Home again Home again jiggety jog
Our journey home from Broken Hill only took three days. We had the bit between our teeth and our sights set on home. The road through the back of New South Wales to Cobar is littered with the carcasses of kangaroos who've lost their battle with passing traffic. We had to navigate our way through these as well as being careful not to add to the tally. They would actually jump out into the middle of the road and stand there looking at you. It was unnerving as you're never sure which direction they will decide to jump. The other animal to beware of were the numerous feral goats grazing by the roadside. They're a bit smarter than the roos. They barely look up from their grazing, and if they do happen to walk onto the road a quick beep of the horn will send them running off road to safety. Tellingly, their were NO goat carcasses on the road.We reached Cobar and decided to stay the night as it was a further 127 Kilometres to the next town, Nyngen. The Cobar caravan park again offered us a drive through site. We've managed to get them all the way from Geraldton. WooHoo! We were a bit surprised by the awful state of the amenities block. The toilets and shower cubicles were all stainless steel and filthy. There was no soap , paper towels or even toilet paper. It was horrendous. John went to the loo over at the other amenities block and found it to be spotless! Turns out that the one Barb had gone to was meant to be padlocked shut and was not supposed to be in use. Phew!
Next morning saw us on the road at the crack of dawn. We'd made it all the way to Gilgandra in time for second breakfast. We chose to take the road up through Coonabarabran, Gunnedah and Tamworth. This probably wasn't the best choice when towing a van. It starts to get very mountainous and we had to go into first gear a couple of times to climb the hills. We wanted to stop at Tamworth but the traffic going through the city at school finishing time was so bad that Barb ( who was taking a turn driving at this time) didn't want to stop. John took over the driving and thank goodness that he did. The road out of Tamworth gets even steeper. We made it to Bendemeer, which is about halfway to Armidale and called it quits for the day. Bendemeer had a lovely little caravan park set on a gently sloping hill. The drive through sites were level however and this place was very cheap as well as offered a fresh made pizza dinner which they delivered right to your van. It was wonderful! The $18 meatlovers pizza was so large and full of meat we couldn't finish it. One half the size would've been adequate in fact. It was a really nice place to stay and the husband and wife proprietors absolutely lovely people.
We left Bendemeer very early in the morning and made it to a small town called Deepwater on the other side of Glen Innes in time for morning tea. We found a very cute bakery offering barista coffee. The young man behind the counter took great care preparing the coffee and it was indeed good. Not only that, the sausage roll and lamington made onsite were superb. We have tried lots around the country for comparison, so we know our stuff by now.
The hilly climbs continued all the way home. We went up through Toowoomba and somehow managed to veer off the New England Highway and had to then find our way through the city to re-join it. Because we'd gained an hour when we crossed the New South Wales border it was still early afternoon by then so we headed for home via Ravensbourne and Esk. A tip for those towing caravans...DON"T go this route! It's very steep twisty and not fun at all. It certainly gave our reconditioned gearbox a workout on the last leg. We made it safely home to Maleny by late afternoon, exhausted but very happy to be home. It was great to sleep in our own bed. It was even better to find that our beautiful tenant Emma had cleaned our front porch and wiped down the table and chairs for us, and had the exterior of the house and garden looking immaculate. Yay!
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