11–12 October 2010–Maleny Showgrounds

After the drive from Kenilworth and taking photos of the Mary River in flood near Conondale, we camped at the Maleny Showgrounds in what we hoped was a spot sheltered a little bit from the wind and the rain.  Unfortunately, no such luck.  By next morning parts of the area where six inches under water just due to the rain.  After splashing about for a while we decided to move to another area of the showgrounds – closer to the creek, but ironically drier than the first spot.  then we discovered that we had 240v power problem.  Every time we plugged the 240v lead into the input port, the safety breaker blew.  Oh great!!  After a couple of phone calls to Tom at Kedron we contacted a local electrician who, quite amazingly was able to come that afternoon.  Some $95 later, he advised that there was a short in one of the van circuits. – on the load side of the circuit breaker.  I could have told him that!!  The upshot is that we’ve got to take the van into Kedron on 4/11 to get an electrician (presumably one who knows the interior layout of the vans) to fix it.

After all that fluffing about, we contacted Peter at Booroobin (our next house-sit) and he invited us to come up there early.  Beauty – now we can get a feel for the place over a couple of days, before they head off to Japan on Saturday.

8–10 October 2010–Kenilworth Showgrounds

THE BIG STORM

“The rain storm started with a deluge at 3.00am on Friday 8th October and ended at 10.30pm on Monday 11th – just over three and a half days of continuous precipitation amounting to 454.6mm.

Total rainfall to date for October is 471.6mm. This is the highest maximum rainfall ever recorded at Maleny over the past 117 years. The average for the month is 102 mm.”

Extract taken from www.malenyweather.com  12/10/2010

I have never seen this amount of rain – anywhere!!  It started overnight the first night we spent in Kenilworth.  The creek through the showgrounds came up – and went down again – and then came up again!!  As we were the site closest to the creek I kept a really close eye on it, but it would have taken a huge amount to overflow the banks.  All in all it was a somewhat soggy weekend – but it was Bathurst weekend, so it didn’t really matter.

7 October 2010–Brisbane River

As we arrived at the entrance to the free camp spot on the Brisbane River, we could see another van in the distance coming out of the gate.  As we got closer, we realised it was a Kedron, and then it turned out to be Rod & Mavis – fellow members of the Kedron Owners Group.  They had gone in at the lower level, close to the river, and very nearly bogged themselves.  They were on the way out with a view to turning around and trying the top level.

We all ended up going back to the spot where we camped last time.  It was a nice little spot overlooking the river.  Unfortunately, the village idiots have been at work, and the location is now a dreadful mess.  There is rubbish and glass scattered all over the place.  The idiots must have sat drinking at the top of the ledge and thrown their bottles down onto the track, with a view to hitting rocks and breaking the glass.  Rick and Rod got out the rubbish bags, gloves and pick-up sticks and cleaned up as well as they could.  It’s absolutely disgraceful the rubbish that was left, and has now spoiled this lovely place for us.  Rick was absolutely livid and we ended up leaving the next morning and going to Kenilworth Showgrounds.

6 October 2010–Kaimkillenbun Caravan Park

We stopped here on the way to the Brisbane River.  It is a tiny little caravan park in a tiny little town.  The place is reasonably well looked after, and contains mainly permanents.  They have only two or three overnight camp spots, so for $15 per night, it suited us fine.

4-5 October 2010–Lake Broadwater Conservation Park

Lake Broadwater is a beautiful little conservation park just south of Dalby, on the Cecil Plains – Dalby Road.  It is very quiet and well off the road, which is just what the doctor ordered after the crush of people at the camp oven festival.

The weather was warm, but we had a light breeze blowing off the lake.  Perfect.  The Lake itself hasn’t had any water for quite a number of years, but the recent rains have filled it with water.  This ensures a plentiful supply of bird life, as well as the requisite fish, turtles and bugs to support them.

1–3 October 2010–Millmerran Camp Oven Festival

Commemorating traditional Australian Camp Oven cooking and the lifestyle activities associated with it, this festival sees professional and amateur cooks use cast iron camp ovens, cooking over open fires at the local showgrounds. Camp Oven cooking competitions, billy boiling speed tests, a damper throwing competition and live country music make this festival a great weekend for the whole family to fill up on!

We arrived on Friday 1 October to find that the showgrounds had dried out substantially from the rain.  there were still a few boggy patches, but the festival organisers were working hard at laying sawdust and wood-chips – anything that would absorb the moisture.

By Saturday, we had the full complement of Kedron owners.  For us, the weekend was more about socialising with friends.  Some of whom we haven’t seen for quite some time.