Leaving Dubbo

 Packed up the camper and doing the final check and a tyre looks a bit flat. Yep, it was down. The beauty of the camper has a flap at the back that has access to Warren's toolbox.

Changed the tyre and went looking for Bob Jane's. They did it straight away, couldn't find a puncture, suggested that when checked the day before, it may not have seeded right and slowly leaked. They pumped it up and advised to keep an eye on it, no charge.

Next stop was Yeabol, never heard of it as we are trying out new routes. Signs advertising animals on bikes, what the ?

This was the first one I saw at the petrol pump, an eagle on a penny farthing. 

Bit hard to see this one, Warren stopped and I walked across the road and took it.

Very big one out in the paddock, there were several similar to this but of course bit hard to take when barreling down the road at 95ks. Rather cute, I thought, didn't find an explanation why but did see quite a few on the yellow animals on bikes signs.

Dubbo

 A nice walk here to go for breakfast. Then a drive to the botanical gardens. Dubbo is twinned with Narra (I think) in Japan and they have a Japan feel about them. Not very big as we walked the whole length and breadth of them and only measured 1.8 KMs, felt longer.

Shops were a bit crazy, we needed milk and a couple of other things. Warren offered to do it, doggie bags are hard to buy!

This is a large sandstone frog, the sun made it hard to take a decent photo, we have to go over a rubberised walkway.

Very large lizard 

Lovely patch of lavender

Resting and washing was order of the rest of the day

Cootamundra

 This was our lunch spot but there was no where to park. Well, yes we did but we like to look for a green spot park, toilets and room to park car and camper trailer.

A lot of smaller towns in NSW have angel reverse parking. Found a side street which had an IGA store so I went and bought something for lunch. It was 12.30 and they only had two quiche type things were turned out not that nice. 

We decided to drive on and stop at the next rest stop.

The planets dot the area around and we just realised that we had never stopped at one. Room to pull off but no toilets or seats. It was a break though.

Don't know if it's still true or not but truckies do not stay overnight around here. It's supposed to be Yowie country. Very long drive along wooded bushland. 

An Earth cache

 I saw one of these coming up on the road, 16ks away. Started reading, too much Graff. After a few ks Warren says to Lucy, next rest stop, we'll stop. Around the corner on the left in a rest stop. Lo and behold it's where the cache is. 

We have coffee and spy a walkway. Read the description again. There is no spacing in the description, it talks about how volcano etc come about and finally there are 4 tasks to do.

Humm, doesn't look too hard, some info off the first info board, took photo, more info required from viewing platform and compare rocks on the way, then a photo of proof. 

We go for a walk 700 metres bitumen or steel boardwalk Lucy was surprised at the noise her nails were making on the steel bits. Got the info and returned to car.

Nice tables and seats, bbq and big clean toilets. We wondered if it was .nAtional park but no signs about no dogs.

Oops, we saw 9ne tiny sign on the way, no dogs. Well, she was on her lead and didn't hurt anything.

Warialda

 We crossed the border at Texas or just after and our watches changed time but only for another week. Nice park, Warren rang when we were just outside town to see if they had room. 

20 powered sites, 15 unpowered sites and eight cabins in a horseshoe formation. Another caravan had pulled in just moments before us. For the nights we were there, we were the only two vans but five cabins in use the first night and six the next. Maybe that's the new thing, people travelling and using cabins at caravan parks rather than motels. Cabins were $100 for a four berth.

We did a nature walk just outside of town, then visited a lookout, R2D2 and an old brick works. Late in the afternoon we walked down the town, bought meat at butchers but bakery was closed, had heard that they had been doing a roaring trade so either closed early because they had run out of stuff, we were there at 5pm or that was normal closing time.

R2D2 made by Warialda high school kids

This was a virtual had to send a photo at the spot.

Lucy didn't really want to get out of the car, she figures that if she is there, she won't be forgotten. Spent much of the afternoon there while we had coffee.

Ingelwood

 Morning tea here even it was raining. There was a large shelter to sit under and a nice pull off for the car.

And bonus was an adventure lab which was a quick and easy walk around the park.

So walk for us and Lucy, welcome break and toilets as well. Win/win/win around.

We discovered that the area is a dedicated canteen for driver revivor which I guess will get into gear next week, end of this week for Easter holidays.

This was the first spot, had to count the number of chains hanging on the bottom row.

A mosaic on the side of the building.

Pittsworth

 We stayed here two nights, Warren did his park run and took off a minute off his time. Lucy and I went him and walked back to caravan park. Quite small park with cabins and permanents. I think there were only two spots available, ours and the one alongside.

Two showers and two toilets for each gender. Very clean however, one shower I couldn't turn the hot tap on so bundled all my stuff into the next one. That was okay, taps turned but another however, the water came out with such force that I could feel it bruising me. The shower head was one of those water savings things I think, pin point accuracy. I danced around trying to get wet and clean without too much spray it was difficult.

Quite a bit of history here like all country towns, famous runner was born there, Arthur Postle nicknamed the crimson flash. Apparently he could do a 75yard dash in about 7.2sec. He went overseas with his running but was easy beaten by another Aussie at the 100 yards mark. He was born in 1881 retired from running in 1913 but continued to coach a lot of other runners.

Unfortunately I didn't take a photo, he always wore red running tshirt and shorts

Gym

 There is a gym between the caravan park and town.

I am not sure if it is for dogs or people. There are equipment pieces out the front that look like low jumps. Maybe patrons can bring their dogs for their exercise as well.

Heading out

 We are going south for just over three weeks, taking our time to get to Canberra. While on the road, we saw this car which we couldn't work out what it was. Obviously an older car and we used to be pretty good at knowing our brands. Not with the newer models though as they all look much the same.

We both thought it may have been an Austin. Luckily for us, there were roadworks that we had to stop at for a few moments. I read the model Flaminia 3b, none the wiser.

Come on Google, we did have service. 

It was a 1962 Lancia, a luxury car at the time, 6 cylinder and capable of 118 miles per hour, a two door coupe.

Couldn't see if it only had two doors or not. We could see that it had a very large GPS mounted on the dash, which we figured would not have been standard issue.

Our GPS later advised us to take the second road on an overpass which we did only to discover we were heading the way we had come almost. There had been a road on our left but we realised after that it was a road only heading into a large truck depot so not counted.

Soon back on track by using my geo caching app, we went through some country roads that we hadn't ventured in before, losing about fifteen minutes. Used the bypass around Toowoomba, still a drag up and around the hills but much nicer drive in two lanes, even if it is a toll road, it's worth it.

Local park

 Lucy and I use this park a lot either going through it to other areas or often we just walk to the edge,  turn and came back, that a 2kms walk from home.

As the days are becoming cooler, we can leave earlier as well and cross the roads when it's not quite so busy.

Photo is from yesterday just after 4pm and it had just been down.

Nothing like a freshly mown grass that's as green as.

Weekend bag

A crochet friend is teaching sewing to novices and she said they were up to making a lined bag. Sounds interesting and we are going away soon in the camper. I usually put my clothes in a shopping bag. While at Spotlight, this fabric was in the $4 pile. My mind was made up, I was making myself a weekend bag.

No pattern so I used printer paper to make one. The pockets I just made big enough to hold tablet and hair brush. Two big pockets on one side and a smaller one on the other.

It's fully lined

I did think about doing a zip top but ended up just making a cover that's attached.

It has feet to keep it off the ground or floor.

I bought one and a half metres of fabric so $6. I had everything else, I guess yes I did buy the other stuff at some point but it was using up things in my sewing room.

It has two handles.

Called the weekend bag as it only took that long to make, we will be away for three weeks and this will hold all of my clothes needed for that time.

 

Quilts

 I needed more inner for my quilts. I visited Spotlight, ekkk $200. When I first bought a roll of cotton batting about four years ago it was $80.  Hummm, I definitely didn't want to pay $200 so didn't buy any, looks my quilt making is over

A week later I needed some other supplies from Spotlight and I saw they had rolls of batting for $90. Two different types, one cotton and the other was a blend of cotton and bamboo which is what I bought as it was wider.

It measured 244cms by 8metres. I cut up the middle and then cut a length of 120cms so they are almost square.

Ended up with 12.

 Packed up in two shopping bags ready to use. Next thing to do is cut the backings to fit, I have several doonas purchased from op shops for this purpose.

One down eleven to go.

New glasses

 Yay,new glasses. My eyesight hasn't changed that much that I needed new glasses but mine were pretty worn so opted to get a new set. I can use my old ones as a second/back up pair.

I chose a colour and apparently plastic frames, I just liked the colour.

Both my glasses, new ones to the front, they are probably a little bigger.

Another grandkids blanket

 Trying to use up my stash of wool. I bought a large pack of red wool when Lincraft opened. No idea why but it did a good buy at the time. 

I also had a couple of balls of multi colours mainly red/marron and carmel colour. Both these wools were 10ply. I usually use 8 ply so it made sense to put these together.

This is the result. It looks a bit small in the photo but is 120 X 120cm.