"We are Lucky to have you in Australia"

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Day 67

Today sees us moving out of Glenn Innes and on to Moree. I had in fact intended on bypassing Moree to drive straight to Narrabri, however Robin mentioned that Moree was worth a visit.

So after packing away the tent, saying our goodbyes to Robin and Helen, we hit the road towards Inverell, this time filling up with Diesel and making sure that the Jerry can was also full with Diesel, we are not filling the sub tank yet as there is no need while we are in areas that have plenty of fuel stations.

Away on the 38 the scenery and the temperature started to change, we were now coming down from the high altitude and coming back to 217metres above sea level, rather than the height of Snowdonia. The terrain was opening up to vast plains and again the huge sky stretched out at the end of the road. As we travelled further West, the grass and the trees were looking more thirsty.

Today the temperature reached about 40 degrees, it may have been more but that is what we recorded at today's destination, some of the stops that we made on the road were too hot to stay outside.

We stopped in Inverell for a look and to use the library facilities for internet. Inverell is a bustling town of some 15,000 people. They even had modern buildings amongst the old architecture. I promise to post a couple of pictures soon with the old buildings.

We had to pay $2.00 per 15 minutes in the Library, but it was worth it just to keep up with the blog as I know that some of you wait in anticipation and read it over breakfast every morning. Mum and Dad in particular are checking every day.

We are starting to see more indeginous people to further east we travel. (The term indigenous peoples or autochthonous peoples can be used to describe any ethnic group of people who inhabit a geographic region with which they have the earliest known historical connection, alongside migrants which have populated the region and which are greater in number. Source: Wikepedia)

We arrived in Moree (Big Sky Country) at about 4.00pm, a little later than we anticipated, but we enjoyed the time we spent looking around Inverell. It is amazing that some of these places further West are bustling communities with modern shops and facilities, the tourist information building was huge!

We were told that people in Moree are quite cash rich because it is a cattle community and this is reflected in the shops in the area, but we have yet to investigate that. The 2001 census showed a population of 9,247 which showed a decline to 8,083 in 2006.

Moree is home to artesian hot spring baths which are famous for their reputed healing qualities. In fact the caravan park that we stayed at has 4 swimming pools, each with a different temperature the hottest being 39 degrees C, followed by 36 degrees C, 35 degrees C and a cold pool for the final plunge. Of course we took full advantage it was a welcome break after a days travelling and there was something slightly refreshing about sitting in a hot pool! Of course there are rules and regulations surrounding this as you are not supposed to stay in any longer than 10 minutes and the hotter the pool the more likely you are to suffer palpitations.

The hot water is from the Artesian springs found some 750 metres below ground and is pumped up into the swimming pool. The water is naturally heated in the ground.

In the pool we get chatting to a Lady who tells us that her daughter lives in Munich with a Yorkshire man that she is engaged to, however she wants to live and work in London and he wants to move to Australia. This lady comes from Tamworth the Australian home of country music, she raves about the buskers in the street they are very talented and some of the big names in music came from busking those streets. In fact she begrudges paying the money to get into the venues to see others.

An elderly gentleman gets into the pool and immediately breaks into our conversation and engages more so with Andy. He recognised that we were from England and was asking all about us and what we were doing there. Andy explained everything to him. He himself was a very interesting man and has English heritage, his parents moved over to Australia from Exeter and London when they were 19 years Old, he is in his 80's. His father was a surveyor out in the bush and was one of the early Pioneers. His son was from Darwin and they were revisting places that they visited when his son was a child.

As we were getting out of the pool, he shook Andy's hand wished us both luck and said "We are lucky to have you in Australia". Another touching moment on this trip.

We had a tea of steak washed down with wine (for me) and a Becks for Andy. An early night for us as we were so tired from the hot baths.

It was so hot in the night, a real contrast to the cold temperatures at night in Glenn Innes so we slept on top of the sleeping bags, the breeze was nice but that turned into high winds during the night so we had to close up the shutters on some of the fly screens.

Tomorrow we intend on driving to Narrabri and hopefully, we will meet the Dell Engineer on Thursday to install a new Motherboard and Graphics card in the laptop. We are getting anxious to skype family and friends this weekend, so sit tight it will happen!

Until tomorrow!

C&A
xx

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Photos

Iverell Court House
One of many beautiful old building in Inverell.

Busy Streets
Just another busy day.

Inverell
The library and information centres were far more modern than most of the buildings in Inverell. Tourism is big here.

One for you JB!
I had no idea that you had your own Hall?

Road to Moree
Most of the scenery was like this. It was a scorching hot day.