Day 56 - Moree to Tamworth

I was awake just before the sunrise this morning. I had an amazing Seafood Chowder
last night that I added chopped chillies to. A good chilli meal should burn on the way in and on the way out……this one did and was the reason for my early rise.

I think most of us could quite easily have stayed another night or 2 here. The thermal pools were extremely therapeutic and relaxing.

We were up and on the road quite early. Whilst it was a great park there was a distinct lack of rubbish disposal locations. The documented process required you to store your waste until departure and deposit such waste at the bin beside the exit gate. The disappointing factor was there was no provision for recycling.

A quick coffee and light morning snack at the local Mobil station before hitting the road.

Whilst we received another verbal bashing, this time from a truckie, it would be unfair to attribute that to the general population of Moree (as per yesterdays abuse), given said truckie could hail from Mungindi or Bumbunga or Woolgoolga or Humpty Doo or Bigan or some other inconspicuous location.

Not 5 minutes down the road Peter relayed a message broadcast over channel 40 (the designated truckie channel). An oversized load was inbound to our location. Multiple police vehicles and designated pilot vehicles were required to manage this sucker. It was humongous, in fact it was 9 metres wide. Video evidence is attached.

We stopped at a little place called Barraba for a bite to eat, but no one was home. There were a couple of establishments selling their chosen products, exploiting the fact most people were at the local races, to boost their revenue for the week.

It was another fairly uneventful day on the road again but we’ve now hit some mountainous landscape which is not much fun ascending but makes for delightful optical pleasure when reaching peaks and descending.

We eventually arrived in Tamworth, the second largest inland city in NSW with a population of 63,070. Whist Wikipedia provided these facts, it is based on the 2021 census. Unless you have been hibernating under a log, and failed to complete your national duty on August 11, you will know these figures will be updated very shortly.

Given our arrival into Tamworth was from the north and our “farm stay” was on the south side, it gave us a brief view of what’s available.

A farm stay is exactly what this is. Mr and Mrs Hubbard hire out their land for intrepid travellers such as us.

It is fantastic. There’s a very large area to make use of but only a few vans can access the 2 power stations. Given were the only ones here at present, we have the power.

There are horses, goats (I will refrain from using the adjective so commonly used to date upon the sighting of goats), Guinea Foul, Guinea Pigs and Chooks, all very accustomed to human interaction as Graham, Peter and I experienced as wandering among them.

Ol’ mother Hubbard popped over for a chat and provided us with some valuable information about places to go and see.

It was noted there is a very confused Gallus Gallus Domesticus, “cock-a-doodling” at 6 o’clock in the evening. Let’s hope it doesn’t work on a 12 hour clock.

Dinner tonight was a beef stir fry we managed to scrounge from the butcher at Bingara (before they closed and went to the races).

But, the priority was to ensure the next preliminary final could be viewed. Particularly important to Karen given Hawthorn is her team of choice. She still had reason for hope, unlike us other Eagles fans.

Unfortunately that hope faded in the dying minutes of the game.

Strangely, the outcome occurred in a similar vein as that of the night before, a come from behind win.

Some chocolate biscuits and a few Kahlua coffees consumed before hitting the sack.Read more