Stanthorpe – start of the Outback Queensland trip

4X4, Australia, bark, cityscape, Landscape, moss & lichen, mosses/lichens, Plant, rock, Textures, trees, ,

At the beginning of the Eromanga trip The Doc drove from Ballina to his mate’s place at Stanthorpe. He stayed two nights and got to ride in Tony’s Ford 350 – wow what a great tow vehicle!

The next morning The Doc was just touring around Stanthorpe and found the Mt Marlay Lookout. Just a few images from the Lookout. Click on that first panorama, because at full size it has amazing details.

The Doc really liked Stanthorpe and for the first time since switching to part time work, thought about moving out of Sydney.

We had lunch at the Jam Factory and later that day Tony took The Doc to Donnellys Castle Recreations Reserve. Plus a few textures from the reserve.

Tony made a great choice to live in Stanthorpe, part of the Granite Belt. The Doc will be back.

Interactive map from Ballina to Eromanga here. Enjoy.

Yelarbon Silos – Outback Queensland

4X4, Australia, Landscape, Qld, Uncategorised, , , , ,

On the first day heading back to home, The Doc passed through Yelarbon located on the Cunningham Highway heading towards Goondiwindi on the New South Wales and Queensland borders. The Doc was actually staying on the NSW side at Bogabilla. The Doc stayed a few nights at Bogabilla visiting the Goondiwindi Botanic Gardens, showcasing the plant communities of the Upper Darling Basin

Yelarbon is a rail terminal with grain silos, which are all gussied up. It was a quick break to take a few images. Looking back The Doc should have used a tilt shift lens to capture the silos.

The Yelarbon Silos are part of the extraordinary Australian Silo Art Trail.

Roadtrains – Outback Queensland

4X4, Australia, desert, Eromanga, Qld,

When you are this far from the Big Smoke, you see Roadtrains every day. The Roadtrains can be configured differently, the main ones The Doc saw on this trip were carrying fuel, cattle/sheep or general cargo. Most were three trailers in length but some can be bigger (four and rarely five).

The general cargo Roadtrains were doing a few runs each week, through Eromanga, from Brisbane to Darwin and back. The fuel Roadtrains were in an out every day from the Inland Oil Refinery (iOR) across the road from where The Doc was staying. iOR also had fuel pumps out front of the refinery.

One morning The Doc was drinking tea on the veranda and those two cattle Roadtrains you see below turned up. Ten minutes later three more Roadtrains turned up plus caravans. It took about 30 minutes to fill the cattle Roadtrains using high speed diesel pumps. Highly entertaining for the next 45 minutes with Roadtrain roulette. Roadtrains are big boy toys.

On single lane or narrow bitumen roads, Roadtrains have the right of way. Cars must get off the road. You do not want a Roadtrain to drop a wheel off a single lane – as the dust and rocks fly everywhere. Plus, you do not want the driver to lose control and crash. Recently a local tried to race a Roadtrain to a narrow floodway crossing in this area. He miscalculated and lost his life.

The Doc was talking to a Roadtrain driver in the Kimberley some years ago and he was pulling three trailers of LPG from Perth to Darwin. The combined rig and load weighed over 135 metric tonnes. Most Roadtrains use an extension bar and hook to join the trailers. When they drive down the road you can see all the trailers moving ‘Higgledy-piggledy’ – The Doc gets off the road even when it is a dual lane. It is unnerving to see the trailers move around like that.

Enjoy. Click on an image to see a slideshow of full size images.

Ky-ab-ra waterhole – Outback Queensland

4X4, Australia, desert, Eromanga, Landscape, Qld, Quilpie,

Heading north out of Eromanga along the Kyabra Road, traveling through Kyabra Station, you come across Kyabra Waterhole (pronounced Ky-ab-ra). It is a permanent waterhole fed by surrounding floodways. The Station owners kindly make it available, free of charge, as an overnight stop for travelers.

The Doc stayed for about an hour, as the main objective that day was the nearby red sand hills – being the most eastwards of any of red sand hills from the Simpson Desert.

If you keep traveling north you reach the Diamantina Developmental Road, turning right you head to Quilpie, turning left you go to Windorah and on to Birdville. Enjoy.

Tony Stott – 5 years since he passed

4X4, Australia, desert, Landscape, Qld, Tony Stott, Uncategorised

Today marks 5 years since my friend Tony Stott passed away. The Doc has previously published a series of posts about Tony’s life, you can read them here. The Doc misses his friend.

Tony on the Outback trip, drinking coffee at the Innamincka Pub and in the middle of nowhere near Epsilon Station.

Buckaroola Station – Outback Queensland

4X4, Australia, desert, Eromanga, Landscape, landscape, Plant, Qld, rock, Textures, trees, Uncategorised, , , , ,

The Doc’s friend Steve Young got special permission to visit Buckaroola Station. These images are from the second visit, as The Doc forgot to put his memory card into his camera during the first visit! Buckaroola Station is westward out of Eromanga along the Cooper Developmental Road and is not open to the public.

Bullo Shire – Outback Queensland

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During the Eromanga trip in 2024, The Doc visited the adjoining Bullo Shire. Here are some images from Outback Queensland, Bullo Shire. Back to travel is a big objective of The Doc’s rehab.

The Doc stopped a few times at the fancy Rest Stop in the middle of nowhere, near the border of the Bullo and Quilpie Shires, on the Quilpie side (located on the Cooper Developmental Road). Nice clean toilets and over a week or so The Doc stopped for tea, lunch, snacks and rest breaks from driving. It was used as a rest stop on longer trips away from Eromanga.

The other rest stop with the big skip bin was located near Noccundra, located at the intersection of the Bullo Developmental Road and the Innamincka Road.

Grenadier build – metal number plate holder installed

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The Doc has never been happy with the front plastic number plate holder. Black Sheep now sell a metal version which The Doc installed today.

Here are some of the lessons learned.

BLACK SHEEP NUMBER PLATE HOLDER INSTALLATION HELP
The Doc could not get all four bolts into the bumper bar, there was always one hole misaligned, despite trying a few things. Not sure if it is a design issue with the Black Sheep holder or a manufacturing variation in The Doc’s car. The Doc used the top two bolt holes and the bottom right side. The Black Sheep holder is secure and a lot stronger than the old INEOS plastic number plate holder (INEOS holder). The missing bolt is not visible with the Black Sheep holder cover down.

The holder appears level on the bumper bar.

Make sure the top of the holder is properly aligned with the bumper, otherwise you can have issues inserting the new bolts.

TOOLS NEEDED

  1. Screw driver to remove the screws holding the number plate onto the INEOS holder.
  2. Torx T30 bit/tool to remove the four bolts securing the INEOS holder. All four bolts were not tight on my car, but they did appear to have some sort of loctite on the bolts.
  3. A 10mm bit used to tighten the bolts supplied with the Black Sheep holder (they have hex heads and a washer, they are not Torx T30 bolts). You cannot reuse the T30 bolts removed earlier due to their head shape.

PARTS NEEDED

  1. You must source two bolts used to attach the number plate to the Black Sheep holder (instead of the screws which do not work with the Black Sheep holder). The Doc used bolts with a 8mm hex head. These bolts go into different holes on the number plate (compared to the screws), The Doc just aligned the number plate on the Black Sheep holder to see what bolt holes to use.
  2. The Doc used marine Goop on all the bolts and the black plastic covers for the visible bolts (hiding the silver bolt heads and nuts). Over time these black plastic covers are likely to fall off, even with the Marine Goop.

There were rain showers during the install. The number plate is a standard size NSW plate, not a custom size.

Grenadier build- Outback shakedown changes – Round 3

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Recently the Australian Wildlife Conservancy stickers went on the car. The Doc found himself smiling when driving back home, as the build is now mostly complete. The first time The Doc can remember being so happy since the fatal car accident 2 years ago. The Grenadier build has been therapeutic! The Doc is still working through injuries and trauma but starting to feel better.

The car is back to being AWC’s mobile billboard and ready for The Doc’s Excellent Adventure.

The L tracks did make fitting the stickers more challenging. Fonts had to follow AWC’s guidelines, except Proudly supporting.

Observant readers will have noticed the car’s name is now official: Wally. Named after the wallaby The Doc hit on the road last year. The Doc added a Wally sticker to the driver’s side bonnet/hood.

Grenadier build – Outback Shakedown changes – Round 2

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ABNTR4X4 Rock sliders refined
A metallic noise/rattle/squeak developed about one week after the installation of the rock sliders. Luckily before The Doc went on his Outback trip.

The sliders were attached using plates secured by bolts; some bolts were fitted through a drill hole, others through a slot in the metal plate (to allow adjustments). The bolts through the slots were trying to pull the washers through the slot, so the washer became cupped letting the rock slider move.

After the initial install the mechanic had commented the bolts should be longer. After discussing the noise problem with the mechanic, The Doc bought longer high tensile bolts (replacing the OEM galvanized bolts) and large square washers that were also thicker than the OEM washers. After jumping up and down on the sliders after the refit, the mechanic found there was still some noise. On closer inspection there were screws in the body work exposed after the trim was removed to fit the sliders. So metal was still rubbing on metal. The mechanic adjusted the position of the sliders away from the exposed screw heads.

Everything has worked well since the changes and no more issues arose in the Outback trip.

ABNTR4X4 rock sliders are great, but they needed some refinement for Australia (at least for my purposes). First, longer 50mm high tensile bolts. Second, larger and thicker square washers and lastly adjusting the sliders to avoid touching the screws exposed after the trim was removed (you could cut these screws off, but that was not my preferred option).

XHQ Molle Panels refinements – when fitted with 30l diesel tanks
When travelling on intense corrugations the XHQ Molle Panels were being vibrated, creating an annoying noise when the tanks were filled with diesel. The corrugations created a wave vibration in the Molle panel you could see in the rearview mirror. It looked like Rolf Harris was using it as a wobble board!

Additionally, two of the four washers down on the L track attachment points were not sitting flat over the Molle panel slot (sound familiar?). One washer had dug into the side of the slot on the Molle panel. I upgraded the L track bolts from M8 bolts to M10 bolts. I also used bigger and thicker washers. The upgrade has fixed the noise around the city, but no testing on corrugations so far.

Rear Bracket – passenger’s side
My dual air compressor was attached to an ORS custom bracket on the driver’s side. I decided to get a matching bracket on the passenger’s side. ORS made the bracket and covered it in marine carpet. This allows me to use canvas bags with a carpet grabber to configure what to store on the bracket.

The bracket also creates a storage area between the bracket and the rear window for storage.

Below are images of the new bracket and the carpet grabber bags I have on order. These can be easily reconfigured depending on my needs.

I also reconfigured the driver’s side storage area with my AED device, new First Aid Kit and a storage bag. The distance between the windows and brackets is slightly different between the two sides – because the plastic wheel arch trim on each side. The AED and First Aid Kit were a better fit on the driver’s side (RHD).