Well welcome back faithful followers, the Christmas New Year holidays are over and it's time to hit the road (and blog again).
It was great spending time with Mum and Dad / Doreen & George. Wonderful Xmas turkey, Hawaiian night at the Bowls Club for New years Eve and general catching up. Not so great that it rained for about 19 days out of the 22 we were there.
But Saturday 8th Jan dawned grey and damp and after a mandatory farewell coffee at Kingscliff, packing and wrapping the motorbike on the trailer, a bit of running around for light bulbs for MM and lunch it was time to bid Chinderah and all the Chindereans farewell.
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| Emotional farewell - George & Trevor, well known Chindereans |
Light drizzle as we left turned into full on rain on the freeway but eventually it died down and we actually saw a bit of sun. The drive through the hills and valleys through Lismore, Casino & Tenterfield was extremely pleasant. Mighty Merc handling the hills a lot better without the 600 odd kilo's of bike and trailer dragging along behind.
Editors note: The drive through Lismore, Casino and Tenterfield was also a lot more pleasant than if we had left it another 48 hours because by Monday the road was cut in at least three places and we would have needed MM to be amphibious. Yet again listening to Di was the right thing to do,as if there was ever a doubt. It was Di who had checked the weather forecast and suggested getting the hell out of Dodge (Chinderah).
Drove through Lismore and Casino before arriving in Tenterfield where we cruised the main street. Aah Tenterfield, in the immortal words of the great bard (Peter Allen)
“Time is a traveller,
Tenterfield saddler turn your head,
Ride again jackeroo,
I think I see kangaroo up ahead”
Probably sounds better with Hugh Jackman singing (or Lee Kernaghan but definitely not the guy from Dancing with the Stars). Anyway it's amazing that that's what I thought of first about Tenterfield rather than the fact it was the site of Henry Parke's 1889 speech that started the push for Federation and the birth of Australia as a nation. Aah well, I was always a sucker for a show tune.
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| Tenterfield Saddler - well the sign said Saddler so I assume that's it |
After our cultural drive through Tenterfield we checked into the Seven Knights van park, a fairly basic setup behind the BP garage. Despite the overcast weather we walked the kilometre or so back into town and consequently got caught in the heaviest rain of the day on the walk back. Lesson for today: “If it's been raining for three weeks solid and there is a break in the rain – still take an umbrella if you go for a walk.”
Special mention must be made of the number of "award winning, bestest pie shops" that we have seen so far on our travels. There sure must be a lot of pie awards given out every year!
After drying out back at MM BBQ'd some of the meat that Di had won in raffles at Chinderah.
Editors note: Di's track record on meat raffles is nothing short of phenomenal at the moment: 4 entries (one of which was free) for 3 wins.
After dinner we settled back to catch up on one of the 123 remaining episodes of NCIS and discovered one of the benefits of staying at park with a 24 hour petrol station out the front is that you can duck out and grab an ice cream to go with the viewing – it's the caravanning and camping equivalent of Village Gold Class Cinema.
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