Friday 22—Friday 29 May
We woke on Friday in Muswellbrook to a grey day and the sound of birds chatting all around. It was time to pack up an get ready to leave for Armidale Showground. The last thing to before hitching up is the slide rooms. As normal the small slide worked like magic BUT the big slide caused us bother again and finally after 30 minutes it worked. So we were on the road at 1030 hrs.
It wasn’t long before rain started but thankfully it only lasted minutes and didn’t slow us down much. It was beautiful to see the cloud resting over the tops of the mountains. As we travelled along the Great Dividing Range we continually climbed and before Tamworth we were at 693 m above sea level. Then as is often the case, Google maps took us on a (bitumen, dirt, bitumen) “bypass” road around Tamworth. Thanks Google 🙁
Eventually we turned back onto the New England Highway and continued our trip to Armidale, climbing still higher to 1120m. We found the showground, chose our spot and set up for a week. Armidale is Australia’s highest town, built on top of the Great Dividing Range at 980 m elevation and has a population around 24,000.
On Saturday morning we ventured out into the cool wind; to the Visitor Information Centre and collected flyers of attractions to see and had a great chat with the lady working there. We then drove to the Drummond Apex Lookout, which overlooks the town. We headed out to refuel the Iveco right near the airport; where we saw planes taking off and landing including a Qantas flight taxiing for take off.
On Tuesday we headed out for a day of waterfall chasing. Reen was excited and hoped to see our first waterfall since we started travelling. After refuelling and grabbing lunch (Subway foot long, for later) and coffee; we headed out of town to Dangars Falls (1060m); but it was closed for upgrades, a sad🙁 start to the day. After speaking to the guy managing the upgrades to the park, who told us that there wasn’t much water around for the falls, we rethought our travels. On the way we stopped at the Dangarsleigh Memorial which was designed and built by a local farmer in recognition of the local soldiers killed in WW1. Then we headed to Ebor Falls (1371 m, the highest we have been in our travels this far) which is 80 km along the Waterfall Way. Just out of Ebor we were actually driving through clouds while it showered us. As we carried our lunch to the picnic table we could hear the thunder of the waterfall. After lunch we walked to the viewing area for the Upper Falls and its was spectacular and then we drove to the Lower Falls viewing platform and again it was spectacular. We loved😍 it and before we left the area we decided to drive through the town of Ebor; it was a very quiet town and everything seemed closed.
On the way back to Armidale we stopped at Wollomombi Falls (960m) which had a long thin waterfall (supposedly the second highest waterfall in Australia) running into a gully at the base. From the viewing platform we drove up to Edgars Lookout platform which showed great scenery of the mountains. As we continued back we visited Bakers Creek Falls, which was great scenery of mountains and gully but sadly🙁, no running waterfall.
In support of our country towns we enjoyed lunch at The St Kilda Hotel (sadly no connection to AFL). Dean enjoyed a Mixed Grill and Reen had Rump steak, quite delicious.
We ventured out on Thursday to the Armidale & Regional Aboriginal Cultural Centre & Keeping Place which we really enjoyed. The outside area was beautifully designed and the museum and art gallery are very informative and lovely to walk through. It was also great to chat with the Director and his wife Rose (Aboriginal) about the history and role of the centre in town.
For most of our stay each day we have had light showers on and off, which is great because the district is in need of rain. On Wednesday we had 9 mm rain and today is raining again. It has been an interesting week and now it’s time to pack up and get ready to move on tomorrow morning.
