Saturday, 13 February 2016

Goondiwindi - Condamine Gorge River Track - Kyogle

September 20th

This morning I ran from Queensland all the way to NSW and back again!! Only 10km given we are right on the border. There is a beautiful walking path all along the Macintyre River and it was most pleasant running. Some great trees and birdlife (Goondiwindi derives from an Aboriginal word meaning “the resting place of birds”) and a lovely old bridge.


Leaving Goondiwindi, we continued heading east as the scenery changed yet again to be even more lush and lovely. We passed through the town of Warwick and end up in a cafĂ© at Killarney eating cake. I managed to fall over here in the middle of the footpath for no good apparent reason. Grazed my leg and hand. All that travel in remote areas and walking in gorges etc and I manage to have a spill back in civilisation on a flat path – go figure!

We had heard that from Killarney we could do a really pretty drive on the Condamine Gorge River Track that takes in 14 river crossings – sounded like our type of thing. Had to stop at the beginning to give the Sherwoods a call to tell Will about the river crossings – always a favourite of his.


This drive was really beautiful and scenic with high cliffs on either side, magnificent trees and crystal clear crossings of the river. The track was pretty busy with lots of cars going both ways so there was a bit of stopping and manoeuvring to try to pass people. We stopped a few times along the way. It was a bit cold to swim however. The trip took hardly any time at all and before we knew it we were at the other end at a bit of a loss. 








We then looped back around towards Killarney again and stopped in at Queen Mary Falls in the Main Range National Park – very busy area with lots of tourists but we managed a nice walk down to some of the look outs and then stopped a bit further down the road at another equally lovely but less crowded spot for lunch.


From the falls we passed through the township of Legume (cool town name) and meandered our way through the ranges to end up in Kyogle. By the time we arrived it was raining, wet and cold. Found some accommodation and just hung out in our room for a while. When we felt hungry we drove into town for dinner but found just about everything shut – even the pubs! Our choices for dinner were the local Chinese and we didn't feel like Chinese two nights in a row, or the local take away which was very interesting in its selection of meals. We made do and had an early night as there really wasn't much else to get up to. 

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