It's cold in them there hills.

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We spent a cold night in Tamworth last night. We weren’t actually cold, not until this morning. We have a very good diesel fuelled heater with two vents in the van, but it is always turned off when we go to bed. Fortunately it heats the van very quickly. When Frank got up this morning the thermometer said it was 1.1 degree in the van and 3.4 in the fridge. No, we didn’t open the fridge to warm the van. When I checked the weather on my phone, it said that it went down to -2.5 c overnight. No wonder it was so cold. The water in our hose froze!

Apart from being cold, Tamworth is a lot bigger than we expected. There is no shortage of motels, but seemingly very few caravan parks. I image when the music festival is on that it would be very difficult to get a room if you hadn’t booked in advance.

Continuing our journey north, we stopped at a small town called Uralla, in northern New South Wales, to have a look in the antique shop. It is an addiction that we both have. The owner of the shop told us that the town hade lost two of its citizens over the weekend. One woman, in her fifties died from a heart attack and a man was killed when the cattle truck he was loading rolled back and crushed him. Very tragic to lose two people suddenly like that.

In a neighbouring shop, I was admiring some knitting yarn. The woman running the shop showed me scarves knitted with several different yarns, which were very pretty. So I left there armed with two different yarns and a set of knitting needles. Figured I might as well be productive instead of just sitting in the car while we are travelling. I finished the first scarf and am halfway through the second one. Now I have to keep a lookout for more yarn so that I can knit on the return trip also. I already have homes for the first two.

Apparently the temperature in Uralla dropped to -7c overnight. I reckon scarves would come in handy there.

Tonight, we are stopped at Warwick, south west of Brisbane. Tomorrow, we will reach Hervey Bay, where we can set up camp for a few weeks. We had hoped to meet up with some old friends while up this way, but unfortunately they have moved on.

Some serious fishing awaits us, as well as a couple of days on Fraser Island. The dogs will be staying with a friend of our son’s, because Fraser is a National Park.

I am also hoping mangoes will be in season, but I think we are too early, again. Maybe there will be other tropical fruits available.

As I finish writing this, Frank has just pointed out that despite the heater being on, the temperature is dropping in here. Great.

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