I suspect that I might be a bit light on for content today, but let’s see what happens. I’m sure that there are some fascinating bowel movement stories that I can weave into the narrative if I need to.
Or not.
I got a bit of a shock this morning. Woke at about 7.00am and looked in the mirror and there was this tired-looking, grey haired old man staring back at me. I’m not sure who he is but I wish that he’d stop hanging around us young folks.
I also wish that he’d get a haircut!
MBW also got a bit of a shock this morning too, although on the “Bit of a shock” to “Code Brown” continuum, it was much closer to the code brown end of the scale.
But there is a whole lot of back story that I need to unravel first, so hopefully once I’ve given you the context I will also remember to tell you the thing that happened.
I also had a bit of a problem today. We woke to a bracing 5 degrees, and the forecast shows us getting up to about 26 degrees today, so that means layering. Just like a Sara Lee pastry.
Hot shower, put on a couple of layers, breakfast, put on some more layers, then outside to get the Percy ready for departure.
Tonight we are staying at a free camp called Nakadoo. The family (the Kennedys) who own the property near Coonamble allow travellers to drop anchor and stay the night for free, although it is the morally responsible thing to do to leave a donation in the tin. So because we are free camping, we needed some water in the tanks.
I put probably 100 litres of water in the tanks (= 100kg) and wound up the legs on the van, then went to get Elsie ready to connect up … and there was this almighty BANG!
MBW had a code brown!
I went around to the front of Percy to find that the jockey wheel had collapsed. When I say “collapsed” I don’t mean broken, I mean that the jockey wheel clamp had let go of the shaft of the jockey wheel, and the drawbar had dropped down onto the jockey wheel.
That’s not ideal 🙁
Anyway, we got it sorted. Used Elsie’s jack to lift up the front of Percy, readjusted and reclamped the jockey wheel, and went from there. Let’s just say I needed to remove a couple of those layers after all of that effort.
First stop for the day was Dubbo.
I’d love to say that we stopped at the Western Plains Zoo to have a look at their giraffe, but after having gone to Zimbabwe a few times and driven through Hwange National Park and seen them running wild, looking at one in captivity doesn’t really float my boat.
We did stop at the Dubbo Cultural Centre to have a look at their museum and gallery – both of which get good reviews and were worth the stop.
We injected $18.50 into the local economy thanks to a couple of coffees and an almond croissant, and then rolled out of town … to Gllgandra.
We arrived in Gilgandra just before 1.00pm, in time for lunch.
One of the things about many of these small country towns is that they realise the economic benefits that travellers can bring, so they call themselves “RV Friendly” towns and provide very convenient caravan parking.
So park we did. And went for a walk through the town centre, and had lunch in the van.
Lunch done, we rolled out of Gilgandra towards our next stop for today – Gulargambone NSW.
Many of these small country towns are very proud of their township and really do cater well to tourists – particularly the grey nomad type of tourist. Clean public toilets, and they go out of their way to do something unusual to encourage people to stop.
Gulargambone has some silo art, sculptures and street art, all of which are worth stopping to look at. Sadly though, all shops that we could see were closed, so there was nowhere to spend money in Gulargambone.
From there it was a relatively short run to Coonamble, home for tonight. Coonamble’s claim to fame is that it has a “Nickname hall of fame” where they showcase some of their famous characters from the town.
And of course more street art and sculptures.
We topped up Elsie, ready for the next leg of the journey towards home. We probably had enough fuel, but there is a risk of road closures and flooding, and I’m not a fan of heading off with half a tank of fuel only to have to turn around and come back again.
I was served by a young Indian lady at the BP service station who seemed particularly bored and disillusioned with life … but then I guess that living in Coonamble could do that to you.
You will notice in the photo above that the NSW Ambulance Service shares the same building as the Funeral Director. I’m not sure if they share the same telephone number, but it doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Which brings me to tonight. We are staying at a free camp called Nakadoo, about 5km outside of Coonamble. The sun has just set and I cannot describe the beautiful colours. Unfortunately my phone camera simply cannot capture the colours and do them justice.
So that’s about it. 291km today with some stops to take in the countryside and culture. Tomorrow we are off towards Lightning Ridge and hopefully the opportunity to submerse ourselves in some artesian spas, which will be nice for our weary bodies.
From there it’s St George, Dalby and home … but I’m not really ready to think about that just yet.
See y’all again tomorrow.
Ciao
#RoadTripNSW2022
#HeadingHomeNow