Blogs from Narrabri, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

We began our trip just before 8am. We dropped the guinea pigs off at their pet motel at Amamoor then headed North (in the wrong direction) back through Gympie, Kilkivan, Goomeri, Murgon, Wondai, Kingaroy... we stopped in Dalby for Maccas and petrol... then had the longest, boringest drive through Moonie to Goondiwindi. We crossed the border and drove through Boggabilla (ick!) and onto Moree then finally arrived in Narrabri at around 3:35. It is not what we expected... more run down and dirty. But the the motel is nice. We went for a little walk around town and got some supplies at Woolies and the bottle shop. Then we talked Isaac into going next door to the bowls club for dinner. (We had a quick trip back to the motel room for Ava's vom-bag). We got ... read more

It rained until 2am yesterday and everywhere was boggy and full of puddles so we had a lovely lazy day hoping it would be better the next day. Today the area was still muddy but we decided to move on. I walked around trying to find the least boggy way for Barry to turn around in and came across the showground arena grandstand area, which was full of young people on horses again. One mother was walking to it carrying some tack. She told me that the three days of activity had been three different things. Friday had been an Inter-Schools Riding Competition; Saturday was “Show” day and today was a Gymkhana, which is held every few weeks in different locations. The wet ground and mud didn’t deter them, it seems. Once we left Narrabri, we ... read more

We had a slow start today but still decided to go and see the Sawn Rocks, which we’d been told were well worth the visit. They are 35 km from Narrabri with just a small section of dirt road leading to the car park. From there you walk through woodland on an easy path, with steel boardwalks along part of the track, that is rated as wheelchair friendly (although on one section you’d be hoping your passenger isn’t too heavy if you’re the pusher – it was quite steep!). At the end is the biggest set of organ pipes I’ve ever seen. They make the ones opposite Calder Raceway near our home look minute. Organ pipes are really natural pentagonal or hexagonal (5 or 6 sided) columns of basalt that have formed when the lava from ... read more

Where was Friday lunch? Joan and I made it into Narrabri for a slightly late lunch. They had to check if the kitchen girls were still on duty. NSW country towns have reverse angle parking so we had to leave the van in a back street. The Hotel Tourist was a big country pub and served a mean chicken parmi.... read more

It fun to people-watch when we're in a new town and it made me smile, when we drove into town to shop this morning, to see the local butcher, complete with striped apron and his belt with full knife box on it, walk into the bank. In the city it would have meant arrest for carrying a deadly weapon or perhaps several deadly weapons! Life is different in the country. Driving along the Newell Highway towards Coonabarabran, we saw a turn off to the Warrumbungle National Park so took that road, one we'd never taken before .. and here we'd thought we'd been everywhere in New South Wales! It was very nice country with sheep and wheat growing and, surprisingly an emu farm - lots of inquisitive emus came to see us when we went over ... read more