Gold Coast to Emerald

After enjoying the hustle and bustle of the Gold Coast it was back inland to the Burnett Hwy and to a quiet rest stop for the night. There are plenty of great rest stops along the inland roads and it's a good money saver!

After 440 kms we arrive in Ban Ban Springs, a small rest stop with some toilets and a service station across the road, that's about it.

Don't think it's drink worthy....

It is a fairly noisy rest stop as it's just on the side of the highway.

Not a bad view for a rest stop.

On the road again heading north but not really sure where our next stop will be.....

Passing through citrus country.

There are lots of great little towns in between to stop at.

We drove for ages and finally decided to stop in Emerald, only because we read there was a giant Van Gogh painting there, we also heard there was a nice caravan park about 17 kms out of town at Lake Maraboon. 

We pulled in around 5 pm after driving about 600 kms, the park looked full, and it's not even peak season! 

Brenton jinxed us when we pulled in and said "Imagine it's full after a long day like this", sure enough it was full, but the lovely park managers offered us a 'garden suite', a spot right in front of their house, we were wrapped and it was a good spot out of the way, they went over and above to help us out, so friendly!

Our garden suite.

We stayed a couple of days, we were sick of driving and just wanted to take in the scenery, the first night we got a bit worried when we heard the bushes rustling out the front of the van, it sounded like something big was hiding in there........

Turns out it was this little fella:

He was so cute!! Our first echidna! 

Sure enough he was back every night eating all the ants and bugs for us, such a good pet.

Hiding....'I swear I'm just a prickly rock'

Lake Maraboon is huge, we didn't swim because the water had high levels of blue-green algae, not very inviting, lucky the park had a pool because we had some great swimming weather!

Views around Lake Maraboon:

Turns out everyone decided to leave the day after we got there.

The caravan park is great, there is even a small restaurant with a buffet, a first at caravan parks so far.

Driving over the dam to get into town:

After we passed the Dam it was off to see the giant Van Gogh painting!! 

Now we have seen the big Koala and the big Van Gough, oh how much this country has to offer!!

It was pretty impressive!

After all the excitement of the giant painting and collecting a few groceries it was back to Lake Maraboon for one more night.

Then back on the road again.

Moree to Gold Coast

We headed to the Gold Coast nice and early, we weren't sure if we would even make it there but if not there were plenty of places to stay along the way.

The town on the border.

We were hoping to get a picture of us on the Queensland border but it seems they don't make to much of a deal of the crossing from one state to another! N.S.W didn't seem to worried either, it took us about an hour to work out we had even crossed the border!

Welcome to Queensland, closest thing to the border crossing I could capture.

The long road ahead.

The drive wasn't too bad after crossing the border but a couple of hours in and we were driving over hills and mountains we never knew existed.

To make matters worse there was major road works going on that stopped us in our tracks......

Are we there yet???

We took a side road into the Gold Coast so we didn't go through Brisbane, but we did get to pass through the hinterland, really amazing scenery.

We did finally make it to the Gold Coast, 550 kms from Moree , we pulled into the Broadwater Tourist Park, a tad more pricey than we were used to but we were right on the beach and only 1km away from Australia Fair, a large shopping complex, $39 a night.

Off for a walk along the beach.

We did arrive on a really lovely day but heard the weather was going to take a turn for the worse, so we decided whilst we were here to get new tyres for the car we would call into one theme park while the sun was still shining!

Dreamworld won the toss!

Dreamworld opens at 10 am but we got there a little early and had to wait half an hour before we could run wild! 

You can go online and get early passes that let you in an hour early though, worth doing on busier days.

It was still a little busy considering it wasn't the holidays and it was the middle of the week, but we managed to get on all the popular rides without lining up for more than 5 minutes, not bad!

We went to Tiger Island for the Tiger show.

Dreamworld wildlife:

Hehe a lizard sitting on a roo!

The rides were lots of fun and being the ride fanatic I am I forced Brenton onto every one of them!

One of my favourites: The Claw

I watched a little kid posing like this and decided that as I had the crazy pants on I would too!

Wipeout!

We loved the wipeout ride and noticed that when we were lined up that we were on it with half the gold coast suns players, although a few of the oldies watched from the sidelines!

We also loved running a muck in the old town:

Tower of terror: the first ride we went on.

This roo looked a little sick!

Not only did I drag him on all the scary rides but the kids ones too!

What you lookin at????

Waiting for an attack...

He looks very comfy

We were very lucky with the weather, the sun was out most of the day, then when it was time to go home the clouds came over and it poured!!

The sun did come back out the next day so we drove down to Cavill ave for a walk around.

We ended up in the arcade playing a few games:

Not yet hot enough for a swim.

The Markets.

We now have new tyres so it's time to keep heading north, can't wait to get to the tropics, but also looking forward to getting back and going to the other theme parks!