2015 09 19 Saturday

The forest of straight grey trees woke up to a slightly overcast sky but no rain had taken the dust from around their feet. We skipped breakfast out of consideration and slipped out of the forest and back onto the homeward road.

The back roads from Durong to Bell had seen rain and here and there were puddles on the road and in the table drain. We had breakfast pulled off the road in a quiet corner of Australia, how soon will we be back in suburbia - and yet we have considered moving the country and every time dismissed it as just a lot of hard work.

Finally we popped out onto the Bunya Highway at around 9am and shuffled off towards Bell.

Through Bell it felt like home, the Darling Downs rolling away into the distance, rolls of hay in the fields, crops of wheat green from the winter rains. It is not a dramatic landscape but rather a landscape at peace. Perhaps all the trashing and thrashing of the landscape has already happened and now we are close to the golf course globe that many who wear blue ties seem to secretly and not so secretly want.

We passed through Quinalow where a chap had his custom bike displayed out front, it looked like a homemade job with a little side car using a stationary engine for its motor. We stopped to click a photo and he hopped off the verandah and posed next to his creation.

Just on the outskirts we came across a dam where many thousands of ducks sat around in the sunshine - what do they eat? We know what they do, because there is so many of them, but what do they eat.

We thought we might drop in and see Ben and Belle on our way past however they are away on a love in at the coast to celebrate their first wedding anniverery - and good on them - the world needs all the love it can get.

So we parked in the street outside our home just before lunch time and took a final photo.

The first part of our trip had taken around 7,000km.