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.

On our way.....Friday 2/7/2010 Lake Macquarie to Boppy Hill

(Lake Macquarie to Boppy Hill)
We changed our itinerary by leaving a day earlier and only driving half the distance.

We left 30 minutes later than planned, at 0830hrs. Not bad! Everything fit, including cryovaced meat for the whole trip. The food wasn't packed in reverse order as I'd hoped, but access to it all is pretty easy. A great job by Col to have the car modified. Fully set up with everything we need, including cupboards, shelves and storage boxes.
We've set off on a massive family adventure. Family time, and no work for 5 weeks. Yay!!

Our first treat is driving along our own Lake Macquarie. A silver mirror reflecting the mountains, with Jordan and Jack singing a duet in the background.
Well, nearly a very short trip. We almost had a car accident just past Denman. A car overtaking us, another turned into that lane coming towards the two of us. Some swerving and breaking by all, and nothing worse than palpitations!!
We'd had a toilet and snack stop at Denman,

..then a rainy lunch stop at Dunedoo.

Thank goodness for our Foxwing awning. I spent most of the morning plotting Waypoints on our Hema Navigator (from off my itinerary). All finished.
I'm now enjoying the wet countryside and music from the iPOD through the car stereo. Almost at Trangi.
We arrived at Boppy Hill (50km east of Cobar) at 1800hrs. It was a quick set up and a precooked tea eaten by 1930hrs.

Time to relax with a glass of wine.