After spending such a long time in Stanthorpe is was quite a nice feeling to get back on the road again. I should mention that our plans at this time have been mostly affected by Covid and the border closures that come with it. In fact not necessarily the border closures and restrictions themselves but the changing border closures. When we were leaving Stanthorpe the situation was an open border for us to leave to NSW but a border declaration coupled with a negative rapid test for us to be able to return. No doubt these rules would change again in the coming weeks and while we obviously were a little concerned about it we had decided to leave the state of Queensland and continue our travels through NSW.
We had a few options as to where to go next and decided on a relatively short drive to Texas which sat on the border to NSW. Here we found a free camp by a river just outside of the town and settled down for a couple of nights. The strange thing about the campsite was that it was right next to the bridge which marked the border and was manned by police checking vehicles entering into Queensland.
The Dumeresq river on which we were camped had been raging the month before due to all the rain in the area but now it was flowing strong but clear although there was evidence of the storm all around in the form of felled trees and huge logs. It must have been quite a sight but for us (and many of the locals) it provided a beautiful spot for a cooling dip.
On our way into Texas we spotted a sign for a golf club and thought it would make a great venue for our/my return to playing golf. We have brought with us a selection of 5 clubs each and so clutching our handful of clubs (literally) we set off for our first game in ages. For the princely sum of $5 each we were able to enjoy playing on a completely empty 12 hole course!!! The greens were sand rather than grass which seemed to suit Sarah better than me and the fairways weren’t exactly mown but the fact that we were out playing golf was just fantastic!!
I will be honest and state that Sarah completely thrashed me but I was still grinning from ear to ear due to the fact that I was out there (almost) swinging a club. We will definitely be going to a few more of these country courses and keeping the competition going.
As is often the way for us we ended up staying a couple of extra days just enjoying the great location and also to ensure that we got to see Texas’s number 1 site the Rabbit Works. The museum which was housed in the original rabbit processing building told the story of the rise of the rabbit trapping industry which made Texas a prosperous town before the introduction of mixamatosus. It was actually a very enlightening museum and was really well done, certainly worth waiting the extra day for.
We were both glad we stopped in Texas as it really had a lovely atmosphere and the locals were cheery and all in all we felt very welcome but we had come as far south in Queensland as we could and so it was finally time to cross the border and venture into NSW! T