March 7-8, 2016
After the Weir we needed somewhere with water so that we could catch up on washing so went to the RV area at Millmerran where we stayed last year. This has a couple of taps and a dump point opposite plus good local supermarkets (IGA and Foodworks) to top up again. This was a fleeting visit of a couple of days on the way back up to Cecil Plains (where we had also stayed before).
Lemontree and Cecil Plains
March 9-11, 2016
Lemontree Weir is listed in most camping guides and is still in the Toowoomba Regional Council parks list; however, when we found the access road it bears a fairly new sign from Sunwater prohibiting all access. Our GPS tried to take us via an alternative route but ended up abandoning us in the middle of cotton fields!
A subsequent (later) phone call to the council established that they no longer support it as a campsite and Sunwater have the right to control access as they own the weir and the road also passes through private (farm) property.
So after that rather futile exercise we opted for the Cecil Plains campsite which we used last year on our way South. We secured our riverside spot again with some nice shade and close to the amenities.
While here we were visited by an old “local” by the name of Ned Winter – Ned is very well known in certain circles as the “camp oven man” as he and wife, Margaret, made a living out of camp oven catering from around 1985 (after they moved to the district) until a couple of years ago.
At around 80 Ned is still writing bush poems and songs and doing small catering functions t their home property, “Ned’s Corner”. After sitting and chatting with us for about an hour and a half he invited us out the next day as he had a small group coming in for Damper and billy Tea; this was a great morning and we finally got back to the van about 2pm as the group was 2 hours late.
Ned entertained with making the tea (Damper had already been made, cooled and prepared) and then regaling us with some bush history, notably the Condamine bells used for cattle when droving, tales of his own droving back in the 60s, and finally a couple of ballads with guitar. He has recorded some Cds and has been played on ABC radio quite often. One of his newest songs is about the grey Nomads – “Chasing Sun, Chasing Shade”. Included in our video is one of his other songs about Mother Nature and reflects the disasters of floods etc.
