Narrabri to Home

We left Narrabri early Sunday morning and we were amazed at the amount of rain the area has received. Some of the fields were lakes and some side roads were closed. There was considerable flood debris in the river at Quirindi. We arrived home 4pm Sunday.

Well we are home with mixed feelings - it is great to be home to family and friends and ready to resume our normal life - however we had a wonderful time, achieved all that we had planned and then some.

We look forward to seeing everyone very soon.

Roma to Narrabri

To-day was a relatively long drive of 570km to Narrabri. The countryside around Moree and Narrabri is incredibly wet - some of the fields are lakes and the caravan park narrowly avoided a flood. We are now within one days drive of Sydney so we should arrive home late on Sunday.

Roma

We visited the 'Big Rig' - explains the history of the oil and gas fields in Roma, Queensland and Australia. This afternoon is 'wind down' as we prepare for the final sprint home - looking forward to seeing family and friends again even if the weather is a little bleak. To-night we went to dinner with the TAGS group from Loftus Probus - to 'Malones Inn' for dinner and bush poetry.

Mitchell to Roma

As we were leaving Mitchell the weather forecast for the area was for severe thunderstorms with large hail - hopefully Roma is far enough to the East to miss out!
Once again the road surface from Mitchell to Roma was quite dangerous - not sure whether floods have caused the damage or not.
We are having a quiet day as we wait for our Probus Club friends to arrive - happy hour is planned for later this afternoon. We had our happy hour - what a handsome group!

Charleville to Mitchell

A short drive of 180km to-day from Charleville to the Major Mitchell Caravan Park on the banks of the Maranoa River at Mitchell.

After lunch we found the temperature a little hot at 38 degrees (ie in the Artesian Spa).

This afternoon is restful reading time.

Charleville

This morning we followed the self-guided tour of the town, viewing the levee banks as the Warrego River frequently floods and we also visited the 'Historic House' Museum.

This afternoon we had a 'Stories and Scones' tour of the Hotel Corones - a grand old hotel built in 1929 - Lyn is on the balcony where Amy Johnson addressed the adoring crowd below.

It started to rain this afternoon and looks like continuing - oh well, not to worry, we have been very fortunate.

Could someone please enlighten me as to the meaning of this sign at the van park? I dare not, dare not, canvass all the possibilities for fear of painful retribution!

Charleville

This morning dawned a little overcast - so far we have been very fortunate with the weather, only experiencing rain on four days of our eleven weeks away.

This morning we visited the Bureau of Meteorology to

1. Collect data from the weather station
2. Watch the launching of the weather balloon - one is sent aloft with electronic equipment at least once a day - it is about 1m in diameter at launching but expands to 11m diameter at its highest point some 36km above the Earth.
3. Monitor the signals coming in from the balloon as it ascended - temperature, pressure, wind speed direction and strength - this was very interesting as it clearly showed, for example, temperature inversions at various altitudes.

We then visited the Cosmos Centre for

1. a hands on display of meteorites (and meteorwrongs!) including an interesting specimen of stainless steel which, they say, is harder than we can produce.
2. a very interesting film about the solar system, the universe and our place in it.
3. a talk about the planets and the international discussion resulting in Plutos exclusion from the 'Planet Club'
4. interesting 'hands on' computer displays.

The Cosmos Centre also has an observatory.

To-night we are attending a 'Camp Oven Dinner' in the van park - should be a good opportunity to meet people and swap tales. It was! About 60 people attended the dinner hosted by the park owners around a couple of campfires.