Day 1, Monday 27/6/2016, Lake Macquarie to Cobar

Alarms set for 0400hrs, but I was awake at 0300hrs waiting. Breakfast, last bags in the car, coffees in the thermos and house locked up. We left at 0445hrs, drove in the dark and rain and arrived at Dunedoo at 0630hrs to a very dull sunrise.

Drove past the split rock and caught the Morgans at a cafe in Trangie at 1100hrs. There are very swampy paddocks and very full flowing rivers around Nyngan and Cobar. We'll have to just keep driving if it's a swamp at our designated spot.

The kids have given us codenames. Col is Shrek of course, I'm Donkey!?, Siân Dragon, Jack Puss, and Jordan Ginger Bread Man. Interesting! They topped up their fuel at Nyngan. 90L. They're getting 17L/100km.

Gary had been waiting on the corner for us back at Trangie. Eliza and Amara were going paparazzi crazy with their cameras. They got a charming photo of me stuffing my face with a sausage roll. Lucky Leah and Gary changed their original plan of going through Warren as it was flooded and the main road closed.

We've seen the usual suspects: cows, sheep, pigs, goats, rabbit, fox, alpacas, kangaroos, emus, crows, galahs, cockatoos, kites and eagles.

We had a lovely lunch stop together in a park at Cobar. Delicious sandwiches then a bit of soccer juggle to get the blood flowing.

Poor Peter is stressed about getting red dirt in the car already. Hehehehe, he's got Buckley's.
Heading west we cleared the black clouds and rain just past Cobar to arrive at Meadowglen in sunshine and blue skies at 1515hrs (10.5hrs).

There's more green than I've ever seen out here, but still patches of deep red dirt that contrast nicely with it. It was a pretty quick and uneventful setup while Eliza and Amara collected kindling. Then we explored the dry creek beds, climbed trees and played soccer before happy hour at a raging fire. Just had to warm up the pre-cooked dinner.

As our chairs kept creeping closer to the fire, we decided to call it a night and went to bed to read and sleep. It only got down to 1 degree C. Toasty warm in bed.

Saturday 3/7/2010 Boppy Hill to Olary Creek

(Boppy Hill to Olary Creek)
We got up at 0630hrs. Only just light enough to see. The gas was a bit frozen. Breakfast, packup and leave at 0830hrs. Drove through Cobar.

Lots of iron ore mining equipment. We've seen goats, sheep, magpies, emus and a kangaroo. Jordan loves the baby goats when they run. Jack has finally started his momento diary. The kids have been practicing their navigating skills, reading map details and distances out to Col.
Wilcania will be an eye opener for them. The sky is now blue. We're past the rain.
We had a quick stop for morning tea, finishing off any fruit before the fruit fly bins. We didn't quite make it to Broken Hill with the fuel, and had to get enough to get us there at Wilcania (too expensive to fill up).

The Darling River at Wilcania was a pretty back drop for lunch.

The kids were interested to see aboriginal people, and a small boy waved to them.
We topped up the fuel at Broken Hill using our credit card point Caltex cards and quickly updated our blogs while we momentarily had internet. I hope mum and dad are having fun in Alice Springs.....
Olary Creek was a fun place to camp. Jordan and Jack had fun exploring the creek bed and we had our first camp fire.

We were set up, had taken photos and were preparing tea only 30 minutes after arriving.

Our brand new stainless steel gas stove is already playing up. Blocked jet?!!!! Lucky we had wood and no rain....