Another longish drive again to reach Dalby. The road conditions varied a lot. The first half was not that bad but we experienced some really, really rough sealed bitumen road during the second half. Some of the rough patches appeared with no warning, shaking us and the caravan about quite a bit.

Now that we have reached Dalby we have moved into maintenance and cleaning mode. This is our last stop in a major town before putting the caravan in for repairs in a weeks time and the car for a service and airbag suspension repairs. We have carried out minor repairs where screws have worked loose and have repaired a cupboard door latch that was partially broken.

In the hedge next to the caravan we have found a mum and baby possum. It must be their home as they are there each day we have been here and at night they must be off doing their forraging. WE did not do much looking around but made a couple of trips by foot to the supermarket for supplies.

Moving on from Dalby we travelled onto a farm-stay at Rangemore Estate, a winery that has been suffering from drought for the past 6+ years to the extent that the vines have died. Ther now run some sheep and a goat. This is our base for the Bunya Mountains.

We drove up the mountains to Dandabah to get a walking map and had lunch at “The Bunyas Coffee Shop & Tavern”. Rather than return directly we travelled through the mountains and back via Bell as we heard that there was a great coffee shop there. Unfortunately for us it was closed being a Monday, glad we had lunch at Dandabah.

Storms then developed and we had a day in the caravan as the wind began blowing very hard, enough to shake the caravan. Looking at the radar there was rain falling around us but nothing on the farm. That night while cooking dinner the gas bottle ran out. We switched over to the second bottle and finished cooking. In the morning there was no gas left. When switching over, the connections were double checked in case they came loose while travelling. So either there was very little gas in the second bottle or we has a leak somewhere. It was the first time that bottle had been used. We did a gas bottle swap at Quinalow.

There is an old disused railway tunnel located near by, the Mantapa Railway Tunnel built in 1912, that now is home for Bent Wing bats. It is the longest single bore railway tunnel. The tunnel is open to walk into but the middle section is fenced off as it is where the bat reside. Kulpi was our lunch destination but we also visited Quinalow and Maclagan.

  • Kulpi

Our last day we went back tot he Bunya Mountains for a walk along one of the many track. We chose the Scenic Circuit taking in Festoon Falls, Pine Gorge Lookout and Tim Shea Falls. Undoubtedly the best part of the trip was the wildlife, although we would have been happy to leave out the snake encounter.

  • Festoon Falls
  • Pine Gorge Lookout
  • SNAKE!
  • Mum and Joey
  • Kookaburra
  • King Parrot