Judy & Brian Tour Oz

Bourke Followed the Mitchell Highway up through the rich grazing and cropping property to Dubbo where they become irrigated from the Macquarie River. Along the river itself the soil is a rich dark brown that looks like it could grow just about anything, hard to say at 100kph but they looked like huge market gardens. From Dubbo we headed straight for Nyngan. I say straight for that is what it is,all the way from Dubbo to Bourke - 200k. The country changes dramatically, first to fields of cotton around Narromine and up to Trangie and then to vast flat plains of red earth with mirage lakes shimmering in the distance. The only signs of life are scrub and stray bunches of feral goats and sheep and the odd emu. Stopped for a coffee at Nyngan but decided to put on a few more kilometres before taking lunch.  Exactly half-way between Nyngan and Bourke is a so-called free camp - a few tracks on the red earth and a single picnic table. As we eat lunch we are struck by just how little traffic...

Wellington NSW, May 2013 Monday 26th became Friday 31st then miraculously became Wednesday 29th. Hey that's today! Not hanging around to be asked twice, we bolted, heading for Wellington in the west of NSW. Seemed to take an age to pack the van this time, I'm sure it's bulging at the seams, but hey, who cares, we is gone at last. Stopped for a rest and a cuppa at Boorowa, then pressed on to Cudal where we had a hamburger at a cafe that looked more closed than open, but which was really good. Wandered into Wellington about 3:30pm and found a spot at the Riverside Caravan Park. Sign on the door read: 'Find a site, back in 10 minutes', so we grabbed a riverside spot between two others. People on one side were rabbiting on about all the platypusses in the river. I wandered down with the camera and took some snaps up close, they are water rats! Had a wander about and then settled down for afternoon tea. The other neighbours then jumped on us telling us how someone or...

The good news is that we are still going, albeit a few days later than expected. When I say 'not-so-good', I mean that its good that the Basil Cell Carcinoma on my nose can be removed quickly and cleanly, it bad that I left it so long to get a proper opinion about it and the consequence is that we have to wait until Friday week to get the Doc's clearance. On the same good/almost good news front, we finally have our spare wheel carrier completed and installed. On the back of the Nova we have the normal sort of bumper bar, which held the bike rack and the caravan spare wheel. As we are planning to go a bit feral this time, poking right up into the gulf and other places, I thought it might be a good idea to carry a second spare for the car. The plan was to mount it on the caravan bumper alongside the caravan spare. So I took the original spare wheel bracket off, measured it up and went looking for some metal to make another one. The first place I went wasn't the shop it...