Western Week

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In the past, when planning a route I looked for winding bitumen roads (bikes) or dirt roads and national parks (4x4). With a rather large caravan to tow I now find myself planning routes with easy roads (not too windy or steep) and have set the GPS to avoid unsealed roads. This may sound a bit boring, but it doesn't have to be. The main purpose of this trip is to visit family and friends in the Dubbo/Mudgee area.

From Grafton we headed up the Gwydir - can't avoid all steep windy roads - and followed it all the way to Moree, then turned south towards Dubbo to our first overnight stop at Gurley Recreation Area. This is a community run campground where you can stay overnight for a $10 donation. We were the only ones there - the place seemed deserted, but nice and quiet. Kevin tried out his new phone camera and got an awesome sunset shot... I think I'm jealous (maybe I better start looking at the settings available on my phone).

The trip up the mountain was better than expected and the BT50 handled the hills very well, without getting even a little hot under the hood. Fuel consumption wasn't so good, as expected, but it had been a good run.

The next morning we headed off to Dubbo to visit with Kevin's dad. We checked into the Discovery Park and managed to squeeze the caravan into the spot allocated (I don't know how he can reverse it so well). The space was actually plenty big enough for the van, it was just the manoeuvring it in that was tight...

Dad moved to Dubbo from Old Bar a few months ago and has been busy since with creating a garden and yard space. Amazingly he has built the gardens from scratch - I hope I can do as much at 93 as he can. We arranged to meet up for dinner and the boys had a game of snooker afterwards. Apparently dad has joined the local snooker club (at Dubbo RSL) and has been doing very well in the weekly competitions.

The next day we met up with Ian and Kirsten, our old neighbours at Walmer (they aren't old, it has just been a long time since we lived there) and caught up on the family and local gossip over morning tea and lunch. Then drove back to Dubbo stopping at Yeoval for a catch up and chat with some of the people we used to know...

Moving on the next day we went to Mudgee to catch up with more old friends; Tony and Chris who have recently moved into town, and Tony and Bronwyn who are from Yeoval spending the week at Mudgee. The Riverside caravan park is very nice - good walk along the riverbank and very close to town centre. It is always nice catching up with friends.

From Mudgee we went to Nundle for a couple of nights, staying at the Fossickers Tourist Park. It's a nice quiet caravan park right on the Peel River, where you can try panning for gold. We added a few specks to our gold dust collection but recent rain (and a storm the night we arrived) made it difficult to do much panning. Thinking about getting a metal detector for future trips - may be a bit easier on the back too 😊.

Friday morning we left to go back to Grafton... to mow the lawns and air the house out a bit. It is frustrating not having tenants renting the house yet, as we have to come back every week to tidy up until it is tenanted.

We have a week in Grafton - now to decide where to next...

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Comments

[Wonder Woman]

Sounds like you have had a great trip so far. Always nice to catch up with friends you haven’t seen in a while. Travel well and keep safe. Cheers