Friday, 30 August 2013

BusTed in Agnes Waters

Agnes Waters and 1770
 
Seriously I could live here..my (Michelle) favourite spot so far on this adventure.
We stayed at a free camp spot called Workmans Beach. It is nestled amidst lush tropical foliage with only a short walk down to the water through more lush vegetation, for a cooling swim in pristine waters. At the top of the hill, just across from where we parked was a tyre swing and with a little encouragement Ellen had a go.
 
 
This is the view just beyond that swing.

 
 
Our first day there we walked down for a look... the water was that inviting we improvised with our swimmers and took a dip.
No big deal there were only four other people there and we discovered a little cove up one end, quite secluded.

 
This fantastic design in the sand, created by nature and captured by Ellen. It's actually just water seapage across the sand and soil of the beach.

 
Magnificent.

 

 

 
We walked from the camping area for about 15 minutes through the bush and came out  on the headlands. This is the view back towards our beach. (yes that's right it's our beach now)
 
We spent 5 magical days here.....pity we have to leave and go to Heron Island to get spoilt. HaHa. What a hard life eh?
 
Till next time
xxxx
Ellen and  Michelle
 
 

BusTed South of Bundaberg

Hi everybody,
On the road again.. heading toward Bundaberg
Nuts anyone??? We drove through miles and miles of nuts.
 
 
 
The soil up here is a really rich red, this picture hasn't quite captured its true colour, but its a stark contrast to our dark coastal NSW stuff.

 
We stopped at a free camp called Wallum Reserve, what a lovely rest stop about 28km south of Bundaberg on the Bruce Highway.
 

 
Here's a Where is BusTed??
 


 
Next day we headed into Bundaberg to get a underwater camera for Heron Island

 
As you can see Theodora blended in well to downtown Bundaberg.
 
Hooroo for now ,this is just a quickie.
 
lots of love
Michelle and Ellen
xxxx

Monday, 26 August 2013

BusTed in Childers

 
Hi Ho its Childers you know...
When we drove into this town we were impressed by its charm. Its very RV (recreational vehicle) friendly and full of really cool sculptures and things, it has a central parking island as well as side lanes and kerb side parking. Overall it just has this uncluttered, easy sort of feeling.
As we all know Ellen loves dogs, so when she found this little fellow she just had to pat it.


 
Oh, did I mention it's fibreglass...as is the rest of these little beauties. Seriously , that life size elephant is only $13,000, a bargain.

 
This bad boy, wasn't that much dearer, when I win lotto its on the list, I think I would look great in the back garden.
 


Walking back up in the main drag, we discovered quirky little sculptures, like this one, overtaking the footpaths.
 


This Chemist was in the main street and is now a Museum. It's shelves are stuffed with thing's from yesteryear and it was fascinating. The star of the shop was the old cash register which is centrally placed this picture, back in its day it cost almost as much as a house to buy ...it printed out dockets and everything. 
 

 
These two dogs we found playing out the front of the pub.
 
 

 
 We saw a sign for an Art Gallery and gravitated towards it, as usual. 
Now, if the name Childers sounded familiar to you, it did to us too. It wasn't till we were standing in the gallery and looking at a memorial wall and a large painting that the story unfolded and our memories were twigged.
We were actually in the rebuilt backpackers, that claimed the lives of 15 people in a fire back in 2000.
 It was very moving.
Interestingly, this was the first picture Ellen took when we arrived.
 
 
On a lighter note
Where is that bloody Bus???

Till next we chat
xxxx
Ellen and Michelle
 

Busted in Moorolin, Wondi and Tiaro

Hi again,
We stopped at a free camp a little further up the road and had a lovely relaxing time in Moorolin.
Its a small town with huge empty sheds and long abandoned railway tracks. Ellen was in her element taking photos.
 



A little walk down the track was a beautiful wetlands, also a great photo opportunity.
 


It was recommended to us by the tourist information centre back in Nanango to drive via Wondai and see their Tourist info's great display. It was very impressive, huge dioramas depicting life of  the timber cutters in early Australia.


 
Alongside the info centre is a woodworking shop, volunteers are there turning wood and more than happy to chat to you about all the tools and things. Below are little mushroom shaped samples of wood, there must have been a hundred of these little things....so cool.  

 
Below is a rusty looking pieces of chain, on closer examination you will discover its a hand carved piece of wood, with no joins ,awesome. They also had puzzles and things, similarly fashioned from one piece of wood.




 
We were out the front of the woodworkers when an old bloke directed us to the Museum, Art Gallery and lunch spot.
He boasted that there was a fully set up operating theatre from the 1920s, he wasn't kidding. It was the type of room that you loved or hated. I was the latter, my stomach turned when I walked in at the sight of all the instruments. Ellen on the other hand was fascinated.

 
It was seriously one of the best museums yet... these little sandshoes had me in awe...so little.



We finished our tour of Wondai with a look around the gallery, these bronze dingoes out the front indicative of the name of this town.
Wondai is aboriginal for dingo or native dog.
 

 
We left that little town and headed for Tiaro. This houses we've been told "the best butchers in Qld," we were excited...food tends to do that to us. We stocked up on some meat and headed out to a free camp a little way out of town. When we arrived it was obvious that we couldn't stay there, there were no accessible flat large areas, and we headed back into town and squished into this one.
 
 
 
 There was lovely misty sunrises, just across the road and a gathering of really nice people in the camp.
 
Time to hit the road again.....
till next time
xxxx
Ellen and Michelle

Saturday, 24 August 2013

BusTed in Nanango

 
Hi everybloggy..
Well we are so far behind.. we have had not a lot of phone service, so the blog has suffered a bit.
Any hooo, this is a little place called Nanango and this is a beautiful old homestead called
 "Ringsfield House".
 
 

Here we are in a 1948 International Fire Engine.

 


...then Ellen  got a very sore tooth ,so its off to the dentist.



....then she stopped for a smoke near this little wagon.


....preached a few words to the congregation.


before posing in front of this lovely stained glass.


 Where is BusTed???? this is a beauty
 


 MMMMMM

 
This is just a snippet of some of the incredible stuff in this house.
 
 
 
 
.. now this magazine is from 1966
 
 
and this was an add inside it..
 

......so lets do it, we are off to the Great Barrier Reef
Woohoo
till next time
Ellen and Michelle
xxxx 

Sunday, 11 August 2013

BusTed in Maidenwell

Its Hi from Maidenwell,
When we were back in Dalby we picked up a pamphlet on the Maidenwell Observatory. Well my eyes lit up , I could hardly contain myself, "lets go look at the stars" I said excitedly.
We drove up hill and down dale till we reached this little town in the middle of nowhere. To our delight you could park behind the pub for free, and the observatory was just a short walk across the oval. There was also the most magnificent tree to draw... 
 
 
 
 The first night it was too cloudy !!! not good for star gazing.

 
The next morning we crossed the road and went for a coffee at the general store, we were surrounded by 60's memorabilia and sipped delicious coffee to the sounds of Elvis and the like.
The clouds cleared and.............that meant we stargaze...woohoo.
 

 
We were showed into a large room which boasted three huge telescopes....I could hardly contain my excitement...The bloke in charge was a little quirky to say the least, he kept saying he was expecting a crowd.

 
Well, it wasn't a huge room, about the size of a garage, and there were 21 of us seated comfortably around , he asked that we sit into the numbered bays in groups of seven around each telescope. He left the room and returned a little frazzled...."Okay" he said, "scrunch up we have another 38 people coming.." we all looked around in horror...Where was he expecting to fit all these people???
Well, with a few extra seats he managed...then it was finally time.
All eyes were on the funny little man in charge, he turned all the lights down and piped through speakers came the haunting music of a space odyssey...nice....but wait..... then the roof rolled back exposing a sky blanketed with a million stars.

 
He had a bright green laser and pointed out Nebulas and Sagittarius, then Saturn. He set all the telescopes onto Saturn at 100x magnification...we all waited to have a look...when it finally got to our turn I was near busting, I looked through and there it was Saturn....a pissy little thing looking no bigger than the end of my pinky.
Then with great excitement the funny little man said now we will magnify it to 300x my expectations were high again....and dashed again, about ring finger size this time.
All these sci-fi movies had left me with great expectations...what we saw was magnificent...but not nearly as much as I had been anticipating.
So if asked would we recommend this little excursion at $30 bucks ahead an average of five dollars a look through the scope....I think our answer would be "no".


 
Oh, and if you are looking for a meal at the Maidenwell pub... that's bloody hard to find too, in spite of all the signage and promise of Pizzas.
 
till next time
xxxx
from
Ellen and Michelle