Janet and Peter On Tour: Christmas Cheer

After our adventures at Pilliga Bore, we left via a very good dirt track which was better than some of the highways we have been on! Heading towards Coonabarabran and passing through Baradine, we had contact with Sue and David (we had stayed with them on their farm at Ashby). They were heading to Adelaide in their Motorhome for Christmas and wondered where we were. We ended up meeting them that afternoon in Premer and caught up with what had happened in the last couple of weeks since we had seen them. The next morning they headed off towards Dunedoo and we stayed in Premer for another day.
This part of NSW is so green and beautiful. The scenery is stunning and as we traveled through lush farmland and sunflowers, a crop duster was flying along side us! Quirindi, pronounced kirindie, was a lovely town and we walked around for ages looking at the old buildings and reading the history plaques before heading east to Chaffey Dam. We shared the dam with a herd of cows who just munched their way in and out of our camp. While going for a walk around the waters edge we came across a long neck turtle who had probably been laying eggs in dry land and was now heading back to the water. The water was very low so it was a very very long walk for a little turtle and the weather was scorching so we decided to give her a helping hand by carrying her as far as we could without sinking into the mud and then watched her from afar for the next hour until she finally made it into the water and swam away. The next day we left the van at the Dam and went into Nundle where we looked through the woollen mill and saw the antiquated machinery still in use and went through the gold mine replica museum - I soooo want to find a gold nugget! (To go with my Sapphires) Next day we left that lovely peaceful setting and stayed the night at "Burning Mountain" which is a coal seam that has been burning for five thousand years. We walked to the top and you could see the heat vapours rising out of the ground. Apparently the fire moves 1 metre per year. It is very significant to the aborigines and they used to sleep up there on cold nights because the ground is warm.
On to Lake Liddell the next morning, where I finally got to use my little blow-up dinghy for the first time! We stayed for a night and in the morning where bursting with excitement because we were heading straight to Matt and Tracey's! It was so great to see them all and spend time in their own environment, seeing their bedrooms and watching them play in their pool. Brendan took us for a walk on their property and showed us the horses and the dams. Tahlia showed us all her dance moves and Lochie is just a bundle of joy and laughter. We had a couple of really heavy rain falls during our four days and one enormous lightning strike which had us all jumping!
The hardest part of visiting is having to say goodbye.
As I write this, we are in Gulgong at the Showgrounds. We were just going to pass through town but they had a Folk Festival on and there were markets, and buskers and different bands playing on the streets and in the Hotels. It is an historical town and was featured on the old $10.00 note. It is also Henry Lawson country. A local told us that "The Killing Fields" was filmed here recently starring Rebecca Gibney so we might try and catch it online.