We’ve made an interesting discovery – well, interesting for a European camper, that is. The chemical toilet dump stations are generally not in the campsites but at designated points beside the road in towns. This one, the first we’d needed, was 100m up the road outside our Bingara campsite. I went to make use of it and luckily there was a local ahead of me giving some clues.
The first part of our tour follows a Maui Maui itinerary which suggested pausing at the Rocky Creek glacial area just about 30kms outside of Bingara. This we did but I had to park early ‘cos Ms. Wimp didn’t like the look of the gravel road leading down to the area itself. A tumbling stream flowed past said glacial rocks and I found a few odos, together with a car and lady who was clearly less wimpy. The dragons were nothing spectacular.
We continued heading for Dubbo [curious name] via Coonibarabran [even more curious name]. The main part of this road was almost dead straight and relatively smooth so I risked, for the first time, setting the cruise control to 100kph.
We’ve developed a new speed rating. Based on the road surface I can set the cruise control to either 70 jiggles, 80 jiggles, 90 jiggles or 100 jiggles depending upon how smooth or not the road surface is. I have a passenger that can easily reach her jiggle limit if I get it wrong.
The road into Coonibarabran, part way to Dubbo, was lined with blackened trees, perhaps from the severe forest fires that NSW suffered in 2019. Nature is resilient, though; many of the tree trunks were covered in fresh green shoots.
In Connibarabran we found a shaded picnic table for lunch, dipping veggies into some hoummos. A gaggle of geese begrudged us every mouthful, occasionally tapping the meatal seats with their beaks to make sure we knew they were there.
On the road into Dubbo, the car began issuing bongs that I had not yet encountered. Nothing showed up on the vehicle control unit but Francine spotted a warning triangle on the satnav – it had decided to warn us of sharp bends in the road ahead.
Entering Dubbo, we tried a couple of stores to try and find a sink plug, ours not fitting. We bought two options, one of which looked like the right fit but didn’t stay in and the other being more like a travel universal plug which sort of works but isn’t completely watertight. Our sink may now be OK for modest amounts of washing up, though.
The Dubbo campsite was expecting us [hooray!] and we got a good flat hardstanding pitch right beside the kitchen area, should we need it. It was 39°C and we were able to sit beneath the shady veranda around the kitchen.
I tried to investigate the river which ran beside the campsite but the access was rubbish [steep bank] so there was no wildlife action.
I’d perhaps made the mistake of nodding an acknowledgement to a nearby fellow camper. As we sat down for a drink after failing at the river, he came and invited himself over to give us his life story. He’d been in Australia for 30 years but didn’t feel at home; he felt at home in the Congo where he’d been a missionary. He claimed to be fluent in one of the tribal languages of the Congo and also in French. Well, if missionary then weird, is all I can say.
We are trying to acclimatize ourselves for Broken Hill where we will not have an Electric Hook Up, so no aircon.
“Oh sod it, turn the air on, it’s 39 friggin’ degrees”.
Recent Comments