Heather sets foot back in Queensland

As we approached the New South Wales/Queensland border we worked out that it had been 9 years and 83 days since Heather had left Townsville, QLD as part of our move back to Canada in 2008.  With that in mind it was a no-brainer to stop for a photo at the border sign to commemorate her setting foot once again in the state she called home for 4 years.

Queensland is renowned for its abundant sunshine and warm weather and we have often joked that the ‘Queensland State Dress Code’ is ‘sunglasses, shorts, singlet or t-shirt and thongs’.  You will note that in the photo below, Heather is fully compliant as far as the dress code is concerned!

Heather in full Queensland Dress uniform!  Sunnies, shorts, singlet and thongs!

Our re-entry into Queensland took us through the towns of Hebel (stopped to stretch the legs and check the car & caravan, Dirranbandi (where we stopped at the local bakery for lunch and saw an interesting and 'trip-relevant' memorial for the Australian Horse Regiment), St George (to restock the beer fridge), and our stop for the night in the free camping area along the Moonie River across from the Nindigully Pub.

Memorial to the Australian Horse Regiment in the town of Dirranbandi

Australian Horse hat badge found by Heather earlier in our trip

The charging horse regiment memorial was a nice link to the Australian Horse hat badge that Heather had found metal detecting along the banks of the Darling River earlier in our trip.  The badge would have been pinned to the left side of the hat (click on the photo of the memorial to enlarge and look at the hat - the pin probably would have helped hold the ornamental hat feathers in place).

Nindigully Pub at Sunset - a real bush pub.

We had a beautiful free campsite across from the Nindigully Pub and dinner inside it.  This place serves two of the biggest hamburgers you can buy anywhere!  The ‘small’ burger which is on the daily menu weighs in at 5kg (11lb) and cost $60!  We saw a couple of these served up – each one fed a group of 6.  The ‘large’ burger weighs 25kg and is a special order that has to be placed well ahead of time – I imagine football teams on their end of year trip might be the only groups realistically capable of finishing one of these off!  We each chose a more modest meal for ourselves after listening to an impromptu recitation of some bush poetry by one of the locals that had clearly enjoyed his afternoon at the bar!  It was all good fun.

What a way to spend our first night back in Queensland!  To learn WTF? – Where are The Farrows? on day two in Queensland, you will have to wait for my next post so continue to watch out for your email notification.