A cruisy start to the day, and daylight revealed that the Wallam Creek beside the free campground in Bollon, was very full. We strolled along the footpath into town, and checked out the shops, some had been loved and revamped since we were here last, whilst others had closed. We saw the sad sight of the burnt pub, and the smell of smoke still present. Bollon is a nice town, and it looks like it is growing again.
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| The Bollon pub when I took Toogunna’s coaster to its new home in 2024 |
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| Bollon pub today. |
From Bollon, we headed to Dirrinbandi, another town that looks like it is growing and getting some life back into it. We did some window shopping and found a jumper for me, and found a few other things we were after, and Matt enjoyed a warm cinnamon scroll and coffee in the park. The breeze was quite nippy, and we could see storm clouds on the horizon. Next stop was lunch by the very full Barwon River at Mungindi, on the border. It was much more pleasant to stay inside Bridget than be outside.
We headed towards the storm clouds, and on through Moree, with the rain soon beginning. All the water courses that we have driven past have appeared full or with a healthy amount of water in them. Crops looked like they were thriving too. This was the greenest we had seen this whole region. We drove through Narrabri and stopped at Gunnedah briefly for the last fuel up for the trip. An observation has been that towns are much closer together now, rather than being a few hundred kilometres apart, as we had grown used to. Throughout the day the roads have become wider, ie: wide enough for two vehicles to be on the tar at once, the paddocks have been greener , and everything is wet. That means that everything that had dust on it now has mud on it. And where the bus leaks it is now leaking mud. There is going to be red dirt coming out of this bus for the rest of its existence. Everyday there is a pile of red dirt in the corner of the toilet room. We clean it up everyday, then we drive and a new pile of red dirt is there. We haven’t been on the red dirt in over 3000km. We continued on despite the rain getting quite heavy, and fog rolling in. We stopped just outside of Quirindi, in a road stop between the road and rail line. Sal loves stopping on the roadside overnight , as she’s such a heavy sleeper, and trucks and trains don’t bother her at all, and discussing the trains that seem to be about 5m from one side of the bus, I am forced to quote the blues brothers… “ how often does the train go past?… so often you won’t even notice…” there’s been about 4 trains in the past 2 hours. The line looked further away in the dark . It was late and Matt has driven over 620km today.at least the kangaroos stayed in bed and out of the rain tonight. Didn’t dodge any at all. We are snug with the diesel heater chugging away. It’s our last night on our big Top End Adventure and feeling the cooler and wet weather, makes us want to be somewhere else! As much as we want to see family and home again, we have been loving this nomadic life and the freedom to explore and enjoy our beautiful country. We do feel so blessed for having the privilege to do this trip and grateful to all that helped facilitate it and making it possible with my medical needs. We know we have been looked after by our Lord for keeping us safe, and well, and for Bridget mostly behaving herself, and any troubles were solvable. We were glad of the company of our travel companions and friends and the fun we had together. We hope all those that have been following along, have enjoyed reading our blog and seeing the photos and may even be inspired to get out there and explore Australia themselves.
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