We had driven past the Standown Caravan Park turn-off four years ago when we visited Rainbow Beach on a day trip from Caloundra. This is one of several parks around Australia which have been developed by and for Vietnam Veterans, but which also open their doors to the all and sundry.
Since we first drove past the entrance roadway we have heard much about it, notably from the Pecks. Sue and Noel have been quite heavily involved in the park's development over several years and know the owners very well. We had arranged to rendezvous with them for three nights and were particularly looking forward to our visit.
But firstly, of course, we have to get there. The initial part of our journey of just over 150 kms took us along the Bunya Highway through the towns of Wondai and Murgon. We had been here before (see blog of November 2015) so today we shall pick up the adventure from the town of Goomeri.
Here we discovered that we were to miss the pumpkin festival...what a blow to our social calendar! We later learnt that it is actually pretty good fun, but we shall never know.
As we made a necessary right hand turn at the town's Grand Hotel (another one, but quite different from that at Wooroolin) we were about to travel a new stretch of road (for us).
This section of the Bunya took us out through the hilly landscape
until, some 25 kms later, the highway became the main street through the quaint little town of Kilkivan
where the large sign at the town park proclaims it as the home of the Great Kilkivan Horse Ride, described in a tourist magazine as "a spectacular sight attracting over 1000 horses, riders and horse drawn vehicle every April. Riders traverse 20-30 kms of beautiful countryside before joining the grand parade through the township".
That would probably be well worth seeing, but we were too late. Kilkivan has another claim to fame. It was in this area that gold was first discovered in Queensland in 1852, and many amateur prospectors still use the town as a base from which to venture out in search of riches in the nearby hills.
No such adventures for the Mobile Marshies. We were on a different mission and pushed on through the grazing country with its backdrop of ranges,
until, in just under an hour later we were approaching the end of the Bunya Highway. Ahead of us was and old friend,
'the Bruce', and as we turned right and headed for nearby Gympie, we certainly knew we were back on this major Queensland thoroughfare......
yep, roadworks!
Fortunately these were not a patch on some we have encountered on this highway (and we both agree there are plenty of areas where the work is more than necessary). We had soon passed through the bottleneck and found ourselves again jousting with the Bruce traffic.
But not for long. Within but a few kilometres we hit the outskirts of Gympie
where we turned off the Bruce and made our way through the northern side of the town,
past the most impressive tower of the Gympie Court House
and on out onto the Tin Can Bay Road.
After the last couple of hours we had spent travelling through comparatively dry hills and plains, the lush tropical vegetation of the Tin Can Bay Road came as a very welcome change. Standown is about halfway between Gympie and Tin Can Bay,
and in no time at all we were at the turn-off.
By now we were in pine forest country, something we had noted on our last visit.....so like the South-East of SA, and the dirt road into the park took us past a large stand of these conifers.
As promised, after 900 metres of gravel we had arrived....the entrance gates to the Standown Caravan Park.
The park office is some distance away, as we soon discovered. As we drove in past the gardens at the edge of the park dam,
a row of slab sites,
the huge camp kitchen (which we were to frequent each afternoon),
and the open space around which sites are set up on the grass, we could already see that this is a truly beautiful park.
But as we pulled up at the park office I had my thinking cap on.
I have already mentioned that we were to rendezvous here with Sue and Noel Peck, and because of their close connection with the park owners, they wanted to surprise them with their visit (and make sure they paid for their site, as opposed to getting it for nothing).
To achieve this I had been charged with making the booking, and, as I suspected, when we arrived our charming hostess Pam was keen to know the details of our companions who were still en route (as we had arranged...timing was of the essence!). The lies tripped off the tongue! I had been smart enough to have anticipated these questions and was prepared.....I needed names at the ready. And then my sense of the ridiculous took over.....'the Pecks' became 'Pam and Peter Piper' (think about it!).
Pam was later to comment that she could not believe the ease with which I trotted out these falsehoods (we had even commented on the fact that she shared the same christian name as the pending guests) without missing a beat. I did feel a bit guilty, but what the heck....we later did have a real chuckle about it, and Pam was happy to agree with Noel's subsequent observation that my days of undercover work had not left me wanting in the matter of subterfuge.
With all this nonsense out of the way, we made our way to our allotted site, a marvellous patch of green with adjacent shrubs and trees, right near the dam.
As we were setting up the Pecks arrived, all was revealed to the park management, I cleansed my guilty conscience and in not time our two vans were rafted up together.
This was the beginning of what were to be three very good days of socialising in, as I have said before, one of the prettiest parks in which we have ever stayed.
Since we first drove past the entrance roadway we have heard much about it, notably from the Pecks. Sue and Noel have been quite heavily involved in the park's development over several years and know the owners very well. We had arranged to rendezvous with them for three nights and were particularly looking forward to our visit.
But firstly, of course, we have to get there. The initial part of our journey of just over 150 kms took us along the Bunya Highway through the towns of Wondai and Murgon. We had been here before (see blog of November 2015) so today we shall pick up the adventure from the town of Goomeri.
Here we discovered that we were to miss the pumpkin festival...what a blow to our social calendar! We later learnt that it is actually pretty good fun, but we shall never know.
As we made a necessary right hand turn at the town's Grand Hotel (another one, but quite different from that at Wooroolin) we were about to travel a new stretch of road (for us).
This section of the Bunya took us out through the hilly landscape
until, some 25 kms later, the highway became the main street through the quaint little town of Kilkivan
where the large sign at the town park proclaims it as the home of the Great Kilkivan Horse Ride, described in a tourist magazine as "a spectacular sight attracting over 1000 horses, riders and horse drawn vehicle every April. Riders traverse 20-30 kms of beautiful countryside before joining the grand parade through the township".
That would probably be well worth seeing, but we were too late. Kilkivan has another claim to fame. It was in this area that gold was first discovered in Queensland in 1852, and many amateur prospectors still use the town as a base from which to venture out in search of riches in the nearby hills.
No such adventures for the Mobile Marshies. We were on a different mission and pushed on through the grazing country with its backdrop of ranges,
until, in just under an hour later we were approaching the end of the Bunya Highway. Ahead of us was and old friend,
'the Bruce', and as we turned right and headed for nearby Gympie, we certainly knew we were back on this major Queensland thoroughfare......
yep, roadworks!
Fortunately these were not a patch on some we have encountered on this highway (and we both agree there are plenty of areas where the work is more than necessary). We had soon passed through the bottleneck and found ourselves again jousting with the Bruce traffic.
But not for long. Within but a few kilometres we hit the outskirts of Gympie
where we turned off the Bruce and made our way through the northern side of the town,
past the most impressive tower of the Gympie Court House
and on out onto the Tin Can Bay Road.
After the last couple of hours we had spent travelling through comparatively dry hills and plains, the lush tropical vegetation of the Tin Can Bay Road came as a very welcome change. Standown is about halfway between Gympie and Tin Can Bay,
and in no time at all we were at the turn-off.
By now we were in pine forest country, something we had noted on our last visit.....so like the South-East of SA, and the dirt road into the park took us past a large stand of these conifers.
As promised, after 900 metres of gravel we had arrived....the entrance gates to the Standown Caravan Park.
The park office is some distance away, as we soon discovered. As we drove in past the gardens at the edge of the park dam,
a row of slab sites,
the huge camp kitchen (which we were to frequent each afternoon),
and the open space around which sites are set up on the grass, we could already see that this is a truly beautiful park.
But as we pulled up at the park office I had my thinking cap on.
I have already mentioned that we were to rendezvous here with Sue and Noel Peck, and because of their close connection with the park owners, they wanted to surprise them with their visit (and make sure they paid for their site, as opposed to getting it for nothing).
To achieve this I had been charged with making the booking, and, as I suspected, when we arrived our charming hostess Pam was keen to know the details of our companions who were still en route (as we had arranged...timing was of the essence!). The lies tripped off the tongue! I had been smart enough to have anticipated these questions and was prepared.....I needed names at the ready. And then my sense of the ridiculous took over.....'the Pecks' became 'Pam and Peter Piper' (think about it!).
Pam was later to comment that she could not believe the ease with which I trotted out these falsehoods (we had even commented on the fact that she shared the same christian name as the pending guests) without missing a beat. I did feel a bit guilty, but what the heck....we later did have a real chuckle about it, and Pam was happy to agree with Noel's subsequent observation that my days of undercover work had not left me wanting in the matter of subterfuge.
With all this nonsense out of the way, we made our way to our allotted site, a marvellous patch of green with adjacent shrubs and trees, right near the dam.
As we were setting up the Pecks arrived, all was revealed to the park management, I cleansed my guilty conscience and in not time our two vans were rafted up together.
This was the beginning of what were to be three very good days of socialising in, as I have said before, one of the prettiest parks in which we have ever stayed.
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