we?  That’s right – I have already filled you in on the first three nights of our trip free camping along the Burke Developmental Road.  From Leichardt Falls we headed to Gregory Downs along a narrow, very dusty dirt road that ran alongside Augustus Downs Station.

Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments

Burke Developmental Road – Mareeba to Normanton

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

DSC_0009It has been over two weeks now since we arrived back from our maiden voyage with ‘Black Betty’ and I am still getting through all the washing from the trip.  We arrived back late on the Sunday night and were straight back into things again with new workers starting about Blue Sky, visiting travellers staying and the Mareeba Rodeo all straight up!  It felt like our holiday had never happened all within 24 hours and I am really struggling to claw my way back onto the ‘organised’ and ‘tidy house’ train – aaaaaaargh!

Anyway, I’m dying to share all of our little adventure with you as we had a great time and we couldn’t be happier with the camper! Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

O’Briens Creek, Mt Surprise.

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

We finished off our two weeks away last weekend with a few nights camping with family at O’Briens Creek and doing some gem fossicking. My Aunty Leanne wrote a post about it on her blog ‘Travelling is An Adventure”. I thought I would share the post on our blog too as it will probably be a week or so until I get a chance to do our post about our time at O’briens Creek. It was a great weekend and a really lovely spot!! Leanne has some great photos of our time there in her post so check it out!

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Guest Post – Sarah & Malte

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

Today’s post is the first ever ‘Guest Post’ to feature on the Are We There Yet? blog.  I asked Sarah & Malte if they wouldn’t mind sharing with us the adventure of their time travelling around Oz.

Sarah and Malte were the first ever backpackers to work with us on the farm at Blue Sky Produce for three months last year.  They set the bar pretty high for all our other workers going forward. They were two of the most hardworking and lovely people we have ever met!  Added to that they enjoyed teaching us ‘Wizard’ – a really fun German card game and then whipping our butts at it!! Lucky they taught us a few German swear words too!!  Malte and Sarah are just about to head back home to Germany and we are sad to see them go – they spoilt the kids while they were here at Blue Sky and we loved getting to know them and learn a little about their lives in Germany.

They have seen so much during their time in Australia – more then most of us Aussies will ever see!! Thank you Sarah & Malte for sharing your travels here and best of luck for your futures ahead – I hope we get to see you again sometime!

Sarah & Malte after a hard day of mulching - not the most fun job!

Sarah & Malte after a hard day of mulching at Blue Sky – not the most fun job!

Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Travel | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

Two Weeks Away

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Are We There Yet?

Hi Everyone!

I know we’ve been missing in action on the blog over the last few weeks but we are currently away on two weeks holiday taking Black Betty on her maiden camping trip! As I write this we have been away for nearly a week and are currently enjoying a few nights stop at Lawn Hill National Park.

The boys have gone canoeing this morning and Lexi, Kipp and I are relaxing in the shade at the national park and making the most of the first internet/reception we have come across.

We are really, really happy with our new camper and can’t wait to fill you all in on our adventures when we get back in a bit over a week! Continue reading →

Categories: Camping | 5 Comments

Electrifying Black Betty

Posted on June 9, 2014 by mattf2013

So, as I said in my last post, we have done a few things to get Black Betty a bit more up to scratch. I spent 2 days with my dad (he’s a sparky) “Electify-ing” BB. She did have an anderson cable for charging, but it was 4mm2 cable, she had a battery but it had dropped a cell and was not accepting any charge, and she had 2 ciggy plug outlets but they were wired up with wire as thin as hair, I was not happy plugging in the new BIG fridge into these outlets so we made some changes.

The Workshop

The Workshop

Continue reading →

Categories: Camping, Modifications, Planning | Tags: | 2 Comments