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Published: October 19th 2011
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Sunday 16th October dawned a very much brighter day. The sun was shining as we began packing away our personal bits and pieces ready for our journey to Goondiwindi – about 200 kilometers away. We hadn’t fully realised just how much stuff we had brought over from the caravan whilst staying at David’s so the packing up took a bit longer than we planned but by 9:30am the car was packed to the gunnels. Armed with a huge Dorset Tea Cake (made by David of course) we said our cheerios to him and made our way to be fully re-united with Sweetie, the caravan. The transfer went pleasingly well and soon after 10:00am we had wound our way through Warwick and were well on the way towards Goondiwindi. Traffic was light and progress was good although we had forgotten how undulating the road was. The half way point of the journey came at a small town called Inglewood. David had suggested it was a nice place for a break as they have a very pleasant park area with picnic facilities. He was spot on and our tea-break went well, partly with the company of another couple who were travelling home from
Warwick to Narrabri (much further than Goondiwindi) after visiting their son who is in a Warwick boarding school. As we drove on through Inglewood we were impressed – It’s not a big town but looked very pleasant. The onward journey to Goondiwindi was relatively un-eventful and on arrival there we made for the Top Tourist Caravan Park, about 2 kilometers from the centre. We set up fairly easily – our first setting up for a fortnight – and it then took us a while to put things inside the caravan back in the order we had been used to when we were travelling daily. We had no sandwiches prepared for today so we drove into town to look for a café - but everything appeared to be closed! We eventually found a chippy and asked about shops but, sure enough, no supermarkets open here on Sundays and most shops are closed also. We ordered fish and chips and took them to the local park to eat. The chippy had suggested that the only other place open, a petrol station, would probably sell bread and maybe a few groceries. So after we’d polished off our chips we called in there and
got some bread. The chippy also sold salad items and I had bought some earlier so, with the bread from the petrol station, at least we could have salad sandwiches for tea and do some major shopping tomorrow when all the shops re-open.
Back at the caravan we had a stroll around the park. It boasts a huge “billabong” with plenty of birdlife and it looked very pleasant. It also has a heated swimming pool and although neither of us fancied a dip today we may well use it tomorrow. At about 6:00pm our time, 9:00am pommie time, Barb and Tony from Tewkesbury made contact over Skype and we had a lovely chat, catching up with all the news from back home. Afterwards we watched the second Rugby Union World Cup semi-final between New Zealand and Australia and, whilst it would have been a good boost for Aussie sporting pride if they had reached the final, they never looked like beating a very good NZ team. So who do we cheer for now? France because they’re our northern hemisphere neighbours or New Zealand because they play such good rugby? It would be good for Europe if France were to
win but we feel NZ are just too good. We had a relatively early night to help to re-adjust back in to travelling mode and looked forward to exploring Goondiwindi a bit more tomorrow. The caravan park was extremely quiet – no frogs, no thunder, no road noise, even Graham’s snoring was low key – so we both had a great night’s sleep.
Monday morning started quite pleasantly. There was very little noise from the people moving on today and the weather was breezy but fine. After a leisurely breakfast we made our way towards town but took a slight detour in order to visit the Botanic Gardens. They were set in a very large area just on the edge of the town and looked to have suffered a bit in recent storms with a lot of lying water. But the main paths through the complex were passable and we chose to walk the 1.7 kilometers around the lake. It was an interesting area even though it lacked the refinements of many botanic gardens we have visited. There were a lot of plants, shrubs and trees but no well-tended gardens or manicured lawns which often make such gardens special.
An excellent bandstand in an amphitheatre area suggested that events take place from time to time, but everywhere could have done with a “tidy up”. Nevertheless, the walk was good and the birdlife interesting. After our walk we drove through town to find a riverside area which had a few fascinating sculptures, one in particular to Gunsynd, a famous racehorse which hailed from the area. The riverside also boasted a 4 kilometer length walk and, unlike the botanic gardens, was excellently maintained so we walked about half of it – so about 4 kilometers there and back. There were also some very modern fitness facilities along the walk but we resisted the temptation to use any of it.
Back in town, we found the Bi-Lo supermarket where I got just enough food to keep us going for a few days. Our next destination, Moree, is a very much bigger town so we’ll stock up with a major shopping spree and fuel there. We went back to the caravan for lunch with every intention of going back out to explore Goondiwindi further. But we both dozed a bit and the inspiration for more walks just disappeared for much of the
afternoon. Eventually we decided to see what the swimming pool was like. We had checked the water yesterday and it was beautifully warm. Today was no different and we spent a brilliant hour in the lovely pool which we had to ourselves. It was perfect, although the breeze meant that the outside temperature was not as good as we’ve been used to. During late afternoon the caravan park began to fill up quickly and we wondered if we might get some near neighbours. Most of the sites are “drive-through” which means they are long and narrow and they are set up in pairs. It’s a big park so we’ve had a “pair” to ourselves since we’ve been here but now all of the “pairs” have at least one unit on them. Because of a poor weather forecast, Graham had put the awning and other bits and pieces away so our adjacent site was now very inviting. Sure enough, at about 7:00pm a car and caravan drew alongside and we resigned ourselves to having to turn the TV down and to be a bit quieter. But then, all of a sudden, it disappeared. Assuming they had noticed a better site, Graham
went out to investigate only to discover that they had simply pulled alongside us to be able to reverse in adjacent to a cabin that was behind us which they were occupying for the night so we still had the extra space to ourselves after all. We settled down for the night hoping that we wouldn’t be kept awake by heavy rain.
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