Last leg home

Travelling north on the Newell Highway and following the start of the Kidman Way, we stopped at Ardleton to see the Kelpie statue. They have a free camp ($2 for 12 hours of power) by the railway station. This is now on our list of places to stay at. The park has toilets, water and playground. Ardleton is famous for being the first place to breed kelpies. We had lunch here and then kept going to Forbes Wheogo Park.

We have stayed here before and it is on the banks of Lake Forbes. We were surprised that it wasn't already full, as we arrived after 4pm – we had a back up plan of a local caravan park – but it wasn't needed. There were a number of vans here already, and we found a great spot, that we think was a spot we have stayed in before, and set up for the night.

The next morning we continued up the Newell Highway to Parkes. We have a favourite bakery in Parkes that we like to stop at and Peter gets his coffee fix and we usually get either fresh bread rolls for lunch, or something sweet like chocolate eclairs. As we are doing short drives each day – 1 to 2 hours, we have time to explore some villages and towns we would otherwise drive through. We walked up and down the street looking at the shops and more particularly the architecture. We drove down the road to a park just north of Parkes to make lunch – fresh bread rolls and ham.

After lunch we continued though Peak Hill – we couldn't believe the progress of the new open cut mine – to Dubbo. We had chosen two camp sites for the night, when we pulled in to the first, we knew this would be a perfect overnighter. Terramungamine Reserve is located on the Burroway-Dubbo Road off the Newell about 10k north of Dubbo. It is a large area with trees and is situated beside the Macquarie River. There are toilets and picnic tables. The best part though, was the old Aboriginal Grinding Stones.

Terramaungamine was where we had to make a decision about which road to take home. We could have gone via Lightning Ridge – but time was now short as we had a date to get home and we prefer short driving days to long ones. We could have gone via Goondiwindi, which we did only last month, or we could have gone via Texas, a new route we haven't been on; or via Tamworth and Warwick – a road we have been on many times. We decided on the later, so at Coonabarabran we left the Newell Highway and headed north-east to Gunnedah, and Attunga.

Attunga is not far from Tamworth. Attunga is Aboriginal for 'high place' and was the name of a farm operated by John Brown in the 1840's. Attunga was gazetted a village in 1847. It is now a small farming area with limestone quarrying.

We headed south to Tamworth and stopped at Coles to get a few groceries before heading north again on the New England Highway to Guyra. We have driven through Guyra numerous times, usually on the way to the Tamworth Country Music Festival, and while they were having their potatoe and sheep festival. Imagine our surprise to find out that Guyra is famous for its tomatoes!! The name 'Mother of Ducks Lagoon' also sounded like a great place to visit. The lagoon now has mostly gone. Historically it was a large lagoon supporting many birds and wild life, and was part of a volcanic crater. Once European settlement arrived part of the lagoon was drained for grazing land. In later days some bright spark thought it would be good to put a golf course on the lagoon so more was drained. Today, what is left is protected under the NSW National Parks. There is a dump point and toilet block, and a little further north along the park is a great exercise areas – one of four in the town.

Guyra was proclaimed a village in March 1885. It is situated at the top of the Great Dividing Range at an elevation of 1330m. Guyra was the name of one the early properties in the area, Guyra Station, established in 1835 by Alexander Campbell, and is an Aboriginal name meaning either fishing place or white cockatoo. The first settler in the area was explorer John Oxley who moved to the area in 1818. The area is predominately sheep, and dairying, and the soil is perfect for potatoe growing. Tomatoes …. well we spoke to the locals at the Bowls club – where we had a wonderful meal – and apparently tomatoes are grown in hot houses in the area. We did see one on the way north.

Wallangarra is a great place to start or finish a road trip when one is travelling this way. A free camp maintained by the Lions Club, we stay here a lot as it is only 3 hours to home.

Home again we are already planning the next trip.

Road Trip home.

After taking 5 nights / 6 days to get to Gippsland, and 5 nights to visit with family and help out, we headed home. We would have like to have stayed a little longer, but we had booked another cruise way back in April, and had to get home to pack.
I must apologise for not posting this earlier - I thought I had. 

Day 1 - After visiting with Peter's Mum, and filling up with fuel, we headed north to the NSW border. We didn't think we would make the border, but headed in that direction. As we had a few extra days to get back we went the inland road, and not the quicker Hume & Pacific Hwys. We must have taken a wrong turn as we ended up going to the west of Melbourne city before heading north. We needed to find a dump point, so off to Seymour, near Puckapunyal Victoria. We were most surprised to find this wonderful Commemoration dedicated to those who served in the Vietnam War. It was a short but moving walk up the street, with artefacts and information boards. Well done Seymour, not only an RV friendly town, but educational as well.

I loved the old house in the background, that we parked in front of.

As it took so long to go around Melbourne, we decided we would stay somewhere close. There was a free bush camp over the river from Seymour, so we thought we would have a look before moving on - just in case!!! Well, that was a great idea. There were a few vans already here, but we were able to camp right beside the Goulburn River. There were a few bugs around, and lots of firewood, but we don't have a fire pit - yet - and there were no rocks around to make one. We traveled 274km today.

Day 2 - After packing up we headed back into Seymour, and Maccas for breakfast, we headed to Table Top and the Ettamogah Pub. It started to rain not long after we left Seymour, and at times the rain was quite heavy.

We had read about this free camp on WikiCamps, and it was certainly interesting.

There was so much to look at, both inside and outside. The Ettamogah Pub was the creation of cartoonist Ken Maynard who started drawing the pub in 1959. There are a few around the country, but this has been the best so far.

 There is an upstairs area, I suspect for functions, and this is the view of our van in the carpark, in the rain.

The word ettamogah is Aboriginal for 'place of good drink' and the food was pretty great too.

 Day 3 - The next day, the rain had stopped, but there were a lot of flood waters still evident on the sides of the road. We must have been lucky to have missed most of the rain. We headed to Forbes, not expecting to find a good spot on Lake Forbes, but there were surprisingly a few spots left.

 

 The sunset over Lake Forbes.

Day 4 - We were not sure how far we would get this day, we just kept driving and ended up at Hickey Falls. We've been here before, but only for lunch.

It is only a short walk to the falls. It was surprising how quiet it was during the night, considering this is right on the highway.

Day 5 - We headed over the border and back into Queensland. We were not sure whee we would stay, we thought maybe Goondiwindi, but the free camp, which was lovely, really would not have suited our van slide-out. So we kept going. There were some lovely campsites beside the river, but there were no other campers, so we ended up in Inglewood. There is a lovely free camp just south of the town and it is an easy walk to the town. 

Days 6 & 7 - It was a short drive to Clifton, where we had decided to stay the night, but we do like it at Clifton, so we stayed two nights. It is the showgrounds, and at $10 a night for power, it is well worth it.

Breakfast on out last morning this trip. Ready for the next.