The border crossing!

The Chaotic Compass road tripping gypsies have been pretty busy of late. I have had to maintain some virtual silence as we were deeply embedded in undercover work relating to a surprise birthday party. But now that I am at no risk of letting something slip, I can update everyone on where we've been and how our first shakedown cruise in Gypsy has gone.

After spending an awesome weekend at Platypus Reach on Bernie and Jo Brosnan's place at Killarney, we headed south from Boonah, over the Mt Lindsay pass into NSW. Took some time in the Northern Rivers region to explore and reacquaint ourselves with an area of Australia which is just spectacular. The National Parks in this region, while hit hard by the 2019 fires, are recovering and regenerating and it was beautiful to hike through some rainforest again.

We spent a week then on the beach at Iluka, which I have shared some photos of previously. It was about then that I had to go into hiding as we took on some shared responsibility for organising my sister-in-law's surprise 50th.

From Iluka we headed inland to Lismore, Grafton and Armidale to get some jobs done on Gypsy. While meandering through the Nymboidia National Park along the Waterfall Highway, we spied a fabulous spot called, Platypus Landing and decided to park up there for a few days. It was a Hipcamp joint owned by another couple of Covid strandies so it was nice to share some stories, lessons learned and future plans with folk who understood the challenges of being global nomads in the time of pandemic.

Sadly, while hiding out there, we received some news about the death of a member of Craig's extended family but as the universe would have it, we were within cooee distance so decided to represent Queensland family at the funeral service. As these things do, it provided Craig a remarkable opportunity to reconnect with family he hasn't seen since he was a little boy. It also meant we got to explore the home country for the Rutland and Belling clans. Last time we were in this area was some 25 years ago so it was not only a wonderful trip down memory lane, everything was green after some fabulous rain!

From there we headed into the Snowy Mountains. What can I say. The terrifying and destructive fires of 2019/2020 have absolutely devastated this area. Entire mountainsides are nothing but toothpick black stumps for as far as the eye can see. There is green, but usually in the form of weeds. Some trees are slowing recovering with new growth but there are hundreds of hectares of stumps and little more. The last time I say this country it was magnificent. So I found it heartbreaking to see and the knowledge of the wildlife lost, flora and fauna, made my soul weep.

It was nice then to have some cheer! We did feel like criminals sneaking around Forbes for 3 days trying desperately to avoid my sister-in-law, Wendy. But we managed to help Paul and Brady pull off a wonderful surprise!

Following those festivities, we then headed north on the Newell Highway back into Queensland where we will now begin our trek to the far north, weather permitting of course. With our International border still locked down, it seems we will be road tripping for several months yet. So Inelsamo remains in her berth in Tunisia hopefully resting happily waiting for our long anticipated return!