Belbrooke Farm is a Hipcamp listed property and a working cattle station. They even have their own beef brand with meat from cattle reared on the farm that you can buy at the farmhouse. The six camp sites are well spaced and vary from sites surrounded by gum forest to a ridgeline site with open views across the stretch of river linking Somerset and Wivenhoe lakes. On this trip we were back at Old Cattle Camp, a site with plenty of trees through which you can see the snaking river and distant hills forming its valley.
Learning the ropes – The X3’s 1st outing
Well the pressure was on, the first trip in the X3 had been booked months beforehand, she was to be base camp and chuck wagon for Lachie’s bucks’ party on Teerwah Beach – a dozen young blokes and a ute full of beer, what could go wrong they said…. In the week beforehand I’d been…
1 + 1 = Travelling Two
The big day had arrived, pick up of the Patriot Campers X3 was here. We piled into the Landcruiser and headed to Patriot HQ at Molendinar, near the Gold Coast, eager to collect it.
The same but different…
Although replacement of the Landcruiser is a significant unplanned expense we believe it will pay off in the long run because the resale value will cover the intended upgrades, plus we will gain benefit of a newer higher spec vehicle for the extended overland touring we have planned.
Boys weekend at Belbrooke Farm
We were soon out of Brisbane’s Friday afternoon traffic and headed up the Brisbane Valley Highway toward a setting sun. A quick visit to the farmhouse saw us signed in then we trundled through the property to the Old Cattle Camp site. Josh had his Kimberley Kamper in tow and began to set up the base camp while Callum and I were in swags, so given we were unpacked the quickest Callum and I set about collecting firewood to fend off the evening chill that was already sneaking in.
Queensland’s Scenic Rim
Soon I reach The Head, so called because it is start of the Condamine River headwaters, and very beginning of the mighty river system catchment that eventually becomes the Murray-Darling. Rain falling in this valley eventually flows to the Southern Ocean via NSW and South Australia, making it a significant area given role of that river system in opening up of Australia’s interior, and its continuing use for agriculture. The river and the road following it slice through foothills of the Main Range, forming a beautiful gap called Cambanoora Gorge.
But it doesn’t even have an engine…
Hmmm, Suzzanne’s reaction when I started showing her camper trailers was hard to refute, some serious coin gets asked for a vehicle with half the wheel count of a car, and without all of the expensive bits like engines and gearboxes and interiors made from the hides of a dozen steers. Until now, I had…
A new decade – a new outlook
March 2020 shook the world. The COVID19 outbreak was no longer confined to China, Italy and UK COVID deaths sky rocketed and the disease truly became a global pandemic. We had just arrived back from an epic trip to Norway and Scotland, barely beating the disease back to Australia as country borders began to slam…