THE GOOD AND THE BAD.

We left Moree this morning in bright sunshine. We had a lovely time here, but it was time to move on. 

We have been travelling on the Newell Highway, which is known as the Truckers Highway. The trucks use this highway as there’s not so many towns on this road, but the bad side is, because there’s been so much flooding, the trucks (through no fault of there’s) have damaged the road badly. 

There was a lot of road works, and the government is also building a rail network from Brisbane to Melbourne, so it was slow going. 

We got to Narrabri, so we pulled in to the Tourist Info Centre as they have easy caravan parking, and went for a walk to stretch the legs and have a coffee break. 

I had no idea Narrabri had this title. 

Who knew ?

1921

All the buildings here where very old and so well kept. 

1898 

Their parks were lovely as they followed the river, which was a bit flooded and flowing quickly from the recent rain.

So that was the good part.

We drove on as we were headed to a Golf course at Coonabarabran which let your camp in your caravan out the back of their club.  

So Ed punched in directions on his phone, as he normally does and we were on our way. 

We came into Coonabarabran and were told to take the next left turn, which we did. It wasn’t a wide road, but obviously it was the back way to the golf course.

All of a sudden we were face to face with a flooded causeway that was running very fast. There was no railing and it dropped off badly into the river below. 

Shit! Over the other side was a sign….Road Closed. 

We couldn’t turn around as there was no room to do so with the van on. 

We both looked at one another and though WTF will we do.

So Ed got out and tried to test the depth of the water, but it was absolutely freezing, and I yelled at him to get out of the #%* water as we had no idea what was under foot, and I had visions of him being washed away. 

So we had no choice but to backup the caravan 2klm, very slowly as the road was narrow, hilly, with twists and turns and we couldn’t afford to go off onto the side as we would have got well and truly bogged.

So Ed walked beside me, giving me directions as I drove backwards. Remembering I’m going backwards, when you want the caravan to go left, you have to turn the steering wheel to the right! And all while it’s raining. 

So inch by inch, we slowly got out…..it was scary as we were also following the river, which was a torrent ! There was no one else around.

We just looked at one another when it was all over and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

So, as well as all the good times, we can have bad times too. 

And there was a Road Closed sign, someone had run over it and threw it on the side of the road. We didn’t see it. 

We got back on the main road, and have tried to get into every town after Coonabarabran, as the camp at the golf club was no good. 

Every camp is full of travellers. 

We have found a small camp at place called Eumungerie. It’s about 38 klm from Dubbo. It’s a tiny camp on someone’s property in the bush. 

We have power and water, it’s absolutely freezing, there’s no TV apart from SBS, and we have to peddle really really fast for the internet. 

How does that happen 38 Klm from Dubbo?! Australia you really need to lift  your game as far as communications are concerned. 

It has rained all day, the road works have been constant, the trucks are huge and go way faster than I do…..so it was good to get off the road at 4pm. 

We never drive that long. 

So that’s the bad bit. We don’t often have them, but when we do….it’s a doozy 🙄🫣

But we are safe, that’s the main thing. So we are here for a couple of days

We will sleep well tonight. Stay safe 🦋🦋