Toonumbar (Again) and Woodenbong

Back to Toonumbar - well, not really!  Just thought we would share another Turtle that we met whilst camped there.  This little creature was actually hidden by our neighbours and only revealed properly when they had departed.  Poor old thing had a bit of a deformed shell but we still thought it was cute that he was there for us.

The Deckie and The Other Turtle

Now, back to Woodenbong.  Nice little town with a nice little caravan park (flushing toilets and hot water - yay) and, apparently, Yowie sightings.  Also, lots of great mountains that are leftovers from some local volcanic activity.  What more would you want!

We didn't manage to see any Yowies but still spent a nice day touring the countryside.  Nearby Toolum Falls and the surrounding area were impressive.

Looking Into Queensland

Toolum Falls

After being all refreshed and relaxed we packed up the entire team properly and headed north west towards the Queensland border.  In hindsight, we should have taken a lot more notice of the sign that mentioned "that the local council was awaiting Federal Government funding to repair the flood damaged road".  Most councils have those sort of signs so Team Turtle pressed on regardless!  Well, the road was absolutely deplorable - in fact, The Captain did mention (through gritted teeth) that he had driven on better dirt/gravel roads than this main road.  Lots and lots of potholes, broken asphalt and crumbling edges.  And the outcome?  Tuf Tinnie's trailer broke one of her legs!!

The very badly broken leg

Fortunately, The Captain was able to effect repairs without too much cursing and swearing and after a short sojourn on the side of a narrow road we were once more heading into Queensland which was just over another lot of mountains.

We were never so happy than to be in Queensland (this time) as the road conditions improved considerably!  A lunch stop at  Killarney and then we headed to our overnight stop of Allora.

Team Turtle managed to procure a spot in a nice little free camp down by the river and just a short walk from the town.  We made enquiries as to a suitable replacement for the shredded tyre - no joy there - so we returned to our camp to hunker down.  And hunker down we did as not long after our return, the big, black thunderclouds that had been threatening the area all afternoon released their anger onto us.  It rained but there was lumps in that rain!!  Only small lumps and the lumps only lasted for about ten minutes but it was a little scary for a while.  The rain continued for some hours and the only worry was the river flowing quite rapidly beside us.

The rain did stop at some stage thru the night and the morning was bright and breezy.  Our next job was to get into Toowoomba (the next major town/city) to a) get the tyre replaced and b) buy a new battery for The Turtle's 12 volt system.  The original one had decided to "pack it in" which meant that our alternative power system was non existent.  Not a good thing when we are not always in a position to hook up to 240v power!

First stop was Battery World at South Toowoomba - great service and a brand new battery sorted out very quickly.  Then around the corner to Beaurepairs.  Once more, great service and a new tyre (as there were no secondhand ones) was on the rim and we were ready to go.  Hmmm, well the lovely man, Ray, mentioned that he had been following us down the road when we were on the way to Battery World and had noticed that parts of The Trailer were moving when they shouldn't have been.  Oh dear!!  On inspection it was noticed that a design fault had occurred and that two welds had broken.  Yes, they were significant types of weld which could have created a fair bit of mayhem at sometime in the future.

Ray was able to ring a mate, John The Panel Beater, who was just around the corner and within less than an hour we had The Trailer mended.  A quick stop up the road at a park for coffee and we were once more on our way albeit with lighter wallets after a reasonably expensive morning!

Dalby was our lunch and shopping stop and Kingaroy Showgrounds our stop for the night.