Heading Home

After receiving the sad news about Mick’s Mum, we started heading home that afternoon.  After consulting Google Maps, it turned out that we could retrace our steps, or we could travel via Thallon, Mungandai, Moree and down the Newell Highway and it would take all of eight minutes longer to get home, over a distance of about 760 km.  As you can probably guess, we took the alternate route, once again travelling on new to us roads.

While we wanted to get home, there was no urgency, so we still had a little look around as we went.

As we travelled south, cotton was the main feature in the paddocks.

Lots of bales in paddocks and quite a few on trucks as well.  It was quite colourful in places.

Then a cotton gin.  This is where the raw cotton has its initial processing before being exported for the final use.

As we travelled south, we noticed a sign to the Nindigully Pub.  

This was somewhere we had read about, but worked out we probably wouldn’t see this trip.  It is situated on the banks of the Ballone River and has a huge camping area.  It would be a great place to camp and do a spot of fishing before an evening in the pub.  Something to keep in mind……for one day. This time it was our turn to just drive in, take a photo and keep going.

Our next stop was the tiny town of Thallon.  We first heard about it on the TV show Backroads.  The local pub was closing, so some locals pitched in and bought it.  The Post Office was closing, so they took that on too.  They wanted to attract some tourists, so they got the silos painted and there were giant wombats living in the area in prehistoric times, so they had a giant wombat sculpture made, named “William”.  Now it is thriving.  There is a huge camping ground, with power, near the silos, the pub is famous and there is a coffee shop/corner store.  

We just took our silo photo and kept on our way this time.  Once again, somewhere to keep in mind for future trips.

Our destination for the day was Moree.  We have driven through oodles of times, but never stayed overnight there.  We often hear people mention the caravan park with the five thermal pools, so we thought this was a good chance to check it out.

The pools were lovely.  We hopped in the hottest one, which was 39 degrees C.  Way cooler than the cooler one at Lightning Ridge.  It was just like sitting in a hot bath.  Very pleasant and relaxing.

The next day saw us heading down the Newell Highway, heading towards Narrabri.  You could see the hills to the east receiving a shower of rain and looking very moody.

Our first stop was at Narrabri, where we went for a walk up and down the street.  There are some beautiful old buildings.

This is the original cordial factory.  They have recently turned the adjoining brick warehouse into a commercial hub where you can set up meetings etc and a pub.  This particular building has recently been purchased and is currently undergoing restoration to be then let on a commercial basis.

We’ll just browse the rest.  The bottom two photos are the Masonic Lodge.  The windows are gorgeous.  Sadly, they don’t show up much from the outside, but I imagine they are stunning from the interior.

I was very happy to find one ball of the yarn I was looking for at the two dollar shop.  Happy dance.

Next stop, after we drove through the Piliga Scrub, was Coonabarabran, for lunch.  We visited another two dollar shop and were able to buy a further three balls of yarn, which is all I was after.  Another happy dance.

The weather was getting rather grey and after Coonabarabran we actually drove through some fairly heavy rain, obscuring the Warrumbungles.  It did make the scenery rather atmospheric.

Our day’s travel wasn’t all that long.  We were too far from home to make it in one day, so we may as well not rush.  Therefore, we called it quits at Gilgandra.  

The Coo-ee Heritage Centre has a good free camp beside it, so we stayed there.  Once we had set up the van, we wandered over and had a look through their museum.  It has been refurbished a few years back and we haven’t had a chance to visit since.

The main feature is about the Coo-ee March where local men marched to Sydney to join the army in WWI, gathering more recruits along the way.

As we wandered the rest of the museum I was drawn to the textiles, as always.  

You have to love the ingenuity of the baby’s rattle.

This wedding ensemble was very special, complete with the cake topper.

This is a quilt that was made to raise funds for the Hospital Auxiliary. 

Zoom in to read the details.  The maker was rather crafty in how she raised additional funds.  Good on her.

There was also a beautiful tapestry hanging, made up of many panels.

Once again, zoom in to read the details.

Back outside, there were some lovely murals mounted on screens.

The camping area is just beside the rural museum and they have a really long mural on the side of the building that was only painted a couple of years ago, depicting the early agriculture of the area.

It was a lovely afternoon, so we enjoyed sitting outside the van and I even did a bit of my crochet.

In the late afternoon we decided to go for a walk into town and back.

There is a collection of windmills along the path and they have recently been decorated with artworks carried out by community groups.

The main street looked good in the afternoon light.

And that pretty much completed our trip away.  We were home by lunch the following day.

With a bit of luck we will get to head off again before too long.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Off Exploring

After such a busy start to the year (in a good way) we were both ready to hook up the caravan and head off into the wild blue yonder, so that’s exactly what we did on Friday.  We’ve decided to head north and just wander around for a while.

On our first day we enjoyed the autumn colours.

This avenue of trees as you enter Molong is to honour the Fairbridge Farm School children.

By then it was morning tea time and we found a cafe with a lovely mural in the rear courtyard.  Molong, including its main street, suffered severe damage from the devastating floods in November 2022 at the same time that Eugowra had 80% of its homes damaged. This was the first time we have stopped in the small town since that event.  While many businesses are back up and running, with their premises looking nice and fresh, others are still boarded up with For Sale signs out the front.

As we headed further north from Molong the landscape started to look decidedly greener than at home.  We missed all the rain from the cyclone and then general flooding that affected Queensland earlier this year, whereas we were now entering areas that had benefited from that rain.  The countryside was also becoming much flatter.

As we passed Gilgandra, we could see the majestic Warrumbungles in the distance, but we were not heading that way this time.

Our destination for the day was the small village of Gulargambone.  Wherever you look, there is artwork about galahs.  I’ve often wondered if it is just a play on words or if there is some deeper meaning.  I have learnt on this trip that John Oxley, on his 1818 expedition, was the first European to visit this area and there was a large camp of aboriginals alongside what is now known as the Castlereagh River.  To them, Gulargambone means “Plenty Galah Birds”.  So, yes, it is more than just a play on words.

First stop was the water tower with its painted mural.

We settled in at the small caravan park, which has a lovely feel to it and then went for a walk around town.  It is known for lots of fun murals.  We last stayed here in 2018, so didn’t expect to see much change, but there has actually been quite a few new ones added.  We started off at the park beside the river.

There were murals on the toilet block.

Then billboards with artwork.

As well as some sculptures.  I’m not quite sure what I think about the old XP Ford Falcon splattered with paint.

There was a sign for a River Walk, so off we went.

The river is the Castlereagh and it was looking lovely in the late afternoon light.

It was lined with big old river red gums.  Some had wonderful designs in the bark.

This gives you some sense of the scale of them.

Then we checked out some more of the artwork around town.  

As I said, some we had seen before, but quite a bit was new.  There are several more than these.

By then it was time to enjoy happy hour at the caravan park.  

It really is a friendly little place.

We had planned on cooking our tea, but as quite a few from the park were going up to the Bowling Club for Chinese for tea, we decided to go as well.  That was an excellent decision, as the food was fantastic and we had a very enjoyable evening.  We took this photo of the general store on the way back.  It’s amazing how much better some places look in the dark.  It doesn’t look anything in the daytime.

And so ended our brief time in Gulargambone.  These little places are so worth stopping at when you get the chance.