Author: Reen

Saturday 26 September—Monday 5 October

We left Cassilis at 0930 hrs for a reasonably short trip of 146 km to Geurie and continued through the hills and reached the highest altitude of 642 m just out of Cassilis. When we arrived at Geurie Showground at 1130 hrs we set up camp for the next 9 nights. Geurie (320 m above sea level) is  a small village in central-west  NSW located on the Mitchell Highway about 28 kilometres east of Dubbo with a population of around 706 people.

While in town we—

• settled down to watch the AFL Grand Final with Brisbane Lions v Fremantle Dockers. The Lions won in the last 5 minutes; good win.
• travelled to Gilgandra (Reen’s home town) on Sunday for the Back to Gil program in the morning and then out to Tooraweenah, another small country town for the afternoon program. We enjoyed lunch at the Mountain View Hotel, where you can see the Warrunbungle Mountains.
• enjoyed coffee and cake at the Lemon Tree Cafe & Gallery in Geurie.
• travelled around visiting the country villages of Geurie, Wongarbon and Ballimore; all very small towns.
• enjoyed watching the antics of a group of birds-Google identified as Apostle birds- around the campsite.
• attended a birthday dinner for Reen’s niece’s son’s 18th Birthday at the Westside Tavern.
• had dinner with Reen’s brother Doug and Terri at the Southside Tavern.
• caught up with Nyssa, Brad, Jack, Charlie, Harry & Andy and Joel, Beck & Vera who were also in Dubbo for the wedding.
• attended the wedding of Reen’s nephew’s and caught up with more family at the beautiful little Ballimore Church.

After quite a busy time here it is time to pack up again and we are heading south towards Melbourne (for another nephews wedding next weekend).

Wednesday 23—Saturday 26 September

It’s Wednesday morning and we left Tea Gardens (6 m above sea level) at 0840 hrs and heading to Cassilis (400m above sea level) and arrived at 1220 hrs to the Bowling Club & Camp Ground for 3 nights. We always enjoy our stay there. It’s a small historic village in the Upper Hunter in a broad depression which is the lowest break across the Great Dividing Range. The road today was gradually getting higher with lots of ups and downs and our highest part of the trip just out of Cassilis was 511 m.

Looking out the kitchen window is the beautiful Munmurra River―not a lot of water at present and there were horses and cows wandering around grazing and drinking.

Saturday 22 August—Wednesday 23 September

In preparation for leaving Granville today we actually hitched up the 5R/CARDIS last night as we wanted to get away as early as possible. The morning went well and we were on the road to Tea Gardens by 0840 hrs. The traffic was busier than we expected but moving well and we arrived at our beautiful grassy space for setting up by 1130 hrs.

While in town we —
⋄ Walked to Church each Sunday (about 20 steps from our front door) and enjoyed the time together with our friends.
⋄ Attended activities at the Church such as bible study and the Newcastle Community Band Concert.
⋄ Assisted as needed with PC issues and training as needed for the website.
⋄ Visited the homes of friends for meals, talking and games and we also travelled to Tuncurry to visit other friends.
⋄ Dined out at the Country Club, together and with friends.
⋄ Finally finished scanning our family photos after being on the road all this time.
⋄ Dean worked on a few minor repairs on the van—the awnings, coffee machine and the water filter.
⋄ Also enjoyed a visit from Dean’s brother Geoff with Lois, Lyndell and Kiko (dog).

We have enjoyed staying at the Church and as our time here is drawing to a close we look forward to our next adventure. As always we want to thank our Lord for watching over and blessing us in all we have done.

Saturday 4 July—Saturday 22 August

We woke quite early to a cool windy day and set about finalising pack up. We left Muswellbrook at 0830 hrs and headed down the New England Highway and then right onto the M1 all the way to Sydney. Once we arrived at Granville we parked the CARDIS (5R) into the driveway and set it up for our current stay of about 7 weeks.

It’s time to spend time with the grandchildren, family and friends. We have a few jobs to complete and a few items to gather in preparation for our next adventure. On a few different occasions we found ourselves delivering grandchildren to various locations as needed. There has also been shopping and pick-ups of bits and pieces all over the place as needed.

It’s always good to catch up with our friends at Granville Community Baptist Church (GCBC) each Sunday while in town.

We even managed a day trip to Gilgandra, in 2 car—Nyssa with Reen, Charlie and Harry and Joel with Dean, for a meeting at the Gilgandra Local Aboriginal Lands Council. It was a day of 11 hours driving in all. After the meeting we met up with Doug (Reen’s brother) and Terri, their son Jacob, Elise and Oliver for dinner in Dubbo before heading home. What a day.

Some of the jobs Dean has completed while in Granville include: installing a skateboard rack for Harry & Andy, laid some drain pipe from just behind the CARDIS to the sewer and some pavers, 4 x jigsaw puzzles cut to size and framed for Charlie’s room, replaced a blind in the boys room and repaired a broken castor wheel on Nyssa’s sewing cabinet. He also managed to organise all that’s needed to make a favourite photo into a printed panorama to decorate our CARDIS. He also worked on battery connections in Ivy (Iveco) for the fridge.

Some of the jobs Reen has completed while in Granville include: sewing and adjusting clothing to fit, bits and pieces of hand sewing, glued 2 x jigsaw puzzles onto board ready for framing, worked with Charlie and Harry to complete 2 new puzzles and amongst all this she has continued to read (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes—Hunger Games) each Sunday night with the kids.

As our time here comes to and end and we pack up in preparation for our next adventure we continually thank God for his strength, his direction and support.

Thursday 2—Saturday 4 July

Our last night at Uralla was disturbed by heavy rain and gusty winds, we’d had 15 mm rain when we got up and it made for a wet pack up. We drove off at 1000hrs and headed toward Muswellbrook. The driving was made more difficult by the wild winds across the road which pushed us around a little. We drove through a little bit of rain with black skies and then we had beautiful blue skies. There were many ups, downs and around the hills and the highest point of the Great Dividing Range was 1113m and we came down to 157m at Muswellbrook. The scenery was spectacular throughout the drive, so much green everywhere. We arrived at the Muswellbrook Showground at 1315hrs and got busy setting up for our 2 nights stay, beside a Winjana 5th Wheeler which we had seen at Tenterfield Showground.

Friday was another preparation day leaving Muswellbrook on Saturday, we refuelled Ivy (Iveco) and also topped up the AdBlue. We are planning to leave early as we are heading back to Granville and are not at all sure how busy the traffic will be. Throughout the 3+ years of travelling we haven’t as yet come into the city on a Saturday or Sunday, wait and see.

Tuesday 23 June—Thursday 2 July

It’s Tuesday and as we prepare to leave Tenterfield, it’s travel day with a difference. It was -2.4⁰C outside and only 3.6⁰C inside and we have no water. Dean checked the hose connection and found it iced, so no showers this morning. We packed up, hitched up and left earlier than usual and headed to Uralla Showground. At Tenterfield we were 850m above sea level and on the trip while climbing up through the mountains we reached 1419m. Even the cats didn’t like the changes in pressure 😹 and Uralla is 1030m, so we are still up in the clouds.

Uralla is a small country town on the Great Dividing Range on the Northern Tablelands and we have really enjoyed our time here. There are many things to do while in town so I have decided to list and describe what we have done. Every morning (0900hrs) and evening (1715hrs) the Sydney Armidale service runs along the front of us (about 50m away). Dean has enjoyed looking for photo opportunities most days and on our last night he managed to get it with the sunset.

Visitor Information Centre—lots of information and handouts and staff are happy to chat.
Uralla Creek Walk—small bridge across Uralla Creek, path along the creek, quite a pretty walk.
Heritage Walk & Drive—we worked our way through the guide of 57 different historical sites. We also photographed other buildings we thought were amazing.
Barnes Vincent Memorial Lookout (Uralla Lookout)—during the day there were some clear views through the trees of the town, at sunset beautiful colours lit up the sky.
Captain Thunderbolt—a large Statue in town him on his horse, Thunderbolts Rock 6km south of town (lots of graffiti) with good views of the highway , Constable Walker Memorial plaque for the officer who killed Thunderbolt, Bushranger Motor Inn, The Bolt Inn (Thunderbolt Inn) and McCrossin’s Mill Museum has amazing displays. The town seems to have claimed Captain Thunderbolt as their own.
Lagoons—Racecourse was pretty but low on water and only a few birds; Dangars was also pretty with lots of water, birds of many sorts and lovely at sunset for amazing photos.
Gostwyck—Chapel is small and of gothic style in a beautiful country setting; Deeargee woolshed is a unique octagonal shed built in 1872 and is still in use today.
Statues/Scupltues —Fibonacci at Pioneer Park is fantastic which includes a spiral pathway, artwork by local children, mosaic picnic table and 4 spectacular columns representing Uralla’s postcode; The Glen has a display of ‘Constellations of the South’ which is a series of 8 large sculptural artworks; really good. Totem and Having a Yarn are 2 other sculptures we found.
Coffee & Food—we have visited the Uralla Bowling Club Chinese Restaurant, The Alternate Root Cafe, Café Fantastique, 53 on Bridge St, Beca Bakes and The Bolt Inn; all had good food and drink.

We have really enjoyed our stay of 9 nights in Uralla even though it has been cool. Exploring the town and area has been very informative with it’s history and we are pleasantly surprised by the pride that the people have for their town. It’s time to start packing up in preparation for travelling tomorrow to Muswellbrook Showground.

Friday 19—Tuesday 23 June

It’s Friday and we woke to another sunny day helping us to easily settle into pack up mode. All hitched up and ready to go except for the wet ground being very slippery which added 15 minutes to our departure. Finally we were on the road heading to Tenterfied Showground and of course we again had a side trip courtesy of Google maps. We managed to pull over and get a photo of a group of Texas Long Horn cows (Dwyer Ridges Rd) who like to be sociable. After a longer trip than normal we settled into the showground beside Tenterfield Creek and were looking forward to our 4 nights stay.

On Saturday we drove to the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) and we had a talk with one of the enthusiastic volunteers who had some great ideas on what to do while in town. Dean even managed to find coffee at the Courtyard Cafe. From there we headed to Jennings/Wallangarra (twin border towns) for photos. Dean explored the old train station, a beautiful and well preserved old building, where you can see 2 size tracks for NSW and QLD. Later that day, on recommendation of the lady at the VIC, we headed up to Mount Mackenzie Lookout at 1630hrs for the sunset. It was really beautiful and we managed to get some great photos. On the way back to town we had a close encounter with a large kangaroo on the road; no damage to anyone.

Sunday dawned as a very foggy morning of 0.9⁰C outside and as it dissipated the sun came through for a beautiful day. Today we watched Tea Gardens Baptist Church service online; it’s always a good service. After church we headed out to the Tenterfield Saddler Museum which was made famous by the Peter Allen’s song “Tenterfield Saddler” which tells the story of his grandfather at work. From there we drove down the street further and found the Cork Tree and it was enormous—it came from England as a seed, was planted in 1861 and is believed to be the largest in Australia. Our next stop was at the Tenterfield Railway Station Museum where we walked through lots of different carriages, saw lots of equipment used and different buildings used as barracks for workers. It was an amazing set up which we really enjoyed exploring.

Monday, the last day here and we decided to drive around finding 5 sculptures marked on the map.

1. Horse—next door to us at the showground
2. Woman with Fruit—mosaic creation
3. A Quiet Place—wooden pioneer cottage-style shelter
4. Who’s the Boss?—Cow and Dog
5. Speaking Poles—a Meeting Place

We also found the Weather Rock and a rock sculpture of a girl supporting a ball with hands and feet while on her tummy. We also had a few pack-up jobs to start in preparation for leaving tomorrow for Uralla.