Back on the road

Hello once again one and all,

Well had a good week with the relos, thanks to Stu and Vicky once again for looking after me.  Go the safety check on the van done, all good there, got the car serviced and had some new electrics fitted to the car and van which seems to be working well. Also got myself checked out by the doc, and that all appears to be ok too. He still can’t seem to grasp the fact that Im full time on the road and not at his beck and call whenever he needs. Oh well hopefully he will switch on soon.

Stayed an extra couple of days in the Blue Mountains as the weather got so darned hot over the Saturday (46c) and Sunday (37c)

it wouldn’t have been fair on the dogs to travel in that heat. Anyway finally got back on the road Monday morning and got just south of Orange before calling it a day. Free camped in Macquarie Woods, a place I had previously stayed, not many other campers there so I was able to pick my spot. Im pretty sure a couple of the vehicles were there when I last visited back in September but couldn’t be sure.

From here it was a wander North up to Dubbo to visit the Jayco dealer, needed a new water intake and a new foot for one of the rear legs on the Caravan. Managed to get both and as usual assistant there was more than helpful, even got a freebie bottle opener. After leaving Dubbo, went a bit further on to a lovely little campsite in the town of Narromine, very friendly and helpful hosts, who had a wee menagerie of animals, including a week old lamb, which was more like a puppy and followed the owner everywhere, also include were and alpaca, cow and a horse, and not forgetting the small lizard that waited under the table for any scraps.

While at the campsite I managed to fit the new water inlet, which was a fiddly rather than difficult job, which did cause a few swear words and a scraped knuckle. The fitting of the foot to the rear leg was easy peasy and all over and done with within five minutes.

I was trying to decide whether to go straight to Bourke from here or to detour to Cobar for a couple of days first, I went to and fro for a while and it wasnt until the next morning when I left the camp I decided to go to Cobar, oh how little decisions can make big changes. Well it was a miserable day, the rain was badly needed right across the state, but it does make for very trying driving conditions.  Lots of thunder and lightning going on and the beginnings of flooding in the paddocks both side of the road.  What made this worse, was that due to the rain I had to shut the ute windows so that the dogs didnt end up sitting in a swimming pool. I had the fan on for them, but it must have got a bit uncomfortable for them with no fresh air coming in. Mindful of this, every time the rain eased I was pulling over to open the windows for them, then stopping again when the rain got heavier. Eventually arrived in Cobar and parked up at the campsite. When checking in the lady at the desk asked me where I was heading to, I said in a couple of day I will be off to Bourke. Oh she says, are you aware that the road is closed due to flooding. No says I but I guess by the time I leave it should have reopened so should be ok. Well it rained the whole three days I was in Cobar, apart from a few breaks. Lots of thunder and lightning which didnt please the dogs too much. I had a small sense of deja vu, I remembered when I was in Mildura enroute to Broken Hill that the road was closed due to a faulty bridge, so I had to stay an extra week until the road reopened, and here I was in Cobar with the same problem. Not much in Cobar to write home about. It is a typical outback Australia mining town. What it did have was a fairly large open cast gold mine. I took a couple of photos but due to the weather they aren’t crash hot.

Now my thinking was, stay in Cobar til the Saturday, then a short 130km run up to Bourke for the night, then East to Walgett for a night, then onwards to Lightning Ridge for a few days. Whats that old saying, when man plans God laughs.

After a very pleasant peaceful if uneventful few days in Cobar, Saturday dawned, still a bit drizzly, but the plan was afoot so I started to pack up to set off. Now as I previously mentioned the direct road from Cobar to Bourke is a straight run of 130kms, but when I looked on the traffic website that road was still closed due to flooding, so this meant  I had a just over 270km detour to take to get to Bourke, so off we went. As I was driving the first part of the trip back to Nyngan, the rain slowly got heavier, so I stopped in Nyngan for a coffee and to give the dogs a quick stretch. then it was off up the highway to Bourke, which was just over 200kms  up the road. The rain eased to showers on the way up but there was a lot of water lying either side of the road in the culverts and quite a lot of standing water in the paddocks.  The road want too bad at least no flooding across it although there was the odd patch of standing water in the dips. Got to Bourke and went to the campsite and it was closed, is suspected due to flooding but no explanations were evident, so I went to the only other campsite in Bourke, this was open and completely empty, but the owner wouldn’t let me park as they didnt accept dogs. I thought they may have grabbed all the custom they could seeing as they were empty and the other site was closed. but no dice. There are a couple of free camping sites in Bourke but due to the rain they werent accessible, well that’s not strictly true, I could have got in but would have to wait for the sun to bake all the mud to get back out again.  As the end destination was Lightning Ridge I thought I may as well go on to Walgett and stop there for the night, after a quick dog stretch off we set again. Someone upstairs must have been watching and thought rain, I will give them some rain, and boy did they.  There were a lot of really heavy downpours on the way, so heavy I had to pull over and stop as I could hardly see the road in front of me. And it amazed me that there were still people driving both ways without any lights on their vehicles.  This was a very stop start and slow progress trip, but eventually the rain eased a bit before I got to Walgett. I pulled over into a rest stop to see what campsites there were in Walgett, and stone the crows (not the 60/70s blues group, for our older readers) there aren’t any, again a couple of free camping places and the show grounds, but due to the weather these weren’t options, so after while I thought I may as well got to Lightning Ridge as I know there are campsites there. I finally go to Lightning Ridge at about 1800 after leaving just after eight that morning and found a campsite to book into. Just me and one other vehicle in the site, which I though odd but found out the reason the next morning.

Lightning ridge closes for all of February. Very little of the attractions were open, the driving tours you can do all four of them were closed due to the time of year and the weather making them too muddy. the few shops that were there were open, but all the opal shops were closed. So it was a bit of bust all round really, so I just stayed and enjoyed the peace and quiet and the discount rates.

We had rain, well a shower at least, just about every day I was there and quite a few thunderstorms. But after the long drive of getting there I was glad to finally put my feet up and more importantly get the coffee machine up and running.

I left Lightning Ridge yesterday and travelled further East until about 30kms East of Moree in a very small township of Pallamallawa. A very bouncy trip was had on the Gwydr highway the road is not the best maintained by quite some distance. There were even a few places where the recent storms had caused some damage to the road surface. Quite a lot of potholes some quite significant and you wouldn’t want to hit them at any sort of speed or on a motorbike. But now I’m in a very small probably only eight or ten sites campsite and the only one here. Paid my fees at the local pub, very friendly locals, and had a very cool and very welcome beer. May have to partake again later. One typical small town shop which sells every thing from diesel and unleaded through gas bottles basic household needs to takeaways, which apparently are highly recommended, so may well partake in one of those this evening as well.

Anyway peeps, that’s all the latest so far, Im here til Monday morning not sure where Im heading to next, depends on the storms and cyclones which are threatening nearer to the coast.

I afraid there are not many pics to display as the weather/locations have not offered much at all, hopefully things will pick up on the next stage