Blogs from Grafton, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

This morning we started out heading west to top up the truck at the BP Service Station. With that done we turned around to travel east on the Gwydir Highway. For the first few kilometres we were re-tracing our route from last night. Once we passed the turn-off for Terry Hie Hie it was all uncharted territory. We found a bakery in Warialda (Bakers Loaf) and purchased a couple of salad rolls to put in the fridge for later on. As we drove out of town we spotted R2D2 or rather R2B2 who was constructed to promote the Warialda Honey Festival. Obviously it screamed photo opportunity at us and was conveniently located right beside some conveniences! Driving through Delungra a mini dachshund ran across the highway. Bernie slowed down to a crawl as we worried about ... read more

My husband Kevin and I have always enjoyed travelling and have a passion for Australia. We have always tried to go somewhere different whenever we have time for a holiday (or even a weekend away). We like to explore our own country, after-all Australia is an awesome place. Our passion for Australia grew when we decided to get motorcycles and start touring. I had always dreamt of riding but had never ridden a bike, apart from being a pillion. So in 2009, at age 42 I bought a bike, got my license, and joined the Ulysses club - I loved their slogan to "grow old disgracefully". Kevin had a license already as he had had motorcycles when he was younger (but hadn't ridden for years while we had a young family - bikes and kids don't ... read more

Just looked at the last blog and have made a note to self that I will have to ensure I (Geoff) look at what the editor (Marg) does with my work... We left you at Dalmeny last time with the weather still threatening; local readers will no doubt have seen the devastation from the torrential rain in the NSW central coast and Lower Hunter region, and we were keeping a close eye on that. There were many roads in the area that were closed/impassable and given that the water was going to head towards the coast we chose to stay put for 3 days. Geoff tried to catch up with a clubbie driver in Narooma and who hosted to a clubbie gathering last at his motel last November only to find that he had departed for ... read more

The journey from Lightning Ridge to Tamworth was interesting as the landscape changed from the drought hit pains into irrigation areas with cotton fields at various stages of growth turning dusty red and grey into lush green fields. Typical of outback NSW, each planted field was huge. Between irrigated areas there were obviously mixed farms growing grain and fattening sheep or cattle. The closer we got to Tamworth, the better the country side looked, probably due to summer rains which the western parts had totally missed out on for the past two summers. Tamworth is quite a picturesque town sitting in a river valley. Plenty of lush green in this town. We stopped here overnight with the hope of having a sticky beak around the city. However, parking was almost non-existent for a motorhome in the ... read more

Still travelling up the coast and visited a place called Forster, which actually we didn't like very much but it was just somewhere to lay our heads for the night as we had done a whole day in the car. The driving is easy and the roads good but it's quite tiring. We have visited various bays and towns on our route but the big thing we have noticed is that a lot of the accomodation is stuck in the 1970's. We have been lost and a couple of locals pulled up and asked if they could help us, they spent a long time explaining where we had to go and saw us safely on our way. I have to say that all the Aussies we have met so far have been really lovely people and ... read more