We woke to another beautiful day in paradise! We did most of the pack up yesterday, so this morning it was pretty straight-forward to disconnect water, sullage and power, and clean the windscreen. There was a minor moment of trepidation as we started Bertha’s engine for the first time in nearly 10 weeks, but she fired up first go and all was good with the world.
It was a quick drive through Maroochydore to the Bruce Highway and then a turn-off to the D’Aguilar Highway just before Caboolture. We hadn’t travelled this highway before and were looking forward to exploring somewhere new.
Views along the D’Aguilar Highway
We drove through the villages of Wamuran and Woodford before stopping at Kilcoy for a late coffee/early lunch. Kilcoy is a very welcoming little town. On entering town there is ANZAC Park on the right, which is a good looking free camp with room for maybe 15 to 20 rigs at a bit of a squeeze. There is a small amenities block with toilets and showers and external sinks for washing up dishes etc. It was very clean and inviting, and we have made a note in our camps book to consider stopping here next time we’re heading to Maroochydore. Opposite the free camp is another park with several covered seating areas – this is a day stop only and camping is not allowed.
Free Camp and Day Stop at Kilcoy
We parked Bertha in this park before having a leisurely wander around town before stopping for coffee and lunch at one of the several cafes in town. Kilcoy makes much of its RV Friendly status and welcomes visitors. The town is also very proud of its heritage and many of the building have information plaques giving the history of the building, with details of changed usage, stories of previous owners, and more. It would be easy to spend a few days at Kilcoy.
Views of Kilcoy
Views of Kilcoy
The highway was quite interesting with varying vegetation, and interesting curves and ups and downs to keep the driver awake. Although there has been some rain in this part of Queensland and there is some greenery, most of the dams are far from full and more rain is clearly needed.
One of the notable attractions was outside Kilcoy where there has been major work on consolidating the roadsides, with concrete retaining walls. There is a very steep hill to climb and then go down with a reduced speed limit of 60 kph both up and down. Some vehicles were obviously struggling to keep up – not Bertha of course who did a great job.
Retaining walls along the highway
Next stop along the highway was at the small town of Blackbutt. We parked Bertha down a side street and went for a walk around town. Blackbutt has a pub – of course – a couple of bakeries, and several other shops but is a fair bit smaller than Kilcoy. We stopped at the Visitor Info Centre and had a great chat with the volunteers on duty before heading back to Bertha for a cup of thermos coffee.
Views of Blackbutt
From Blackbutt we continued along the highway to Nanango, which was quite a surprise. This is clearly a timber town and a carved woodsman greets visitors to town. There is also a large free camp on the left, pretty well right in town, which is a bit surprising as there are at least 3 caravan parks. We didn’t stop in Nanango but it is a very interesting looking place.
Views of Nanango
It was only another 20 kilometres or so before we hit Kingaroy. Kingaroy is a much larger town and after a decent drive around we made our way to our overnight stop at the Showgrounds. This is a nice big flat area with the usual apparently random outcrops of power poles and water taps, plenty of pavilions for the annual agricultural show at the end of April, and clean but rather basic amenities. It’s relatively close to shops and would be a good place to stay for several days.
Views of Kingaroy
Set-up at Kingaroy Showgrounds
After setting up Bertha we had a good chat with our next door neighbours Denise and Bill, and their friends on the other side, Bevan and Jean. It turned out that Denise and Bill had been at the Showgrounds for a week, and had a son living in Canberra in the same suburb as Katie and Mick, and that Bevan and Jean had been at Cotton Tree only several sites from us and had left there yesterday.
Today has been another great day. After not driving Bertha for so long we didn’t want to push things but we travelled a comfortable distance and both of us enjoyed the drive. The magnificent weather has continued and we were happily sitting outside in t-shirts until after 5 o’clock.
Thoroughly enjoying the motorhome experience!
Shorty's RV Adventures 