Yawning, Poor Concentration, Tired? - Sounds like another day at the office

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DAY 372

I can vaguely remember hearing the sound of Andy pumping water directly from the water tank, he is filling the kettle, whilst on the one hand I am thinking “great a cup of tea” on the other hand I am thinking, it must be nearly time to get up, it is only just daylight outside I check my watch it says 4.45, but I know that it is really 5.45 as we came through a time zone change yesterday when we crossed the Queensland border into New South Wales.

I fall asleep again, but it is not long before I can hear my name, Andy is calling me and telling me my tea is ready. He tells me he called me twice before I finally stirred, I never heard those, it is 6.15 but Andy tries to comfort me by telling me it is 7.20 but I know the truth.

I should not grumble as I was in bed for 10.00 (NSW time) last night so have had a good quota of sleep anyway. We wanted to be up and away early as we have a lot of mileage to do today and we want to arrive in Bathurst in good time so that we can spend plenty of time with our friends Lee and Marilyn.

I get dressed, make the bed and then remove everything from the tent ready for folding, Andy is chatting to a guy next door from the Northern Territory, they live in Gove, which is right up in Arnhem Land, a place that we wanted to visit, but could not this time round. We are all keen to get away early so the chat is quite brief.

We have a quick breakfast of tea and toast, but by 07.14 we were heading out onto the bitumen toward Narrabri. It is a beautiful morning, the cool morning air is giving way to the heat of the sun.

We see the abundant road signs indicating that you need to stop and rest frequently; road safety is taken seriously here, there are frequent rest areas, it is too easy to just keep driving without stopping for a breather. We pass a sign that says “Yawning? Poor Concentration? Tired?” Andy said that it sounded like another day at the office more than anything else.

When we get into Narrabri we look for diesel but typically the diesel is more expensive here and the Woolworths Caltex has run out of diesel so I cannot use my Rewards card to the 4cents off, so we have to go to a BP station at $1.29 per litre.

It is great to see Narrabri, we were last here in January, we reminisce that night we went to the local cinema, we were the only two in there to watch a movie that night! If you ever turn up in Narrabri, go to the Australian museum of cotton, it is quite a fascinating industry.

On we drive to Coonabarabran, just about 48 kilometres away we see a model of Uranus, we remember that we are on the Solar System Drive the models are 38 million times smaller than the real planets. The 3 dimensional planet models on the billboards have been scaled both in size and distance and are located on roadsides at RTA rest areas and visitor information centres along the 5 main roads that link Siding Springs Observatory to the regional towns of Dubbo, Tamworth, Gulgon, Moree and Merriwa.

You may remember from our blogs back in January that Coonabarabran is the Astronomy Capital of Australia and home to the Siding Springs Observatory.

We came here, just before we went to the Warrumbungle National Park, and used to go to a little coffee house called the Jolly Cauli, we could get internet access while having a coffee, we would Skype our friends and family back home in England from there too.

Nathan and Amanda took over the business after giving up corporate life in Brisbane to try something completely different, they were just about to close for a refit when we left town earlier this year, so we were keen on popping in to see how things were going.

Sure enough there it was, still gracing the centre of town and looking very busy, we parked up the road to walk back down. When we went inside to the counter Nathan recognised us and said “On holiday again?” I replied, “No, still on holiday would be more accurate.” He was delighted to tell us that Amanda was also 6 ½ months pregnant with their first child.

We were pleased to see that the coffee shop was really busy, it looks popular with the tourists and locals, the refit looks great, especially the two cosy red leather sofa’s in the corner, which I made a beeline for.

Our latte’s turned up along with a much deserved brunch of a bacon sandwich, Amanda appeared in the shop, but as it was very busy there was not much time to talk, she looked flustered but pleased to see us.

We wished them both continued success and went on our way, time again is on our shoulder and we needed to move on.

This time to Gilgandra, you may remember the blog entitled “Coo ee from Gilgandra” on Blog day 75 on 21st January, almost 300 days ago!! I take the reigns from Coonabarabran to give Andy a rest, but somewhere just before Dubbo Andy takes them back again and I try to type the blog while we drive, sometimes it works well, other times the bitumen is so rough, the journey is too bumpy which makes me hit the wrong keys!

We drove 612kms yesterday and today we have roughly the same amount to do today to get into Bathurst.

561 kilometres later we arrive in Bathurst, but we are so busy talking (yes we still talk now and again!) we missed our turning, but a couple of turns we were soon back on track, I opened Multimap on the internet to look for the address we wanted and followed the map online.

It was 3.00 when we pulled up outside Lee and Marilyn’s house, we see a stunning view ahead of us as the housing estate rolls away down the hill and spread out are more hills of trees and sun drenched landscape of fields.

We receive a great warm welcome from Lee and Marilyn after our thirst is quenched with a cool drink Marilyn makes a pot of tea for us, a nice English welcome, interestingly the tea is Daintree Tea we passed the tea plantation when we were in Daintree last month.

It was almost as if no time had passed since we last saw each other, we enjoyed a refreshing tea and some cake, but Lee was keen to take us out and show us around Bathurst, first on the list being Mount Panorama Race Track.

Unfortunately when we got there the race track was closed off for a private event, this was really disappointing as it was remaining closed until tomorrow night at 7.00. Lee was exceptionally disappointed at not being able to show us this big feature of Bathurst but undeterred he drove us around the sights of Bathurst.

We have driven through Bathurst before however but did not stop to look around. Bathurst has some great old buildings, we go to see the railway station, Lee drives us around looking at some of the old buildings in the centre, we go to the park to look at the Bell tower, we are lucky enough to arrive a few minutes before the hour so we hear it chime.

It is the right time of day to take some photographs; there is a nice gold hue cast over everything with the evening sun. We go into the park, there are people hanging around the fountain all dressed up in evening gowns and dinner suits, it looks like prom night, they are all grouping up to have photographs taken.

We enjoy seeing the sights of Bathurst, but we need to get back, there is cold beer waiting in the fridge and a barbecue planned.

No sooner than we get back I have a cold light beer thrust into my hand but more importantly I disappear for a shower and change into mosquito proof clothing, i.e. long sleeves and long trousers, besides I think the evenings are a little bit cooler in New South Wales.

I help Marilyn with preparing the salad, Lee is busy cooking on the barbecue, Andy is busy making sure the blog is published.

We are joined by two of Lee and Marilyn’s sons, Clayton and Matt and tuck into a fabulous meal washed down with a nice glass of wine or two, however I must add that I took it really easy on the wine, still having memories of my faux pas in Townsville.

We chatted late into the night, recounting stories from our travels specifically the possum tale from Cradle Mountain. Clayton added that he too had a possum encounter one night while camping. He had an apple in his tent but it was up high near the mosquito netting, the possum had crawled up over the tent underneath the fly sheet found the apple and chewed the apple through the mosquito net. Those possums will do anything for a decent meal.

We finally hit the sack at about midnight, another uncommon late night for us, but we had a thoroughly great evening with Lee, Marilyn, Clayton and Matt.

Another day, another place tomorrow!

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Photos

Stuff
This appeared all over the truck in the morning.

Solar Drive
These models appear on the roads into Coonabarabran.

Saturn
38 million times smaller than the real thing.

Mount Panorama
We hoped to see this but it was closed.

Bathurst
New South Wales

Fountain
Bathurst Park

Andy & Caroline
Bathurst

Fountain
with replica of the largest gold nugget found in Australia

Beautiful view
Bathurst

Comments

[Lee & Marilyn]

Omelette a'la Bonnet du Nissan
It was great to see you guys again, you look so well and very relaxed! Nice to hear more about the continuing adventures in paradise. Shame about the egging (school kids' 'muck-up day' I expect) - now you have had part of your lovely Dust Collection washed off the Patrol . . . never mind! We thoroughly enjoyed our evening and look forward to catching up again, hopefully we can spend a little more time together next time round. Hoping you have a great and rewarding time 'down the road'. Love from Lee, Marilyn and family :~)

[kangaroojack]

Dust Omelette
Love the Omelette reference!