New England & Newell Highways

Leaving our camp we continued on the D'Aguilah Highway across to Blackbutt and down to Crows Nest and onto the New England Highway through Toowoomba, Warick & Tenterfield. At Toowoomba we turned at some lights to be greeted by the Police rushing to the boot of his car and what appeared to be getting a gun out, Whoa! we thought what's going on? But then we quickly realised he was rushing to change the traffic lights controller as coming up the road was another Police vehicle with flashing lights and hundreds of Motorcyclists in convoy, we turned onto the highway and were Leaders Of The Pack for a few kilometres untill i stopped to take some photo's.



We stopped at Stanthorpe and visited the Markets in the Mountains where Vickie helped out the local economy by buying some fruit & honey and a pewter spoon for our tea leaf container. We had intended travelling all the way down to Tamworth on the New England but Vickie suggested we branch right at Glen Innes and head to Inverell and Bingara where my Mum used to live. The distance was around the same and another opportunity to visit the Batterham Lookout where Mum & Neil [her husband] had their ashes scattered after their deaths. The lookout has a fantastic view over Bingara and it was another lovely sunset that we watched as we shared a drink and thoughts of those gone.





Bingara is a lovely town though badly affected by the drought like all of Country NSW, we went to the local RSL for another trip down memory lane, we had gone here for a meal with my Mum & Neil many years ago and won a few dollars on the pokie machines and they didn't let us down again with Vickie winning $72 and walking out with $50 of it and a few drinks thrown in. The weather was very weird with temperatures around 35c and hot winds, the State was copping some very strange weather conditions.





We left Bingara and headed out to Narrabri taking the scenic route through Mt Kaputar National Park where we visited the Glazier site and Sawn Rocks, both area's were stunning and certainly worth a look.





Continuing along the Newell Highway we passed through Coonabarabran, Gilgandra & Dubbo. At Dubbo we were stopped and met some other BT owners Ray & Pauline from Balina, after a long chat we said our goodbyes and had to make a decision whether to visit the Western Plains Zoo this trip or wait till we came through again. The decision was not hard as it would have meant staying at a Van Park for the night and i'd prefer to be out in the bush somewhere, so we ventured on with the thoughts of finding a nice camp along the Murrumbidgee River and relaxing for a few days.





We passed through fields of colour which were stunning with the backdrop of a blue cloudless sky. Vickie is suffering from Hay Fever from all the wattle that is in flower and on a dose of Zyrtec, it appears to be helping.



Possibly tomorrow we will be camped along the Murrumbidgee.