2019 - Dubbo and Beyond: Day 5 - Sun 7 Apr: Scarborough to Gurley

17-32 degC
Drive: 566km; total: 896km

Despite Greg only getting back from his dinner about 10:30pm last night, we were both awake just before 6am and up and at 'em not long after. We departed Scarborough just before 8am.

We left greater Brisbane via the Gateway, then the Ipswich Motorway and Newell Highway to Warwick, Goondiwindi, Moree and all the way to Gurley. We are camped in the Gurley Recreational Reserve for a 'donation' of $10 for which there is an 'honesty box' in the disabled toilet/shower. The $10 gets you power if you are lucky enough to be the first in an get closest to the power pole. If not, well it's still $10. We did not especially need power so made camp at the farthest point away from the couple camped on top of the power pole! This is a great spot as despite being not too far from the highway, there is very little highway noise. In fact it is quite spooky; whilst having dinner outside the van, we were watching the traffic but couldn't hear it - like they were ghost vehicles.

The roads today were quite awful once we hit the Darling Downs and beyond. Although there was evidence they were trying to fix the roads, they were still VERY lumpy and not very nice at all. Once we crossed the border into NSW the speed limit increased to 110 km/h however, we were lucky to maintain 80 km/h. We were very lucky in that most of the B-Double traffic today was in the opposite direction but those that were travelling in the same direction as us were very well behaved and appreciative when we slowed down a tad to let them pass.

The scenery started off being very green and lush, to dry and almost desolate, to green and lush again from Goondiwindi onward. There is water laying beside the road and cotton being left unpicked probably due to the soggy ground.

We don't have to be in Dubbo until 9 Apr so we kind of misjudged our travels. We knew we had roughly 900km to cover and thought, "oh that will be a two-day drive with the van". So we left today and covered more than half the distance and still have a day up our sleeve. Hmmm..... So, we will have a very lazy day tomorrow and leave when we want to and stop more often and for longer.