It’s my birthday!

Kelly was up early to brew me a cup of birthday steaming hot lemon tea.
I sat up in bed and sipped away and unwrapped a present as the morning light streamed across me from the window. Juno stuck his tongue in my ear. Simply perfect.

I finally threw back the covers and stumbled out on my now 55 year old legs to assemble my favourite breakfast of muesli, chopped banana, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds and cacao nibs.

I think its important to celebrate 55 years on this planet with ones absolute favourite breakfast…lest any age related depressive vibes begin to creep in from the edges.
So I did. And they didn’t.

After breakfast and some appropriate celebratory activities we packed up and rolled out.

Just a ways up the road was Toowoomba (pop 135,000).

Big town, big malls, and the usual chain-stores and franchises. The visually homogenised retail experiences that you tend to get in big cities now. After spending time to explore the much more eclectic, quirky, original and much more interesting offerings from the smaller towns we were not really in the mood to linger.

Toowoomba is a beautiful city to be sure (it is known as the garden city).
But its CBD could be Canberra or Sydney or any other large metropolitan centre. We walked around for a bit, got a little jaded, had a coffee and moved on.

Next stop was Crows Nest.

On the way we got stuck behind a huge cattle truck.
Suddenly there was a most unpleasant aroma engulfing Ripley’s cabin.

“Oh crap….Ian, look on the road!”
To our horror, we observed a continuous torrent of bovine diarrhoea spewing erratically from the back of the truck.

Down onto the road.

And then under our tyres where it was flicked up under Ripley like watery, particulate napalm.

And being a narrow road, with no turn outs, and having traffic behind us, there was absolutely nothing we could do except drive on and suck it up. Literally.

It was a long way to the next town.

Crows Nest served up some great coffee and had a very interesting Antique shop, that held everything from bone china to skeletons.

Tonight we are free camping again at Tipperary Flat, just outside the town of Nanango.
(GPS: -26.680860 151.995470)

Despite being adjacent to the highway (I think it is going to be a noisy night) this camping area has plenty of flat shady sites with tables, immaculate toilets, barbecues and a kids playground.

It is just a short walk into the town of Nanango

As I type this, Kelly has just whipped up a magnificent vegetarian omelette with fresh farm eggs and some crusty French bread.
I also have a rather large glass of expensive red wine in my hand to help lubricate my closing birthday ruminations.

Oh, and I have a sneaky suspicion there will be cake.