MOT Tour Day 79: Cowra to Home

Early start for a long day to home and a fuel fill before leaving Cowra revealed an old friend and a happy omen of home. The only available petrol bowser was #14.

Coming through Canowindra we thought we might see hot air balloons aloft as the town was hosting their annual balloon festival for the weekend but there was no action.

Nearly 100kms in we stopped at Molong for a coffee (me) and a back stretch (Sue). Longer days in the car mean more frequent stops to keep her back from going into spasms. The coffee was good at the Wildflower Cafe, a cafe we have used before.

After morning tea, we motored on to Wellington, intending to travel through to Dunedoo for lunch but were thwarted by a road closer and detoured to our usual route through Gulgong. With fuel consumption close to the line between anticipated remaining fuel and kilometres left to travel, we topped up and then moved north to Coolah.

Just north of Coolah, the rest area on the Black Stump Way was a synchronistic stop for a late lunch. It would be our last stop before home, just as it had been our first stop on the outward journey, way back on Australia Day.

Coolah to Tamworth across the black soil plains and the villages of Premer, Spring Ridge and Caroona to Werris Creek was old stamping ground. "In another lifetime, one of toil and blood, where blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud" (Bob Dylan). When I taught at Tambar Springs, hundreds of years ago, this was a familiar escape route to the relative sanity of the large regional centre of Tamworth.

We reached home in late afternoon. The grass was long and the air inside musty but despite the joy and wonder of the previous eleven or so weeks, it was good to walk into the familiarity and ingrained welcome of home.

I'll leave summation to a postscript video to be forth coming but it has been a stunning tour, where everything went to plan, everything was exciting. We buried some demons but that hardly mattered because the experiences we have added to our already full collection, will remain vivid well past any recollections of failed attempts.

Qld Outback Trip - The Last Day

St George - Mungindi - Moree - Warialda - Tamworth: 515kms

One more cup of coffee
for the road ...

The last day of the tour - well the last day of the sprint home, at least.

We had a few issues getting fuel in St George. Finding a place open at 7:00am was one issue and when we did, the attendant not only didn't know what octane the the different variations of unleaded were but he didn't know what octane was.

The first leg to Mungindi was only interrupted by another mob of cows and some more green splatter for the car and caravan. So looking forward to the job of removing it. We drove past the Two Mile Hotel on the Qld side of the border, where I had some interesting experiences when I was on a Black Dog gig a few years ago. In the bar, they had a big, hand painted signed ...

STATE OF ORGAN

MATE V STATES

N.S.W. V Q.L.D.

I particularly liked the last line.

My accommodation was in a partitioned section of a shipping container out the back of the pub. No window, just a steel door and an air conditioner. 

This trip, we stopped at the Daily Grind, just over the Barwon River and hence in NSW, for a delicious coffee, where for the first time since we left, we could get decaf and lactose free milk. I had a nice chat to two young ambos who were heading off duty and a young school teacher who was having an outing with her two young boys.

At Moree, Sue stretched her legs and importantly her back, while I topped up the fuel tank for the final time and made a few phone calls to sort out some issues for Dad.

At Warialda, we pulled up at the park on the edge of town and had sandwiches in the van until making the final run to Tamworth and home.

Click here to see today's photos

In Twenty days, we traveled nearly 2000kms to Cloncurry in far northwest Qld. In three, we returned. We had some new experiences, sorted out the last issues with the AVAN, traveled new ground to new places and had reached a state of total relaxation and peace.

It will happen again.

Queensland Outback Tour - Tamworth to Burren Junction

253kms: Oxley & Kamilaroi Highways via Gunnedah, Baan Baa, Narrabri & Wee Waa 

We brushed past the airport at 9:45, fully laden and pleased to finally be away of a substantial trip. Neither of us are prepared to indulge in the defeatism of blows dealt us in the past few years when we’ve tried to get away. That sort of thinking was becoming part of the problem, so when the time came to leave this morning, the anticipation was for what we would see and experience and nothing else.

Gunnedah happened mid-morning and it seemed reasonable that we stop for coffee. The Verdict is the new name for an old location; one that harks back to our dark days in Gunnedah. Saturday morning coffees with Sue were about the only time I left the house and these coffee dates were the intimacy I was capable of. Rather than reflect on the negatives, it instead was a pleasant reminder of how far we have come.

From Gunnedah, it was a short hop to Baan Baa: portentous because my two years there in 1982 and 83 were my first principalship and Chris and Sarah were both born while we lived here. We stopped in at the Railway Hotel and had lunch in seats underneath the dart board where I had spent many hours and in the bar, where many victories were celebrated by the Baan Baa Cricket Club during our two minor premierships and one premiership. The pub is now in the hands of Robert Maunder, who was a junior player in those teams. The Railway is only four years off its centenary and could have died had it not been for the Maunders buying the licence to keep it open and in the process, keep it local.

Sue reflected on the kindness of the publican’s wife at the time, Doreen Bruce, who used to buy clothes for Chris and Sarah. She also mentioned her prize-winning scones which won a CWA event and then her invitation to attend events in the future was revoked.

The school looks in great shape although it ceased being a school a long time ago and at last enquiry was BnB.

Head down after lunch and a turn off at Narrabri onto the Kamilaroi Highway and through Wee Waa to our overnight stop at the artesian baths at Burren Junction.

The first bore was sunk at Burren Junction in 1921 and over time was distributed across the district

Click for today's photos

through a series of dug channels. However, over time, concern about the affect of the bore water on the local soil led to talk of capping the bore. Instead, it is released into the circular baths and then the overflow goes into a channel to evaporate. It’s a constant 41 degrees C and makes for a pleasant end to a day driving. The camping area offers plain dirt spots with no power or water but it’s a popular spot, as payment is by donation and there are clean toilets and warm showers.

We finished the day with a big western sunset and the smell of campfires. The million flies were an unrequested option.

Day 14 - On The Move Again

After a few hours repairing the broken door to the hollow rear bumper which holds the canvas awning poles, the TV antenna and the pole for mounting the washing brush, we were on the road again - not before a last coffee of course!

Our two days in Tamworth were well spent. Apart from double checking that my hands were okay after the swan dive from my pushbike, we also attended to a few other matters we should have remembered before we left. It was also good to catch up with Jacquie and Sam for dinner on one of the nights and Chris for lunch the following day.

A fair bit of the full day we had at home was spent reorganising the itinerary, which has been affected more than we first thought. Now, instead of heading west through NSW to Broken Hill and on into South Australia for the Flinders Ranges, we are heading down along the Hume Highway for a ways and then across the Hay Plain to Mildura. We’ll have to miss Broken Hill, Flinders Ranges and the places we were going to visit on the Fleurieu Peninsula but the compensation is three days on Kangaroo Island. Like Tasmania, it one of the few places in Australia we haven’t yet paid a visit to. We will still see the Maudes in Adelaide and the Richardsons in Melbourne and also spend time with my brother and his family in Canberra as well as Kevin and Amanda … friends we met in the England when we were there in 2012 and have been trying to catch up with ever since. Unfortunately, we will have to miss Bendigo and therefore a former Tamworth friend and mentor to our daughter Sarah, Penny Richmond.

You can find the new itinerary on the SA/Vic 2014 tab.

Leaving Tamworth just after noon, the trip to Morisset, just below Newcastle, was uneventful. We listened to Les Miserable for the first part of the trip and then all the Renee Geyer I could find and stopped just the once, at the park beside Muswellbrook Railway Station. I again almost missed the turn off the Hunter Expressway onto the M1, having missed heading to Sydney nearly two weeks ago. The GPS is of no use, as yet not having the new section of road which bypasses Maitland and saves forty minutes off the southern journey.

Our detour to Morisset has come about because of the failure of the water systems on the Cruiser. The pressure limiter has jammed on the mains pressure line and the 12v pressure pump isn’t operating properly. There are some other minor issues we’ll get them to fix while we are here.

Our digs are the Lake Macquarie Caravan Park in Morisset which seems to be full of mostly cabins with limited space for vans. There is quite a generous area for tent camping and management were kind enough to offer us a spot beside the camp kitchen which will make it possible to keep the van attached to the car - an asset when we have to take it to Avan Morisset tomorrow for the day.

Cheers to Sarah and Robert

Finished the day with sundowners overlooking Stockton Creek, a tributary of Dora Creek which flow out into Lake Macquarie. We toasted Sarah, who has been overcoming a rough start to her month in Greece with her typical tenacity and Robert McDougall, a young Tamworth singer who yesterday stepped up from understudy to staring role, singing one of the lead roles - Javert - in Les Miserable at Her Majesty's in Melbourne.

 ... and that's all she wrote.