Hi to all from Tamworth.

This place is so much bigger than I imagined.  It has a regular population of 62,000 which swells to over 100,000 during the Tamworth Music Festival.   

Spent yesterday checking out the local sights and also the Information centre.  In front of the information centre is the replica Gold Guitar, albeit a huge version.  Also in the Info centre they have a café, wax works of all of the country music legends and a giftshop.  The very informative host of the Info centre told us that Tamworth is the biggest equestrian area in Australia.  They have a huge Equestrian Centre that has only just opened.  Over this week it is hosting a massive quarter horse event, involving riders from 7 countries.

  

The facilities in the area are very impressive.  They have an Entertainment centre that is almost as big on the one in Melbourne.  Also a very impressive amount of sporting facilities.   Had nothing to do with the fact that Barnaby Joyce, Deputy Prime Minister, is the local member.

Caught up with our new favourite coffee shop and on the way out saw a lovely church in the area.  Of course I had to have a look.  It was St Patricks church of West Tamworth.  There was a white marble icon on the front wall which looked over the area. Inside there was a fantastic leadlight image of Saint Mary Mc Killop and also a large wooden cross of jesus behind the pulpit.  As we left the church Deb said to me, and the fetish continues.  I have no idea what she means by that, as she then directed me to check out the restored Anglican church.  I just go where I am told, maybe its not me that has a religious fascination.

The restored Anglican church was also well worth visiting though.  The huge pipe organ inside is fully restored and there are some very lovely lead light windows.  I thought I had better get out of there before Deb started to sing a couple of hymns.

Went out on Tuesday morning for a day of exploring the area. 

Our first stop was up to the Oxley Scenic Lookout.  From here you can see just how big the town is.  It has new housing areas cropping up on all sides of the town.  You can see the town is in 2 halves, with the original area containing the shopping centre, and then an Industrial centre with sporting facilities.  A very impressive place really.  Pity about the freezing cold.

 

After braving the bracing wind we headed to the Tamworth Marsupial Park.  This place has free entry and has a couple of big caged enclosures full of beautiful birds.  Got some customary snaps, with one very close up of an inquisitive galah that just wanted to get his own personal close up.  Whenever I tried to get a snap of some little finches he kept getting in the way of the lens.  He was pretty impressive and even started a little dance at one stage.  All he really wanted I think was to have his head rubbed by Deb.

 

Strolled around the park and saw some of the resident kangaroos and emu's.  It would have been a beautiful serene place to just relax and ponder the problems of the world, except for, you guessed it, just before we got there; a couple of school buses arrived and disgorged their screaming load of excited little savages.  So much for solving the problems of the world.

 

Of course Deb had her hiking boots on and she set a cracking pace around the grounds.  Maybe she was just trying to escape the screaming savages.

Next on the list was the Botanical Gardens.  They would have been really good, as there are numerous water features in the gardens, but being on Stage 4 water restrictions up here they were all disconnected.  We found a really good Bush Chapel in the Gardens and Deb could not resist getting up there behind the pulpit and giving a bit of a sermon.  Very impressive reading of the days Revelations.  And you thought it was me with the religious fascination.

After coffee we headed over to check out Bicentennial Park, which is just off the main shopping strip.  These gardens are well worth a visit.  The first stop was to check out the Country Music Hands of Fame.  There are probably a couple of hundred handprints in the concrete, of country music stars from the past and present.  There is one extra now as Deb couldn't resist adding hers to the display. 

There are a couple of small lakes in the park, along with bronze sculptures of music legends from the past.  Around the lakes there are sculptures made out of local rock with figures cut out of the rock.

And now for your History Lesson.  We then had to check out the Waler Light Horse Statue.  This was really well done and was a fantastic tribute to man and horse.  During all of the wars that Australia has been involved in, from 1871 up to 1931, over 500,000 horses have been sent to war.  Of that amount, only 1 was ever returned to this country.  These horses were mostly stock horses from outback New South Wales and had the ideal temperament for what was required in a war.

We then checked out the War Memorial Display where they had 4 huge images on what looked like a slate background.  It was a good memorial as there was one for the army, navy, air force and also for the nurses.  Really good recognition I think.

 

At the entry to the War Memorial area in Bicentennial Park there are 2 big steel gates.  They are called the Man O War gates and they were originally on the docks at Circular Quay in Sydney where all of the sailors and officers heading off to war had to walk through these gates.  This area is a really good tribute to our past military history.

 

One last stroll along the main street and a walk along the walk of fame.  There are plaques embedded into the footpath of all of the winners of the various categories from the Tamworth Music Festival.  There is also a life size bronze statue of Country Music Legend Slim Dusty and his wife Joy Mc Kern in the main street.  Slim Dusty has won more golden guitar awards than any other musician and Joy McKern won the first ever.  Only natural they would eventually hitch up. 

Then it was time to go back to the van and hitch up ready for an early start tomorrow.  Oh, ok, maybe 9.30.  We will be heading over the mountains to Coffs Harbour.  We have already changed our route due to the road conditions, with the news tonight letting us know the roads were closed due to black ice today for about 8 hours.  We will now be heading the long way through Port Macquarie. 

That's all for now. 

Barry and Deb.       
        

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.