April 12, 2013
Renmark SA– Hay NSW – Forbes NSW – Dubbo NSW
Renmark is a little town on the banks of the mighty Murray River not far from the SA/VIC border. We stayed at a free camp called Plush’s Bend which had toilets. It was a nice little spot with some people camping there for a week or more at a time. It was a beautiful sunset over the Murray. Zac had a little try at fishing, but there wasn’t any around. The next day we were off again towards Hay.
We passed thru the very pretty town of Mildura on the VIC/NSW border. It looks like a pretty town with the houses and yards kept neat. We happened to come across the local Saturday markets so decided to have a look around and some morning tea. There were plenty of house boats sitting on the river taking in the wonderful views. After the stop we crossed our 3rd state for the day and are officially in NSW. Tonight we stayed in the town of Forbes. It is a town on the Murrambidgie River. This free camp at Sandy Point Reserve was huge with toilets and bbq’s and was well set out. We even had a small camp fire.
The next day we drove thru the day to Forbes. This town provides a free camp along a river and was very popular. The council provides drinking water taps and toilets. We met a local chap who comes down to the campground every night and has done for the last 3 years. He was a nice elderly man who’s wife was in a home due to illness and his children all lived away. This was his only source of communication with the outside world. After a quick shower the next day, we hoped back in the car headed for Dubbo.
On the way to Dubbo, we stopped off at the Parkes Observatory where the famous “Dish” is. It was a good stop that you could have a look around at the dish and all sorts of information about the space program and astronomy. They didn’t charge admission either which was a bonus. We went to our free camp for the night, but when we arrived, it was quite full, so the ring around to the caravan parks began. We ended up at the Westview caravan park. It’s the first time in I’m not sure how long that we have grass. We even have not put out the mat it is so nice. The major tourist attraction for Dubbo is the Torronga Western Plains Zoo. We had a look online and found that they had a deal with 15% off when purchasing tickets online. It saved us about $20 on the entry fee. The Zoo was fantastic! There are no enclosures. Every area has a trench with electric fences or a water mote for those animals that don’t like water like some of the primates. You can even hire golf carts to wiz around on or take your car which is what we did. We had a bbq picnic lunch to the sounds of the Siamang Primates.They were carring on like they were reinacting that famous ‘When Harry Met Sally’ scene…you know the one! We went to all of the talks/feeding sessions that we could like the giraffe’s, hippo’s (ones name was Suzzie), turtles, Ring Tail Limas and Koalas. After such a full on day, we decided to stay an extra night. We may still get to Harwood to stay with Pete & Nicole (new friends from Streaky Bay) on Friday afternoon.
Dubbo – Harwood
After leaving Dubbo, we decided to take the van over the weighbridge just for our own interest. Yes it is time to cull some more things after seeing the weight. We put in a big day’s drive today to make up for staying the extra day in Dubbo. We drove thru some lovely green towns and really started to climb the range. There were a few moments where we thought we wouldn’t make it up a few of the hills. The Monbi Hill 1 was bad enough, but then we came to Monbi Hill 2! It felt like it was never going to end. We went thru Tamworth (couldn’t see the big guitar though) which was a lovely little town, Gunadah, Armidale and finally settled at a little town called Guyra for the night. The free camp here is on the banks of the Mother Of Duck Lagoon which over looks the golf course. Guyra is at the top of the range at an elevation of more than 1300m. It snows here about 5 times a year, so yes it was cold. After parking the car, the real dramas began.
Pete was putting the chocks behind one of the van wheels, when he noticed a tear about 3” long in one wheel. We were so glad he saw it then and not on the way up the hill or worse still had a blow out tomorrow down the hill. The next morning a lovely gentleman helped Pete change the tyre (first one in over a year so not bad going) and his wife said “Lucky it was on the outside so you saw it!” Well that got Pete thinking so under the van he went to check the inside of all the tyres. Guess what…another tear was found in another van tyre! The good thing for us was that Guyra had a tyre place, so off we went. The man there replaced both tyres and $240 later, we were on our way. Well 2 tyres in over 1 year isn’t too bad, is it?? We got to Glen Innes and began to really make our decent over the range. We only had 250km to go today, so at least we were on our way.
This was the most nerve raking part of our entire trip so far, and when the car began to pull to one side, we had to find somewhere to pull over really quick. The road was narrow, windy, raining, trees everywhere… you get the picture. Well what do you know one of the car tyres had a gash and was deflating really quickly. 3 tyres in 1 day….I don’t think you could get any worse luck, or could we? After spending a good 30 minutes trying to change a tyre that really was not happy about coming off, in the rain I might say (oh did I mention that we had to pull over on the wrong side of the road, on a bend, half way up a hill?) we were so glad to have the tyre changed and we were on our way. We still had about 150km to go.
We made our way down the now wet, slippery, windy road very cautiously. There were road works going on every where so it was slow going anyway. At last, the road began to widen and the trees were further from the road edge and the road was finally getting straighter. We made it to Grafton and then we only had the last 50km to go to get to Harwood.
Yes we made it without any further incidences thank god. At least we didn’t have an accident, just a few more dollars to spend. We had a lovely night catching up with Pete & Nicole and the kids all had a ball playing. We are so lucky that they have a lovely place with a concrete slab for the van to park on. We even look out onto the huge Clarence River. Well the next couple of weeks will be spent exploring the area of northern NSW and not a hill in site!!