Lightning Ridge, 23 July 2017

    Another freezing night in downtown Dubbo. No problem, today we head north to Lightning Ridge. We are pleased to report that Warrawillah still exists and we said hello in spirit to the Mortimer clan as we flew past on our way to ‘Gil’. Through the town and out along the road, past Gulargambone with its stylised corrugated Galahs and real-life emus. We have never seen so many, one near the road had a heap of chicks as well. We stopped for a break at Coonamble, and enjoyed ourselves by getting the chairs out and sitting in the sun in the local park with our cuppa and a piece of cake. Apart from the herd of cattle eating their way up the long-paddock and the distraction of sliding through Walgett, possibly the most distressed town in NSW, the rest of the drive to The Ridge is uneventful and we arrived at our park in time for a late lunch.

    One of the reasons for coming here was to see those great Australian bush poets. Mel & Suzie, who abandoned Wilton in Qld for a new home here in Lightning Ridge. The show is on at 4:30. They tried the usual evening slot but found that nobody came back once they had gone to their vans for dinner. Anyhow the show was good, not as good as the Winton ones perhaps, but pretty entertaining none the less.

    While Judy whipped up a potato pie for dinner, I went for a swim in the heated pool, much to the surprise of those all rugged up in their puffer jackets and beanies in the adjacent camp kitchen.

Gulargambone NSW

That odd and alarming rattle from the tow bar turned into a very loud and disconcerting squeak today. I stopped and checked things twice and by the time we got to Dunedoo I had had enough, it was stressing me out as I kept waiting for the whole lot to hit the road and disappear into the distance behind me. I disconnected the van and went to the local servo to get some grease. They had none, no mechanic, nothing, except milk and bread and stuff, and if you really pushed it, petrol and diesel.

Shaking my head in dismay, I walking into the nearby chainsaw and mower place and asked them if they could see their way clear to let me have a fingerful of grease. No problem, they even came out and put it on for me. Squeak cleared, I could rest easy and get on with driving the rig.

We stopped at Gilgandra Info centre and had a look through the impressive display of Co-ee march and local memorabilia, which included a sprinkling of Mortimer names, Claude and Kevin in particular.

We finished our day's run at Gulargambone, a tiny tiny town about 50k north of Gil, and lucked into a tiny but very pleasant van park. The owners have only been there six months and are anxious to build up a bit of a reputation with inveterate vanners, having spend 10 years on the road themselves and reckon that they know what we want.

We were 'invited' to the campfire / happy hour starting at 4pm, where they cooked excellent damper and slices of pizza.

There were about 10 of us and we had a very pleasant several hours swapping tall tales about travel around Australia. I am a bit hesitant to say the Judy and I both got on the (young children look away now!!!) piss. It's true here's a snap:

As a bonus, here's a snap for my avian fancying mates. This is only the bit of the flock that would fit in the viewfinder: