From K'gari to Toowoomba

Today's post is largely about Tuesday 24th of September and our journey from K'gari to Toowoomba, but before we get into that an update on Dinner on the 23rd.

Dinner at Dune 

The main restaurant at the Kingfisher Bay Resort is called Dune, after the sand dunes which are so much a feature of the island. It describes itself as having a curated Asian fusion menu. Our experience of fusion menus to date is that they are somewhat confused, rather than fused, and at Dune it seemed to be an excuse to have a menu from China, Thailand and Indonesia without any necessary overlap or fusion between them. 

That being said, all the cooking was done fresh in a kitchen which is in public at the heart of the restaurant and the food turned out to be tasty.

Drew started with chinese style vegetable spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce, the wonton wrappers were nicely crisp. 

I went for Pork Siu Mai, a thai style dumpling served with a sharp soy citrus chilli oil. The flavour was just like I've had in other thai restaurants, it just seems strange to be eating them beside chinese food.

We shared three mains between the two of us.These were Kung Pao Chicken, a chinese-style stir fried chicken, chilli, vegetables and peanuts, it has lots of flavour, but less chilli than it would have if it was being cooked in a UK chinese, or indeed cooked at home, as it happens a version of this is what I have planned for dinner tonight!

Next was a thai inspired dish called Chilli Basil Fried Rice with Prawns, what I would call Pad Krapow King, again it had all the right flavours, but like elsewhere in Australia, a lot less chilli than I would expect if I was in Thailand. 

We also had a Chinese Stir Fried Vegetables with wombok, cabbage, mushrooms, green beans, carrots and soy sesame sauce. Again, fresh, tasty, but less spicy than I would like.

These were served with Jasmine Rice with chives.

In summary then, very good food, freshly cooked with a good use of ingredients, but needing more punch to suit Drew and I.

We finished our meal and headed to bed at 10.30pm.

Early Morning

I woke at 5.05am, a nice additional sleep after a busy day yesterday. While I still had a snotty nose I felt a lot better another a very good night's sleep. 

Drew wakes at 5.45am and I make tea, we have finished all the lemon and ginger we stashed away in various Holiday Inns, so he is now on the Lemon tea, a lemon flavoured black tea. He doesn't complain, much!! [Co-pilot's note: Me, dear readers, me! Whinge, I never would!]

Breakfast

Having showered etc, we go down to Breakfast at 6.30am. As I mentioned yesterday, it is a very good range of options at the buffet breakfast here.

I started with fruit

while Drew had a cooked breakfast

I was so busy taking photos of the range of food available, see the images below, that I failed to take a photo of my own cooked breakfast. As i noted at the time: "I seem to have forgotten taking the photo of my main break- think of Drew's add Pork Sausages and double it!"

When we were in Sydney and elsewhere my friend Robin had been concerned that people with a Dutch background weren't being catered for with cold meats and cheese. Well here in Sand and Wood there is no problem with that, a whole section of the offering is clearly targeted for people who like that 'continental' style of breakfast.

Post-Breakfast

After breakfast we head back to the room as we have a gentle leaving schedule today. I complete a blog post from last week. I've kept on top of the photos since the first day in Sydney but blogging time is at a premium this holiday (I wrote that then, it is even more evident now three weeks later!!). We have some more teas in the room until 9am. 

I move from blogging to catching up with accounts when 9am arrives, this is midnight UK time so the Credit Card accounts will have updated with conversion rates of our payments. At the beginning of the holiday it was 1.97 Australian Dollars per pound. It is now 1.94, so a little less beneficial for us. The accounting process was even more exciting as our main credit card (with Sainsbury's Bank) has its end of month update on the 23rd - i.e. it shows up after midnight on the 24th, so I had that data to sort too. I do love such things. All tallied and correct, we vacate the room at 9.15am and head down to drop our luggage in to the luggage room and wait until 10am for the little train that takes us to the ferry. 

At 10.20 we are boarded and on our way. 

We arrive at 11am and disembarked. We then get the bus back to Kingfisher Bay Mainland Reception and pick up the keys. I walk back to were Drew is waiting with the luggage which has come off the van from the ferry. We enter the key code and get into the car park. Drew sets the car up for him to drive and we use the same key code to open the carpark gate and leave River Heads at 11.20am. 

On the Road

The first period of the drive is familiar, being the reverse of the journey we made to River Heads on Sunday. After this 46 miles we turn in the pretty town of Tiaro, that we noticed on our way up, and headed on to Netherby Road and travelled on routes new to us heading towards Toowoomba. The route looked like this 

The route from Netherby Road onwards became more and more rural. Lots of sugar plantations and other arable farming. From  Netherby Road we progressed to the lovely named Woolooga 

and then on to Kilkivan which claims to be the home of the Great Horse Ride.

There is some pretty countryside on this route, but not easy to photograph, given the trees and tall grass alongside the road. 

Goomeri

After 2 hours and 10 minutes we stop for a break on the journey at the town of Goomeri having travelled 189km of the 371km we will be travelling today. Goomeri only has a population of 677, but is a quaint country town.

As ever there are more photos (and full versions of these photos) on Flickr starting here. 

We stopped at a Bookshop called Wimberley and Co Book Store which doubled up as a coffee shop and had our usual.

The side of the bookshop had a great logo, one my mother, whose love for books was passed on to me and my sister, would have enjoyed.

Back on the road

From Goomeri we follow the A3 to just outside Toowoomba, don’t be confused by the A road status. It is an important arterial road in Queensland, but it is nothing like the A roads by the coast which are often dual carriageways. This is essentially a well kept country road with occasional overtaking points. Tamworth, our destination tomorrow is signposted as 620km away - it is why we are doing this journey in two days not one. We go through Yammerton and soon after there is a very steep rise until our ears popped then another long climb down with lots of switchbacks. This is the Great Dividing Range range which runs roughly parallel to the east coast of Australia and forms the fifth-longest land-based mountain chain in the world, and the longest entirely within a single country.  

We continue through a number of small towns all of which have museums of something or other!! Until we arrive in Toowoomba, which sits astride the Great Dividing Range. 

We arrive in Toowoomba at 4.40pm and find the hotel straight away. The lady who greets us, who owns the hotel, made us feel very welcome and advised us not to eat at the hotel restaurant today, as there is a bus party staying and, according to her, they are inclined to be noisy. They are here to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers during which we have inadvertently arrived. 

The hotel room is spacious and comfortable.

Dinner

Having taken the advice of the hotel's owner we booked a table at the Sofra Turkish Restaurant which is in the City Centre only .7 of a mile from the hotel. As the city is busy for the festival our booking is for 8pm.

We started with a Turkish Bread, this warm, juicy and slightly salty bread was a real delight, dripping with juice as you bit into it.

It was served with some delightful dips. From left to right: Kiz Guzeli – beetroot, garlic, sour cream, spices; Babaganush – smoked eggplant, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, sour cream, spices; Hummus – chickpea, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil; Cacik – yoghurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, herbs. Oh my, how wonderful.

For his starters Drew opted for Haloumi, these fried haloumi sticks were served with spicy harissa mayo, Drew was very happy with his choice. 

I choose Biber Dolma, a stuffed bell pepper with beef, rice, herbs, spices and drizzled with garlic yoghurt, it was filling, but delightful in flavour.

For Mains Drew had Iskender Kebab, succulent slices of doner kebab layered on Turkish bread topped with home-made tomato concasse and yoghurt. Drew likes kebab and thinks this is an excellent example of well cooked kebab meat with additional flavours.

I choose Kuzu Güveç, a spicy pot of mixed seasonal vegetables with diced lamb cooked in a traditional clay pot, served with Turkish pilav. The flavours were homely and warming and would be perfect for a cold, dark winter night, though of no harm on a pleasant spring one either!

We had a gentle walk back through town after dinner and were back at the hotel and in bed by 10pm.