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Since our last post we have celebrated the New Year. Mick was playing in his band so we celebrated with Veronica and the children and Mick’s brother Greg and his wife Coleen came up to the farm to celebrate with us. We had a great evening playing games and they all complained that Phil was too competitive!!! What a thought!!! We had a really nice time but we missed Mick.

On New Year’s Day we were all invited to Greg and Coleen’s house to have a spa. Their spa pool fits 6 adults and 2 children luckily, it was lovely especially after the pool at Veronicas turned a nasty brown colour!!! We had another lovely evening with them – they are so welcoming and generous with their time.

On the 2nd January it was time to leave Mick and Veronica’s house and hospitality and head on our way. It was quite scary actually going off on our own in our van but quite exciting too. We headed down to Greg and Coleen’s house again to fill up the van with water (Mick and Veronicas only have rain water and this turns brown and we didn’t want that in our nice new clean water tanks!!! Greg and Coleen have done lots of caravanning and they give us lots of useful hints and tips including a packing up and un-packing list for the van which has already proved very useful!!!

We headed off down to Mullumbimby to see Phil’s cousins (We think third cousins our great grandfathers were brothers) Mick and Miranda. We have met Mick and Miranda since 1994 either in the UK or Australia. We didn’t have any mishaps on the way but the sat nav took us in on the ‘tourist route’ and I had a few kittens with the hairpin bends. We arrived slightly later than anticipated and was given a warm welcome from Mick and Miranda. It was good we were going there to start off with as we learnt a lot about the van what to do and what not to do at their house. We had a barbeque and settled for bed in the van.

On the 3rd Mick and Miranda took us for a long scenic drive around the local towns. We saw where Miranda grew up and also where Mick grew up. We met Micks aunt Joan and cousins at the pub in Tumbulgum. We had a quick lesson in the family tree.

Mary (my grandmother) was cousins with Alma (Micks grandmother who is going to be 100 in June 2015) their fathers were brothers Alma had three children Joan – Keith (Micks dad) and Lyla Joan had 8 children (2 of whom we met) Keith had 6 children ( one of which is Mick) and we met one other brother Richard. Lyla – doesn’t have any children

 

After lunch we went to Kingcliff beach for a smoothie, it was nice just to have a bit of a wander. That evening we went back to Mick and Miranda’s for dinner and we sorted out a few teething problems with the van – nothing major but just getting to know what to do.

The following day Mick felt it was time to go surfing. We headed to Byron bay – parked Miranda on the beach in the shade and headed off into the water. I was expecting warm water, no it was cold (about 22c.) The tide was really strong and really pulled you about. I had a little dunk (I did get my shoulders wet!!!) and then went to keep Miranda company. I left Bob to have a few lessons with Mick.

After our exertions we headed off for the market. We had hoped to go there first before the surf but couldn’t find anywhere to park. So we went to market – it was steaming hot – there wasn’t any breeze at all – it must have been about 35. Hot, hot, hot.

After that we went up to Micks parents’ house to see Keith his dad and Cathy his mum. His grandmother Alma was there as well. We had met all of them back in 2006 when were here last and it was nice to see them again. They are all so friendly and made us feel at home.

After all of this and the heat we finally got home about 6pm where Mick cooked dinner again for us – he is a good cook.

We left their house on Monday 5th January and started our journey towards Canberra. The first night we stayed in a little town called Guyra. We had a few little set backs on the way – we forgot to close the roof hatch and just before we left Mick and Miranda’s we had a mighty downpour – oh dear wet all over the floor!! The second mishap was after we stopped to have some lunch the fridge door didn’t close properly – it could have been much worse than it was – we only lost the eggs. Everyone one of them was broken and dripping across the floor – we won’t make that mistake again!!!

We stayed at a free camp in Guyra which was called Mother of Lagoons. It was a nice camp just by a river – a bit full of midges but it was ok for one night.

The next day we carried on not much further and stayed in a little town called Uralla. This time we were on a caravan site so we could leave our van behind and explore the countryside a bit. We stayed there for two nights and it was very quiet and had great showers. The photo is for Paul Massingham “Geocaching” proof….

The first day we explored the town and went to the museum and found out all about Captain Thunderbolt who was a bushranger (highway man) it was very interesting. In the evening we set out to hunt for our second geocache of the holiday. For those who don’t know what they are – they are a bit like hide and seek. Search of it online and it gives more information. The second day we went into Oxley Rivers National Park. We had a great day looking around – having a barbeque and doing some fishing.

Everything was fine until bob spotted a common brown snake about 10 feet away (very poisonous and can be aggressive) and then it was time to leave.

Our next port of call was a little town called Brocklehurst. We stopped here as we are heading for Dubbo zoo tomorrow. We have been told it is huge so we are really looking forward to it. We had a great day at the zoo, it was steaming hot. We saw lots of animals and the zoo is really well kept and the animals looked happy.

 

 

At the end of the day we headed south again to a just outside Wellington. We found a great site called Pronto falls and we pitched our van next to the river. It was very quiet with only a few vans the noisy things were the Sulphar –Crest Cockatoo. There are hundreds of them and they start squawking at dawn and don’t stop after it is dark. It is not bad as you get used to it. We had two lovely days at this site – fishing, doing jigsaws and chilling out. It was great. The second day the weather turned cooler and it started to rain in the evening. It carried on raining all through the night.

 

 

The above is the photo where Bob realised that he is somewhat FAT and really needs to do something about it properly starting now. Current weight 15st 7lb…

 

We then left for our next site, we stopped in Taralga which is another small town in the middle of nowhere. This time we were camping at the showground. We were the only people there. We are only here overnight and then we will make our way down to Canberra. We hope to spend a few nights in Canberra seeing the sights and then we will head south again.