Hi to all. 

Well here it is on a beautiful Sunday evening in Tamworth.  Maybe a bit of an exaggeration as it is freezing outside. 

Just a bit of an update first. 

You probably already know, but we have sold our house in Cranbourne and will be living in the country town of Hamilton in about 5 weeks.

After settlement day we stayed in Berwick at the showgrounds for 2 weeks, just to say our final goodbyes and then on Friday morning we hitched up the van and headed off.  We had our initial plan to stay overnight at the Ettamogah  Hotel in a free camp for the first night and to take 4 nights to reach Coffs Harbour.

Travelling up the Hume Hwy on that first day was a mixture of being monstered by the trucks or just cursing the rain.  We decided to keep driving past Ettamogah until we stopped for a well deserved coffee at a little whistle stop called Culcairn.  What a great decision to stop there as the bakery sold the best cakes.  I was forced to eat one with blueberries and lots of custard.  Awesome.  We eventually stopped at  a little place called Junee for the first night.  The Garmin GPS had a mind of its own in Junee as it constantly forced us to go in the direction of the Junee Licorice and Chocolate factory.  Only a huge amount of willpower made us go by without stopping.

We left Junee nice and early, trying to keep in front of the Arctic wind chill that was hitting Victoria.  Had no hope of that as the temperature never got over 7C for the entire day of travelling.  We have changed our plans a couple of times this trip, as we are limited to only 25 days before settlement day in Hamilton.  We will not be stopping at towns that we have been before.

Saturday was fairly boring so I wont go in to it suffice to say be went through West Wyalong, Forbes, Parkes and Dubbo, before arriving at our next stop, Gilgandra.  We intend to return to Parkes another time to go to the Elvis Festival and to see the Dish.   Went to happy hour at the caravan park which didn't go according to plan.  It was freezing cold but there was a nice little fire taking the chill out of the air, allowing for all of us to have a quiet drink.  The problem came when the fire died down a bit and all of the experts tried to improve it.  We had the usual 'fan the coals' assistant, which just sent the ash into everyone's drink, then the 'feed the fire' assistant, that just caused it to almost die totally, and finally we had the 'let me tip this on' assistant.  After 'her' third effort of pouring kerosene over the flames I decided to leave whilst I still had eyebrows.

Up bright and early Sunday morning, after spending a bloody freezing night, and it was off towards Tamworth. 

Being a Sunday it was great.  Very little traffic, just the odd B Double to harass us.  We reached Coonabarabran and of course we were relying on Mr Garmin to get us to our Caravan Park in Tamworth.  I should have noticed that all was not well when it directed us up a side street to leave the town.  After about 20 minutes the road just kept getting more and more narrow, to the stage where we now had a very narrow road with no shoulders.  Being the intrepid travellers that we are, we just soldiered on.  So glad that we only came across about 3 cars as we were stuck on that narrow road for about 60 k's.  Just brings back memories of our many bushwalking escapades, as we inevitably get lost.  At least this time I can blame Mr Garmin. 

To ease the pressure of having no idea where we were, Deb got out the snacks and gave me an extremely healthy protein snack bar, to help me through.  I think she got conned at the shop as I am sure it was just compressed cardboard with pretend tasteless chocolate in a pretty wrapper.  For dessert I had a Special K protein bar.  At least it wasn't cardboard.  More like popped rice with some sort of flavoured glue holding it together.  At least it had some taste to it.

Despite our traumatic trip through the wilderness we eventually made it here to Tamworth.  Sorry for no photos but maybe tomorrow.  We will be here for another 2 nights so off exploring tomorrow. 

Will be in touch again shortly. 

Barry and Deb.