Gismo Queen and her King

Day 12 - Eisvold to Kilkivan - Thursday 9 May 2024

In Tassie, we say it's 2 degrees of separation between every person. Today, we have applied that to Queensland. A couple of months ago after interviewing the wonderful Wayne and Heather for housesitting our place (and most importantly, looking after Slick and Tabitha while we are away this trip), I rang Julie for a reference on Wayne and Heather. Julie was delightful, we got chatting and it turns out she has just opened a bush campground in Kilkivan. Yesterday, I rang her to see if we could come and stay. She had unfortunately left the day before but the very nice caretakers welcomed us with open arms and here we are, on a beautiful property just out of Kilkivan. A favourite town of mine after the local mechanic here helped me out several years ago - I had been abused over the two way by a truckie for my indicator being out of order so I went to see the mechanic who taught me the trick I now use every time it happens again. Although I suspect that nice young man is no longer here....

A fairly efficient morning in Eidsvold saw us breakfasting and packing up very well, and so we were on the road just after 10am. We stopped for elevenses in Gayndah and then made it to Kilkivan by lunchtime. I was somewhat thrown (geographically) because we came into Kilkivan from the opposite direction to every other time. However, as I walked to the butcher (to support a local business) and saw my familiar mechanic's business, I was all good! We also bought some lunch at the general store and then headed out here.

This is a beautiful property that has been well set up for camping. We even had to do a small creek crossing to get in (but not the new van's first one - that happened on Day 1!) and then we got set up. Once the van was level (gotta love the new air bag suspension), we headed back into town to fuel up and buy some firewood (we aren't allowed to cut our own on this property). And look how well that turned out!!

We talked about having scones in the camp oven for elevenses tomorrow so Greg wanted his favourite sugar free jam from just up the road. So we went for a drive. Upon arriving at the Rosella Farm, they didn't have any on display so I rang the lady who makes it. Turns out she was still on her way home from the Maryborough markets so we waited for her. It was truly a delight to meet her after visiting the farm so many times over the past years. A true highlight.

Back to camp to get the fire going.

We so enjoyed our first night for this trip on front of the fire. Thankfully, the wind died down enough to cook our lovely steak (courtesy of the Kilkivan butcher) on the outdoors kitchen along with mashed potato and steamed vegies. This is living!

PS. I keep hearing that people want photos of the inside of the new van - this can only happen when the van is clean and tidy - I'll work on it!!

posted by Tracey @ 8:42 pm