Dalby - Lake Broadwater
After much planning, we finally left Bundaberg for our journey south.
We stayed at Lake Broadwater just outside of Dalby. It’s only about 30 kilometres south of Dalby and the road is sealed all the way which we weren’t expecting. There are only 9 powered sites and plenty of unpowered sites and we managed to snag a powered site – thank goodness, as the weather was sweltering so we were able to indulge ourselves with air-conditioning. The cost was only $14.50 per night for a powered site! We were amazed. There were hot showers and toilets – no mains water which wasn’t an issue, especially for the price! Just for information – the showers are on a timer and you can’t adjust the temperature. Also, you have to wait a couple of minutes before you can re-start the shower. I learnt this the hard way – all soaped up and no place to go.
The caretaker, Tim, called by to collect the fee (either cash or credit card) or you can leave cash in an envelope which were available at the entry to the park. It was all pretty relaxed.
When I first saw the lake, I was a bit dubious about swimming as it looked like a café latte with zero visibility and reeds growing on the foreshore. There were plenty of kids swimming and the heat was unbearable, so I braved it and didn’t regret it. The bottom was solid and sandy and it was so refreshing, although I was careful not to put my head under in case of blue-green algae. After spending a lot of time in the water I realised my lower back wasn’t hurting anywhere near as much. Not sure what was in that murky water but it worked wonders.
After the drive, it was nice to kick back and relax. We had a very fancy meal – BBQ sausages (Ha Ha) cooked on the Cobb Cooker. After watching a few refresher videos on the Cobb it was a big success. We celebrated with some Ohana Strawberry Moscato which was delicious.
Of course there had to be a problem – we are yet to have a camping trip where something doesn’t stuff up! We couldn’t get the 12V water pump to work and it seems the verdict is “fu***d”. It couldn’t have come at a worse time as we have plans to do some free camping. I remained calm and unstressed because I reasoned, it wasn’t the end of the World. In the words of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind - “I’ll think about that tomorrow”. On a positive note, the site was absolutely level so no “levelling thingies” were required. BIG WIN! For those who have read my other blogs, you will know that I am not a fan of the levelling thingies, nor the bed-flys.
The conservation park is renowned for birds, so we took a bike-ride to the bird-hide. (I’d never heard of that term before) We saw pelicans, sulphur-crested cockatoos, lorikeets, ducks plus many others – you can tell I am not a ‘twitcher’. I need to sharpen up my bird photography skills! For all the birdwatchers, check out their website and Facebook pages for more info.
You are not going to believe this but the night before we were packing up it rained! Fortunately, we didn’t have too much and a lot of it had dried out before packing up the camper. Before you ask, NO, we didn’t have the bed flys up. It would have been a rare occurence for us to pack up completely dry!
Next Stop – Moree.
