19-22 September

Back on the road – direction Toowoomba. We stopped at the tourist information in Hampton and discovered the offer of Soft 4WD tours. Drove to the campsite at Lake Cressbrook and started the first drive “Hampton – Crows Nest Falls – Maria Creek”. You're guided via notes on the logbook – at kilometre 20.1 turn left – The trip was a good start with one downturn – I got heavily travelsick... The next day we opted for drive G and E which took us north up to Yarramunda. The drives were good and well described. We even had a look at the campsite in the national park “Crows Nest Falls” - it might have been cheaper but most likely no showers, electric BBQ or shelter. And the waterfall was not visible at all – everything was dried out.

The other national park was completely different – noisy (fruit bats hanging in the palm trees), full of shade and felt wet and damp. The next day drive took us south. It was the hardest of all drives and it was my turn to drive. It started nice and easy with the Beutels lookout and then onto a forest drive with several descents and ascents. Some had to be driven in low gear and several times the road got quite narrow, had deep bumps and was slippery. But we came out alive and the towbar just bumped twice into the ground. On the way back we had a quick look into Toowoomba city.

The next day we went for the last drives – but they were ok but not as hard as the other one. As usual we had one problem while navigating – misread one note and ended up in the quarry and had to do a U-turn. In the afternoon we returned to the camp site and actually played a bit beach volley- and basketball. There were courts and balls provided so we really had to use them. It felt so good to be this active again. While having dinner one of the other campers screamed like hell – they just had a brown snake crawling through their campsite – 1m away from their seats.

We had our snake encounter already – it was blocking our way back into the car. It was a green-yellow 2m long snake (most likely a carpet snake) it decided to pass underneath our car. We waited for around 5 minutes to ensure it's gone and entered the car via the same door. Of course we saw other snakes while driving but it's not the same when you're sitting in your car. The other animal encounters we had in the park were with the friendly kangaroos (big family including the little ones in the womb) and the deer from a distance.

This evening the conditions have changed, there was a total fire ban and the next morning the change got even further. Sunrise was at the usual time but it felt as it set already two hours later at 8am. It got so cold that we had to put our jumpers back on. I guess there is a dust storm not far away. It got so cloudy, dusty and windy you could hardly see 100m and every surface just cleaned was was dusty within 20 minutes. The sun was still out but just visible as a silver dot high in the sky – looked spooky.

Today we drove to Toowoomba and stopped at the German Cuckoos clock house – a lot of clocks and other black forest things in it. At the next camp we got the confirmation about the dust storm. It was all over the news as it got down to Sydney and reached Auckland later the night. They had to close Sydney airport due to poor visibility. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House weren't visible from Macquarie's Chair and the other buildings looked orange. I don't want to have further dust storms anymore as the nights are much more cooler than the other days...

Cu, Anja & Tom