Uralla

Our accommodation for the next two nights is the little town of Uralla in 'A Room with a View'...and they weren't kidding. Our beautiful cottage overlooks acres of land as well as being a marvel in itself - a large chalet with views a around, fully appointed kitchen, dining table, tv, huge bath and bed and a lovely veranda with a bbq...not a bad place to spend one's birthday! It is all heated by a very cosy wood burner which was roaring when we arrived...which given it for down to -7° last night we are very excited about!

After checking in and grabbing some food, we headed into Uralla proper for a beer. This small, quaint, vaguely western/cowboy looking town has maybe 20 shops on one street including two pubs, a model aircraft shop, gun shop, sweet shop, brewery, winery, book shop, drive-thru off-licence and wool shop...We think we could live here and all our immediate friends and family be well catered for! (plus the next city over of Armidale has two fabulous-looking private schools!).

The Top Pub (one of two in town, the other known at the Bottom Pub) served beer from the local brewery which we duly sampled from pumps encased in ice they were so cold. We also took the opportunity to puchase some local wine from the off-licence with a 50% success rate of "nice to drink" (although a 100% success rate of "we'll drink it anyway").

Despite many people reminding us it'd be winter out here, the temperature has yet to really phase us. However, the light is another matter. At about 5pm every evening it almost instantaneously gets dark; that plus the temperature trip makes it feel like a brisk English winter...and having just conquered jetlag, dealing with season-lag is a whole other battle! However it does mean that each one of our stops so far has yielded the most unbelievable view of the skies - more stars than it would be possible to count and clear views of the milky way every night. The photos Ben had got with his camera are truly stunning.Read more