Winter Holiday July 2012: BARALABA-COOMINGLAH RANGE REST AREA-WURUMA DAM

Left Baralaba and took the short cut road just out of Baralaba and headed down to Banana, then followed the Dawson Highway to Biloela where we did some shopping, had lunch and filled up with fuel.
We then continued down the Burnett Highway to Coominglah Range Rest Area which is 22km north of Monto. This is a free camp just off the highway, it was quite good but not very big. There were toilets and picnic tables there but no TV, phone or internet. The following morning we continued down the Burnett Highway to just south of Monto and turned off to Abercorn and then on to Wuruma Dam. The road from Monto to Abercorn was very narrow and up hill and down dale but was sealed all the way and very little traffic. We arrived at Waruma Dam and were surprised at the number of vans there but with a little luck (someone was just pulling out) we were able to get a great spot right next to the water. This is a free camp and very large with plenty of camp spots beside the water and more spots up off the water. There is toilets here although they are on top of a hill (good exercise).
We could not get TV, phone or internet at the camp but if you drove up to the entrance of the park (about 1.5km uphill) there was good phone and internet access.
We had allocated three days to stay here but it was so good we could have stayed much longer.
We met a lot of friendly people here and got some good ideas for catching and cooking red claw and got photo's of a solar powered pump that could pump water out of the dam for use in washing, showering and washing up (was not suitable to drink).