Day 24, Saturday 18/1/2014, Melbourne to Newcastle

Our wake up call was at 0550hrs. There is a long day of driving ahead of us today which will have to be shared around. That means I'll have to do a shift in the defender, and one for the kids. Hopefully we'll make it home by 2200hrs. We were driving home through a true heat-wave. 42 degrees celsius at Albury and Gundagai. We were taking our thongs off to see who could stand on the tar the longest. You could cook your dinner on it! Leah and Gary will be taking two days to get home and plan to stay in Gundagai tonight. I hope it cools off a bit for them.


Another fantastic road trip over.
I just love this amazing time with family and friends!!
This is living!!

Day 1, Thursday 26/12/13 “Boxing Day”, Valentine to Wodonga.

Tasmania

December 2013 to January 2014

Parkes Family: Col 48, Cheryl 43, Jordan 17, Jack 16

Williams Family: Bruce 44, Fiona 42, Jessica 17

Morgan Family: Gary 43, Leah 42, Eliza 9, Amara 6

It was an early start, leaving Belmont Shell Station by 7am after topping up with diesel. Col and I in the Defender, Bruce and Fiona in the ‘People Mover, Casper’ and the teenagers (Jordan, Jack and Jess) on their first road trip together in Jordan’s ‘P’ plater Rocky. Morgans will catch up with us later in the day as they can travel at 110km/hr. I’m so lucky that Col likes to drive all day and I manage to get plenty of naps.

Yass is where Morgans caught us. It was a quick lunch at Yass Subway. If only we knew to take our lunch 1/2km further, we could have had it in the park by a lovely river. Just a bit further on and we were waving to Hassells as they were heading north, back from Hay.

In the time it took us to get to Albury, Morgans were able to visit the ‘Dog on the Tuckerbox’ as well. They had cancelled their plan to go to Ballerat at the last minute and had booked in to Albury, while Fiona had Williams and Parkes already booked into a roadhouse at Wodonga.

There was a lovely park with a great playground, bridge, rotunda, and ponds with ducks and swans. Great for ridding ourselves of the cobwebs and stiffness of 9hrs travel.

The kids swam in the pool while Fiona broke out the nibblies and wine.

Leah, Gary, Eliza and Amara joined us for pizza. They are having trouble with their fridge power connection. It was too small. Col has plenty of parts and even a soldering iron, but ended up just having to bend the prongs out.

Time for a well earned sleep!

Day 24, Saturday 14/07/2012, Tamworth to Lake Macquarie and the week after. (The End, for 2012)

This morning Lisa and I headed into town at Tamworth to get the rest of the birthday presents for Madison, Chelsea and Katie. I am so tired! I feel like I have hit a brick wall, or someone has slipped me a couple of sleeping tablets. I’m not sure if it is physical exhaustion or the post holiday blues already hitting.

We returned to find Col upset that it had taken so long at the shops. I had completely forgotten the headlights weren’t working (it wasn’t a simple fuse), sorry Col.

After a very quick gift giving for Madison 10yrs and Chelsea 1yr we did a racing departure, arriving home right on dusk.

 

 



Total kms:                         6,500km

Total fuel:                          916L

Total fuel cost:                 $1,478

Average Fuel Economy   14L / 100km

The following week:

Peter lost his hiking boots. He last remembered them in Bourke. He phoned Kidman Camp and sure enough, there they were. She plans to post them to him.

Col pulled the headlight switch apart. A metal contact was worn away. He had to replace the switch.

Peter dropped the T Van back to Newcastle. The lady wasn’t too worried about some damage on the van. She said “you expect worse than this in the Outback!”

We had a lovely baked dinner here with Peter, Pockrans and mum and dad as a welcome home.

Peter went and spoke to the boss at the workshop in Tamworth that set up and wired his car for the trip. The boss was shocked by Peter’s story and somebody’s skills will certainly be reviewed. He was horrified by the potential danger the Freeman family were placed in by the less than satisfactory job done on his vehicle. Peter was reimbursed $400 to cover the Ceduna bill and they plan to do a thorough check of the entire car.

The T Van people got in contact with Peter to let him know that he still had their coupling attached to his car. He will post it back.

Day 23, Friday 13/07/2012, Lightning Ridge to Tamworth

Black Friday! Our plan had been to tour a mine today. The guy that owns it has spent the last 14 years carving statues while mining (for decoration). It was closed due to the rain so we did a self drive tour instead through the older section of town. It is called the “Red Door Tour”. Lisa and Stuart lead the way, reading the guide as we went. It is a novel way to see old Lightning Ridge, with red car doors as our guide. It was a 4WD tour as the dirt roads had again become creeks with the downpour we’d been having since last night. There certainly are some crazy buildings out here. I’m not sure about their council building codes.

Following this was a spot of opal shopping.  We had to wait for the shop owner to be phoned. He hadn’t come, thinking there would be no tourists on such a wet day.

There was some beautiful artwork in John Murray’s Gallery with beautiful and novel paintings of Lightning Ridge and the outback in general.  Michael purchased a poster, then it was time to head to Tamworth. There was a rain cell sitting over us the whole way.

Heading into Wee Waa Col hit a galah. I could hear it scream moments later. The poor thing was still alive, caught up near the front wheel. Col helped me get it out. There didn’t seem to be any broken wings. Hopefully there’s not too much internal damage. I took it back into the bush away from the road, getting a decent bite for my troubles. A flock of galahs came to its cries of distress. I hope it will be alright. I totally swamped the bite in antiseptic gel. There can be all sorts of nasties from parrots.

The plan was to take the kids to Macca’s for lunch which they think is an amazing treat. Our headlights stopped working, so we had to follow Stuart closely into Tamworth, arriving at dusk at the Freemans for a little reunion and a one night stopover.

It was a very enjoyable farewell dinner at the Safari Club where we ate, drank, were merry and celebrated some amazing memories from an epic adventure. Time to plan the next one!

We gave Madison part of her birthday present, an opal necklace (more to come tomorrow). Col ordered 1 of everything in what were already massive meals. Even he couldn’t eat it though.

Day 22, Thursday 12/07/2012, Bourke to Lightning Ridge

I awoke at 6am to go to the bathroom and could see lightning to the south and clouds closing in from the north. Col and I decided to wake everyone up early as we thought they would prefer to pack up now rather than when the weather closed in.

It absolutely bucketed down while we were at the bakery in Bourke, with flash flooding in the streets. We didn’t end up leaving Bourke until 9:30am, so lucky we started so early.

At Brewarrina the Darling and Barwon Rivers flow through what is thought to be the oldest manmade structure on earth!! They are estimated to be about 40 000 years old and still work today! They’re not much to look at but you can’t just pass by such an amazing anthropological artefact. There are some great educational signs along the pathway now that explain it all well.

Peter and Anthea have decided to head back to Tamworth today and will part ways at Walgett. This wasn’t much of a surprise with the ongoing rain and mud. What was a surprise though, was that Bruce took this opportunity to bail also. We were a little shocked considering his previous excitement at visiting Lightning Ridge.

We made sandwiches in a park at Walgett, and then parted ways with Freemans and Williams. It will be sad not to have our big group farewell dinner at Tamworth.

Pockrans and Parkes are off to Lightning Ridge now. Michael is crying at the parting of our group which I think reflects how everyone is feeling. It’s hard parting ways when we’ve lived together and relied on each other for the past month. I miss them already!

It was a quick 1hr drive north from Walgett to Lightning Ridge with a huge emu polulation along the way. Lightning Ridge is larger than I expected. We found the new “Opal Caravan Park” that was recommended to us by other travellers at Bourke. It is very clean with good facilities and just far enough out of town to feel a bit safer. Best of all though, was that it was straight across the road from the 42 to 46°C thermal pool.

There was one cabin left which we booked (given the adverse weather). We didn’t really like the thought of swags with flash flooding. Lisa and Stuart had a bed each and the 4 kids shared a couple of beds (bunk) while Col and I slept in our roof top tent in the cabin driveway.

First on the agenda of course was a soak in the artesian spring. It was overcast but not raining. It was a short walk across the road from our cabin. So hot and relaxing but you weren’t able to stay in too long as you’d quickly overheat.

Then it was back to the cabin for showers and a glass of wine on the deck. Cheers to mum who just announced her retirement! Woohoo!

It was a lovely relaxed and scrumptious dinner in town. We went to Bruno’s Pizza and totally stuffed ourselves with food and wine, then headed back to the cabin for a coffee before retiring to bed.

Day 21, Wednesday 11/07/2012, Bourke, cruising on the Darling River

Everyone had quite a relaxing day. Showers were certainly early on the agenda. Stuart and Peter took the littlies for a walk (500m) out to the Darling River where the PV Jandra (paddle vessel) is moored.  They returned with clay feet! It was a beautiful sunny day, drying a lot of the mud out by lunch time. Many of the neighbouring campers moved on leaving us with a big lawn which was perfect for the kids to run around on and for the adults to lounge around on camp chairs, sunning themselves while reading or chatting.

Jamie and Haley spent most of the morning playing with a green frog that Bruce had found for them. They built a home and garden for it with sticks and flowers.

Michael, Jack, Stuart and Col ended up throwing tennis balls around. Bruce, Fiona and Jessica had a drive into town, soon followed by Peter, Anthea, Madison, Haley and Chelsea. Meanwhile Jordan had attached herself to a power outlet with her laptop, using Skype to chat to Lucy and Brendon (woot woo).

After lunch Lisa, Stuart and I enjoyed a glass of wine in the sun and then everyone met to go for a river cruise. Bruce ferried a few of us there in his “people mover”. It was a 1hr cruise on the paddle boat PV Jandra along the Darling River.

It is a very informative, entertaining, if not opinionated talk by the captain. He is well rehearsed as it was just about word for word with the talk he gave us 2 years ago.

The Darling is currently 4.5m deep and teeming with birdlife. Lake Macquarie will be very crowded with pelicans when this 4 year ‘big wet’ dries up. They’ve had 2 floods a year on the Darling for the last 3 years. This is unheard of in caucasian history! The Darling River floods approximately every 2 to 3 years, but had no flood between 2000 and 2007.

Along the bank are huge river redgums, with coolabah trees further back (with the silvery green foliage). The redgums survive for 9 months in flood before they drown. The bridge was made in England back in the colonial days. It was shipped over then transported to Bourke up the river. The kids had a lovely time with Haley crying when it was time to disembark.

A big thanks to Jordan for taking lots of photos. You're a natural!

Bruce drove Fiona and I into town to get some cash and wine. A group of teenagers were wave wildly at us as we were pulling into the car park. Knowing how rough the town was it made us a bit nervous, only to find out they were trying to tell Bruce he was driving in the exit!

Bruce is very excited about going to Lightning Ridge tomorrow. He collected some information on it today at the tourist centre. He particularly wants to go to the John Murray Art Gallery.

The Kidman Camp runs a communal fire, dinner and bush poetry on a Wednesday night which we were looking forward to, but it had been cancelled because of the unpredictable weather. We all cooked, ate and drank together in the park kitchen and BBQ area. Jordan was a wonderful helper tonight showering Michael, Jamie and Haley. She’s such a good niece!!

Everyone’s in pretty good spirits again tonight which is a lovely way to finish our epic journey. It’s amazing how much effect weather can have on people’s emotions. Lisa, Peter and I enjoyed a lovely phone call with mum and dad tonight.