Month: February 2026

Our next few days of driving were uneventful. The weather was good and it got warmer as we went further north.

We watched for places to stop in smaller towns; sometimes for toilet stops, other times for a lunch break.

On Wednesday, I booked us accommodation in the town of Moree. It is known for its artesian thermals. The place we booked was a caravan park with a lot of cabins and motel rooms. We ended up in a brand new cabin and stayed 2 nights. It was good to relax and I had to plan the next couple of weeks of accommodations and routes. They had thermal pools right on site – 5 pools ranging from a lap pool at 32 degrees C to 4 smaller ones between 34 and 40 degrees C. The pools were just for their guests, not the general public and were not busy at all!

We enjoyed two nights of time in the pools. Our timing was perfect since the upcoming weekend was fully booked with a football tournament in town.

Friday we saw more crops in the fields. We had been seeing something that had been cut off about a foot from the ground. It was dried like corn but still had thick leafy growth, not like a grain would. We finally saw the rest of the plant waiting to be harvested.

On Saturday we had some definite landscape changes. We left the open farmland and had some hills and trees again.

We finally made it to our destination just after lunch on Saturday. We had adjusted our route and landed on the coast just south of Brisbane instead of heading north to Sunshine Coast. When I was looking for accommodation in the area, the weather at Sunshine was showing a week with rain most days. I knew it could certainly change as we got closer (and it did) but we decided with the heat and humidity, maybe staying just a bit further south might be good.

Researching somewhere to stay for more than a night or two was hard and we had to hope the pictures and reviews were right. We were so happy when we got to our location on the Gold Coast.

We’re going to relax in our beautiful surroundings the next days but also do a bit of day tripping to see a bit of the area. Hopefully I can keep caught up with the blog.

Friday night we had a dinner invite at my cousin Dan’s in-laws who live in the area and whom we had met when Dan and Dave were married. We had a wonderful evening with them. We enjoyed a meal that included lamb (we still haven’t had our fill!) and they made individual pavlova for us (the national Australian dessert). We left to go back to our B&B after dark so we took our time, watching for any kangaroos, but none were to be seen.

Bambi and Michael had lots of suggestions of sights to see, both in the area on Saturday and beyond as we headed north on Sunday. However, we both decided we needed a down day just to relax and get caught up. We had a beautiful living room to lounge in where we were staying and the house was cool. We ate an early dinner as we had tickets to see an event at Sovereign Hill that night.

AURA transforms Sovereign Hill into a moving theatre with hundreds of hi-tech projections telling you the story of gold in a 90 minute high impact, graphic presentation which explores the creation, discovery and impact of the precious metal then and now. Under cover of darkness, AURA transforms Sovereign Hill into a moving theatre with hundreds of hi-tech projections telling the story. The Wadawurrung (the aboriginal people of the area) creation story unfolds and soars into the skies over the lake. Not only is it a story of gold but also rebellion, gunfights, triumphs, and tragedies.

Gold was discovered in the area in 1851, starting the gold rush that resulted in it being one of the richest goldfields. Many Europeans made their way, hoping to find wealth for their families. Although some were indeed fortunate, many were left in poverty or lost their lives. The most famous gold nugget found weighed 69 kg and was discovered in 1858. There is still gold found there today.

We travelled to three different stages for the presentation. The first was an indoor theatre and required us to wear 3D glasses. It explored the formation of earth and with the glasses on, we had atoms and rocks flying in the air around us.

Next we boarded trams and had a 10 minute ride through the outdoor facility to an outdoor theatre where we watched the creation story of the Wadawurrung; lots of light and movement here. It only lasted for about 10 minutes and we stood for it.

Then we walked across the road to another large outdoor theatre where we saw the story of the gold rush. There were several layers of sets that included projections onto multiple surfaces including buildings and tents. The whole presentation was very well done and we very much enjoyed it. We are grateful to Bambi for the recommendation and for working out the dinner invite to accommodate our attending both.

If you want to see some of the show, there is a You Tube video posted here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sovereign+hill+aura&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:7f4b5ba5,vid:dNJxDJySWrM,st:0

You can start just before the 5 minute mark if you want to see clips of the second and third shows.

On Sunday we headed north inland, heading towards Brisbane.