Blogs from Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

There’s frost on the ground this morning, all across the arena. It looks lovely but feels very nippy! By the time we’d had breakfast and stowed everything to leave the sun had melted most of it but it was still a five-layers-of-clothes kind of morning. Before we left Glen Innes, we dropped into the Information Centre to ask the jeweller if any of the stones we’d found were worth cutting. I wasn’t surprised when he said no. We haven’t made our fortune. It was a straight forward drive to Tenterfield and we were lucky enough to have a tail wind to help us along. We did see one highly surprising letter box, which I couldn’t photograph as we were moving too fast (and you can’t pull a heavy vehicle to a screeching halt on a highway ... read more

This is part three of todays adventures. After leaving Boonoo Boonoo National Park we headed for Tenterfield and back to the highway, but came across Captain Thunderbolts Hideout/Cave. For the uneducated or the non Australians, Captain Thunderbolt was a notorious Bush Ranger/Highwayman in Australia's history and we did a quick "U" turn to take the short walk and have a look. Bush Rangers in Australian history were meant to have done it tough, but from what we saw, Captain Thunderbolt at least had a great place to hold up out of the weather and some great scenery as well. Marvellous what nature provides. From there we headed towards Girraween National Park. This would have to be one of the best we have visited for facilities with a great camp area with toilets/showers, separated camp area's good ... read more

Monday 6th Feb Short drive to Tenterfield today after crossing the border from Qld, just a short drive out of Tenterfield - had a few short showers of rain but nothing heavy which we were thankful of as the road was quite windy but beautiful rain forest. Checked into a lovely small old caravan park (Tenterfield Lodge and CP) which has new owners and the park is looking great - the office is in the old house which was built in 1875 as a pub and is now accomodation for backpackers. Visited the Old Cork Tree - the seed was bought out from England and planted in 1861 - believed to be Australia's largest cork tree. Teneterfield is a lovely old town with beautiful gardens everywhere - I suppose the high rain fall helps everything to ... read more

Beautiful hot sunny day with not a cloud in the sky although rather chilly overnight. Went for a drive to Wallangarra and Jennings which are on the Queensland New South Wales border. Are divided by the railway station which has been restored and operates as a museum but not on Mondays. Later explored the golf course and town and then Paul went back to the golf course for a game later in the day.... read more

The drive to Tenterfield proved uneventful, though the only dorm accommodation in the town was closed because of a problem with the toilets so I ended up in a cabin with exclusive use of all 5 beds. The teddy bear on the pillow gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Tenterfield played a role in Australian history, being the place where the idea of federating the Australian states was famously advocated by the then-Prime Minister of New South Wales in 1889. It was to be another 12 years before this actually came to fruition with the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia (which may sound confusing to British ears more accustomed to "commonwealth" only being used in the context of the British Empire). However that wasn't why I was in Tenterfield. That night, a real humdinger of ... read more