Day 3 – Gunnedah to Miles (Qld)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 02:15AM With a tinge of sadness we left Gunnedah, so many memories, so little time to reminisce! I showed Ness a few of the important bits. But will definitely have to come back and show her the rest of my home town. I’ll bring the boys back & we will have a Gunnedah holiday.
We are starting to get back into our caravan routine, it’s funny how you can adapt to different environments very quickly. When we arrive at our destination for the day, Ness has her tasks & I have mine. We can go from arriving at a site to having the van hooked up to power, water.... Having the digital TV tuned in & the air conditioner on & then setting up Ness’s outdoor chair & grabbing the obligatory Beer & relaxing for a few minutes at a totally different location! It is an awesome way of life, such a pity people usually leave it until they are “Old” before they do it. I reckon it would be great for a family to do this.
Boring!... that is the only way I can describe today’s drive, there is not much between Gunnedah & Miles, the drive out of Gunnedah is mainly paddocks full of crops, cows or nothing! But it is soooooo GREEN! Those of you from Melbourne will struggle to remember what the colour green looks like, but up in northern NSW & QLD they have had heaps of rain & it is lush as! If only my grass at home was this green.
No wildlife escapades today, saw a blue tongue lizard but that was it apart from a couple of emu’s & heaps of cows (or Coo’s as us Scottish people say) managed to avoid the blue tongue though.
Went through Boggabri, Narrabri, saw the turn off to Collarenebri.... obviously someone has a penchant for Bri names! We also went through Moree which has natural hot thermal springs, awesome!
After Moree the road turns to crap! Bumpy & potholed, really rough in some patches! Apparently the problem is that a lot of these roads are built on black soil, which has a tendency to subside in places, so we spent about 3 hours today rattling around inside the Discovery, glad to get out of the car really.
Hot chocolate report, today we played it safe! Bought our HC’s from Macca’s (no carpet on the floor) $8.60 for 2 HC’s Hope my accountant can find a way to claim $8.60 7 days a week for 4 months?
Which brings me to something else! Do any of you NOT drink milk? I mean cow’s milk? My darling wife is one of the few people I know that does not drink milk. (apparently there is someone named Box in Dubai that has this weird habit too!) She will only drink SOY milk.
Can you imagine what it would be like to pull up at a truck stop in somewhere like Narrabri or Boggabri, go up to the counter amongst half a dozen singlet wearing truckies & ask if they can do a SOY Latte’ or a SOY hot chocolate!.... I’m going to get bashed!
At the caravan park last night there was a couple travelling with their dog.... made me think of Panda, I miss her already! She is staying with family but I’ll be happy to see her in June.
We pulled into the Miles caravan park & Ness jumped out to book us in, the office is a small portable building & has double doors at the front which were wide open, I could see in from the car. The guy behind the counter was carrying a few extra kilo’s..... lets say about 120 or so extra kilo’s! He dumped a basket of washing on the counter & turned to Ness & said “just park your van & come back later!”
Ness asked me to come back with her after we had the van set up, the guy introduced himself as Ron Howard, I thought of a few things I could say but held back! He told us he is flat out with Cabin rentals. For those of you who don’t know this area is going through a mining boom. There are plans to open new mines & coal seam gas plants up here. There is no accommodation for the workers so this guy is making a killing with his cabin rentals. (There is a message hidden in here for Jodie & Daz... buy property NOW!!!)
Things that made us laugh today
- A guy on an antique ride on lawnmower, seriously this thing was old!
- An elderly couple on the main road in matching electric scooters, they were riding side by side..... hilarious
- The art gallery in Goondiwindi! A local artist does 2cm X 2cm watercolours of sheep & cows & wants $130 a pop for them... She’s dreamin!
- Ron Howard
- Ness talking to herself whilst trying to do crosswords
- How green it is up here
Until next time
Au Revoir
James
Reader Comments (2)
trust me vanessa on milk is like having a close encounter with Fran Drescher.
WOW, this is the most I've heard about your life in over 20 years James and I'm your sister!!!
What a way to start married life. All day in a tin box then all night in a slightly bigger tin box.
Enjoy the honeymoon guys.
x x