Well there were some heavy falls overnight but it had cleared up by morning for another slightly overcast day, well at least in Dubbo.
Travelling east, the things most spotted today were kangaroos sleeping on the side of the road or they could have been road kill. That is something I have not spotted a lot of, live wildlife. There has been plenty of parrots, cockies, galahs and even a wedge tailed eagle (feeding off a sleeping roo) but no large wildlife. I guess that with the amount of feed around due to good rains, they are not near the roads.
Looks like earlier in the year a couple of large fires went through around Dunedoo and Cassilis with a lot of fencing and a few buildings destroyed that I could see. Blazeaid has set up a couple of base camps in the area to assist the farmers in replacing their fences. That may be something to look at when I get round to retiring.
One thing that the fires have done is clear out the vegetation and a lot of rock formations now are visibile from the road whereas previously they would have been obscured. There was one interesting one where it looked like a tree had split a large rock into two columns and there were leaning away on each side of the tree.
There were some heavy downpours as I travelled East but I forgot to take notice of road signs and soon found a lot more reference to Newcastle. I had missed the turn off to Tamworth. Finally there was a road that headed north at Merriwa. It started out OK with a bitumen road passing through farmland then it turned into gravel and dirt with a sign saying that parts may be closed in wet weather. That is great given that I was currently in torrential rainfall.
Stuck it into 4WD and dragged the caravan through creek crossings and slippery clay sections. The van was slowly turning brown from mud but managed to get through OK. Next was a narrow windy section up through the Great Dividing Range. It was bitumen but the face on an approaching car was precious when he came around the corner and saw me with the van in tow. Maybe next time he will drive to the conditions. Did I mention in between the rain it was foggy.
Over the top of the range and back to gravel and mud, this time due to road works. Lucky Jenny wasn’t in the car as her side was a straight drop down with no barriers and the road was a tad slippery. Eventually it was back onto bitumen with enough rain to wash the majority of the mud off the car and van.
Pretty uneventful for the rest of the journey to Tamworth with some more rain, heavy at times. Looks like it is a busy weekend in Tamworth with the Motor Show and a huge Horse Event.
