We celebrated my 60th birthday with family & friends on 11th April at a cute little pub in the country town where one of my sister's lives. Had a great night....that was a Thursday & on the following Saturday, we had a day out with the second and third generation at the Werribee Zoo. This zoo is based on the plains of South Africa with safari buses taking us around to see the animals. It was great fun with the littlies having a ball. I was so grateful & lucky my nieces & nephews came along with their children. I have a wonderful family.
I made a dash back to Queensland after that to have a couple of skin cancers removed from my face, so had another opportunity to stay with Rebecca. Then back to Victoria to meet up with Richard & head off. When we were in Byron Bay back in February, our awning took a bit of a beating from a rogue wind, so we decided to get it fixed while I was in Queensland and we also had a couple of modifications done to the van at the same time. The repair yard assured us we'd be on the road by the 27th April, but we'll know about the well laid plans of mice & men, don't we ?
We finally got going on the 8th of May, but again got waylaid with some family business, so decided to postpone the trip to the west until next year. We really felt we were running out of time to see the state properly, so decided to head north instead & we've decided to go to Darwin in the Northern Territory, commonly referred to as "The Top End".
We've been taking our time getting there and are currently in central NSW where we've been lucky enough to strike not only some great people but also some fantastic weather.
Is there anything better than a campfire on a chilly evening?
We've been staying at little towns along the way.....this area of NSW is farming, mostly wheat and mixed crops but also sheep and a few cattle. The farms are vast and the paddocks seem to go on forever. It's sowing time now and a few days ago when they had some good soaking rain, the tractors were working overtime to get the seeds into the ground.
A lot of the towns out here are struggling for various reasons....young people leave, farms get sold, people retire and move to bigger communities but we came across what looked like a forgotten town.......Tullibigeal... it only had a pub, a co-op, & a cafe which also sold newspapers and had a post office agency. They had a great site set aside for caravans with new amenities, free power & water to encourage visitors. Boy, were we surprised by the community spirit in this town.
We were lucky enough to arrive the day before they had "The World's Longest Morning Tea'....this is a fund raising function held all over Australia at various times during the year to raise money for cancer research. It had rained the day before and the farmers were unable to get into the paddocks until the next day, so they accompanied their wives into town to partake in the morning tea. There were lots of people there and the cakes and slices baked by those wonderful country cooks were delicious. For a donation you could have as many cuppas and as much food as you liked.
I was beside myself.....the tough decision on what to have.....and of course, there was the cake stall as well. I can tell you several things went back to my biscuit & cake tins in the caravan!!
The people were super friendly and we sat for quite a while chatting to them. They invited us to join them at the pub on the Friday night for "a drink, a raffle & a feed". We did go, but when we got there the meals had been cancelled because the cook was sick !! Only in the country !!
Some of the morning tea goodies with Richard contemplating what to have next !!
We had a lovely few days here & will visit again.
