A bit if a travel day today with some geocaching along the way. Travels took me through a lot of little towns in New South Wales including Stonehenge (with its attempts of stacked rocks), Glen Innes (with its natural Balancing Rock), Deepwater (with its scarecrow festival), Bolivia (with its hill that tests out your gearbox and brakes – just make sure you don’t have a truck following behind) and Tenterfield (with its infamous massacre in the 1840’s at Bluff Rock).

The border between New South Wales and Queensland has split towns with Jennings on the NSW side and Wallangarra on the QLD side. The border itself goes on a diagonal line through the town with the railway station on the Queensland side and the platform on the New South Wales side.

Just south of Stanthorpe is Ballandean where the dinosaur “Fruitisforus” used to roam apparently. To me it looks more like a Triceratops and I am not sure that it even lived around here.

Tonight’s digs are in Stanthorpe and finally managed to find someone that could fix my camera cable for the caravan. I stopped into the local music store (Top Beat Entertainment) that moonlighted as a Jaycar stockist and they found a couple of broken wires in the cable. The morning will confirm if they were able to fix the problem.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I have been travelling for a couple of days now with out the camera on the caravan. For some reason there is no feed getting through to the screen. I have checked all the connections with no luck.

So before I start pulling wires, replacing the one section between the car and van would be the logical choice to try and eliminate the problem. Or so you would think.

After hunting around Tamworth yesterday with no luck, I spent the morning checking the last few stores that may have the lead. It seems that a caravan camera lead is not an easy thing to find.

I even stopped into Steptoe Caravans on the way out of town but they only had a couple of Polaris leads that use a different plug. Autobarn had a whole new wiring kit at $179 but I am not ready to spend that much money given that the original install including the camera and screen was $150.

Only had 106 kilometres to travel today but managed to make that last all day with a diversion to the Apsley Falls on the Oxley Highway. As you travel towards the area, it is rolling hills and farmland, not a landscape you would expect gorges and waterfalls. I was starting to wonder if I had taken a wrong turn.

Soon enough there was a sign to the left and a bitumen track into a National Park that lead down to a carpark. A couple of hundred metre walk and wow, there it was. A deep, steep gorge had been gouged out of the land over millions of years.

On the car park side, you walked down flights of stairs to lookouts that hung out over the gorge and took your breathe away.

Back up the top, you then took a suspension bridge to get to the other side of the gorge to get an even more breathtaking view from above the sheer cliffs down to the Apsley River below.

If you are ever in the area of Walcha, make sure you take the drive to Apsley Falls, you will not be disappointed.

On the way to Armidale from Walcha is the town of Uralla. I needed to stop in this town and was going to find the local scout hall with no success, as growing up, 1st Uralla was my cub pack and scout troop but back in South Australia. It no longer exists over in SA and maybe they don’t have one here either.

What I did find was “Thunderbolt” the bush ranger, well his statue. He used to rob mail coaches and homes back in the 1870’s in the area before the law caught up with him and shot him.

Pulled into Armidale on dusk and will have a look around town in the morning before heading into Queensland. One observation as I travelled through town is that there is just about a school of some sort on every second corner. A lot of education going on here.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Looks like the weather has been and gone with blue skies this morning, warmer temps but gee is it humid. I think one more day and it might be time to break out the shorts.

Had a day to explore around Tamworth visiting the landmarks and sights and of course grabbing some geocaches as well.

The best spot to get an overall view of Tamworth and surrounds is up a steep windy road to the Oxley Scenic Lookout.

Next stop was to find a Telstra Hotspot and download updates for the various electronic devices. The iPad had an IOS update and 37 app updates. The Samsung’s had similar numbers.

All around town there are memorials, statues and parks that link to the Country Music background of Tamworth and not to forget the Golden Guitar.

There are handprints (Hands of Fame Corner) , bronze busts and even stone busts (Bicentennial Park) of Australia’s Country Music royalty.

You only need to wander down Peel Street and you can find Slim Dusty and Smoky Dawson, and they don’t mind a selfie either.

It must be the wrong time of the year as the only cowboys and cowgirls in town were those at the Horse event at the Australian Equine and Livestock Centre.

To finish the day, there was a spectacular sunset behind some large storm clouds on the Western hills.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Woke up this morning with the sound of rain on the roof. Is this the monthly rainfall in a day that has been hyped up for the last few days. Unfortunately it was not.

The rain was light and short lived but it sure made it humid outside. Took a bit of a rest day geocaching around Dubbo awaiting the big rains but looking at the radar, I think it will be bypassing here.

Not sure what is going on around Dubbo but there seems to be a lot of new housing developments around the outskirts. It may be due to an increase in mining around the surrounding area.

It is always interesting where Geocaching takes you and today was one of those moments with the Driftwell System. It is a series of wells that were dug and brick lined back in the 1890’s which provided the water supply for Dubbo. The wells are still intact more than 100 years on but I am not sure that they are providing water any more.

Later in the afternoon, some more rain arrived but once again it was light and short lived. I guess we don’t need to build the ark just yet. Although looking further up the coast in mid Queensland, it looks like they are taking a drenching. Hopefully it clears up before we get there in a week.

• 
• 
• 
• 

According to the TV and Radio, we are due rainfall of biblical proportions but as I looked out the window this morning and as I travelled further north east today, blue skies was all I could see.

It certainly wasnt clear skies as the farmers were still burning off their stubble and a smokey haze hugged the ground until I got to Parkes where it was greening up so there was nothing to burn.

Even though there was only 260 kilometres to travel today, it still took 6 hours due to the large amount of roadworks on the Newell Highway with long waits on the single lane bypass detours.

There was even a delay at Tomingley while they did a blast at the Tomingley Gold Mine which is divided by the Newell Highway.

Mind you I am not complaining as I was still making stops in all the little towns to do some exploring (read looking for Geocaches).

It is always amazing what gems you find when you have a look around these towns. The stop in Peak Hill (another gold mining town) revealed a long abandoned Holden Dealership complete with old cars and parts that have been rotting for years. Apparently the owner has no interest in selling anything much to the dismay of old Holden collectors and restorers.

I was expecting to see the “Dish” when visiting Parkes but was certainly not expecting Elvis, well Rhino Elvis. As well as Parkes being known for the “Dish”, it also has an annual Elvis Festival but you will have to wait until January next year for the next festival.

About 20 kilometres north of Parkes, look over to the right and there it is. It certainly stands out amongst the sheep paddocks although the trees around it are starting to get up to the same height. I am referring to “The Dish” or the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope. Its claim to fame is bringing the Moon Landing of Apollo 11 to the world but most now remember it for the film, “The Dish“. It is an impressive structure but it is not working for the next couple of weeks.

Tonight’s digs is Dubbo and I will spend a day around here before moving on Saturday. Provided the weather remains clear and warm, I will visit the Dubbo Zoo. Looking at the radar, it appears that my travels have taken me in a gap between the 2 frontal systems. Not sure how long that will last.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•