Rocky creek to 10km south of Blackbraes National Park

Bit if a late start after having a crappy night sleep and both Gaz and Sam having a cold of some sort. I had keyed in Porcupine gorge into the GPS which was just north of Hughenden. The GPS is hopeless and kept wanting us to make a u-turn just because we were going on a dirt road and not the road it wanted us to take which according to 'it' would get us there around 8:45pm. It later rectified once it realised we were not going the opposite direction but it was still going to get us there late and Gaz really needed to just stop and relax a bit.

We drove through the Atherton tableland which reminded me very much of Taranaki farmland in NZ. Very green and big rolling hills, thick bush mossy banks with waving ferns. We drove through Queenslands highest town, Ravenshoe. A nice little town with what looked like a pretty good camping area by the river.

We kept driving and the scenery changed again into the dry grass, red dirt and gum trees. We stopped for lunch at the Oasis roadhouse which is also famous for having Australia's smallest bar. It was quite cute. I used there facilities which were very clean and bought a takeaway salad so I could add the salad to our sandwiches we were making for lunch.

We had stopped for lunch around 1:20pm and we didn't get back on the road until around 2pm. The GPS had started working properly but was getting us into Porcupine gorge around 6pm so I looked at the map and found a little national park called Blackbraes I figured we would be able to find something around there.

As we drove through the national park I saw a couple of dirt tracks leading into the park but when we went to drive up one we saw a sign banning all vehicles travelling in the park. No wonder there were no registered camping areas in the camp six book. Anyway we kept driving and found a big open area about 10 km past the national park boundary. It looked like it may have been used by road workers when they were doing work in the area. It turned out to be the perfect camping spot.

We pulled up around 3:30pm and got set up. There was plenty of firewood around and Gaz got a fire going. We had pork spare ribs on the grill with a side of potatoes and veges washed down with a glass or three of wine. Then we were in bed by 9:30pm after spending a bit of chill out time by the fire.

Definitely colder. I have finally succumbed to shoes and socks and our camping jackets are being used at night time. The extra blanket it out and keeping us snug and warm. I'm back to wearing long pants during the day. But at least the sun is still out everyday!