Well after 2 months, we finally left cold wintery Melbourne behind and are now back at Standown Park near Gympie. We had a lovely time with family, and catching up with some of our friends. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to catch up with everyone, so apologies to those we didn’t connect with.
David had some work done on the F-Series when we were in Melbourne – he removed the roller door on the top of the tray (which he sold on eBay) and had some toolboxes made up and fitted in to the tray behind the cab, and also had a new tonneau cover made for the tray as well as a bar across the top which will be for our tinny to travel on when we buy one.
Kat’s father Bob was also staying in Melbourne at the same time we were, and David and Bob also got a few things done around the house and garden, and David cleaned up the garage too. So overall it was a very productive time.
I did a lot of walking and photography 
It’s good to get back to some warmer weather – the days have been about 22 / 23 degrees here although the nights and mornings have been down to 4 or 5, but that’s ok, we can live with that 
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We’ll stay here for another week or so then head up to Bundaberg and see what work is around. It would be nice to stay on the coast for a while close to the beach, and we might be able to get some fishing in too. If we can’t find work in Bundaberg then we might go inland again. Will see what happens.
We stayed with David’s sister Margaret and her husband Terry on the way up, and had a great couple of days with them. Marg has a couple of sewing machines so we set them up and both of us made a quilted bag. I haven’t done any quilting or sewing since we left Queensland a couple of months ago, so it was great being able to do some, especially with Marg who is a beautiful and prolific quilter. Thanks, Marg, I really enjoyed it .
The trip up from Melbourne was pretty good. However, (there’s a gripe coming up here, so jump ahead if you don’t want to listen to me whining!) I’m really surprised at the price of motel rooms and what you (don’t) get for the money! We stopped at 3 different motels on the way, the first 2 each costing $95/night. I’m obviously a bit out of touch with the cost of motel rooms, and I wasn’t expecting luxury rooms or anything, but honestly, they were not good – everything was old and tired and while they were surface clean, they really needed a good scrub, especially the bathrooms. In the first motel, the bed was really, really bad, I think the floor would have been more comfortable! And the air conditioners in both were bloody noisy. Is it really that hard to get a clean comfortable room with a quiet air conditioner for $100/night? In both hotels, the attitude from the owner/manager/receptionist was really offhand and just not interested. Makes you wonder why they go in to that sort of business or do that sort of work.
However, we obviously just picked the wrong motels, because the third motel we stayed at was very good and at $86 was excellent value – and that included a continental breakfast. It was this hotel in Armidale, NSW, and if you’re in the area looking for a place to stop for the night, then we would recommend this place. The room we had was a good size with a really comfortable queen size bed, a wide screen tv and a sofa. Everything was very clean, and David, the owner, went out of his way to be helpful.
We also stopped at David’s brother’s place near Gatton on the way back – it was great catching up with Rick and Carol
I took a heap of photos on the way up, but I did something wrong when I was downloading them on to the computer and lost nearly 400 photos, so unfortunately I’ve only got photos from the last 3 days of the trip.
Here’s a few photos taken on the trip up.
