A cold and wet start........

Winter has truly arrived and it is time for us to hit the road in search of somewhere warm and sunny.  We had packed the van over the weekend in between downpours and on Monday morning pulled out to begin another adventure in this big country of ours.

Our plans were to head over to the Capertee Valley for the first few days but due to a huge weather system affecting the area we changed our plans and headed further inland instead.

Our first day saw us driving through heavy rain and we stopped at Ironbark Rest area to make lunch and then continue on to Yerong Creek where we camped that night at the rec grounds.  This beautiful rainbow was the highlight of our day.

The following morning was still cold and wet and we made our way along stopping at the lovely town of Coolamon to buy bread.  Still wet so we didn't hang around outside.

Our next stop was at Ardlethan where we made and ate lunch beside the silos.  Still pouring rain so
we decided to continue on a bit further and made our way to Mirrool, a tiny town whose claim to fame is the annual Silo Kick.  The first winner of this was Geelong legend Billy Brownless.

We camped here overnight in a great little free spot with showers ( a gold coin donation) and toilet and woke up to a beautiful blue sky the next morning.

We did a walking tour of the little town and just loved the old pub, now owned by the community and the little silos for the kids to kick over.

On the road again we made our way towards West Wyalong where we stopped for lunch beside this old RAAF DC3 in the Lions Park.  

From here we drove on to Lake Cargelligoe where we found a spot at Deadmans Point and settled in for a day or two.  The sun had shone most of the day so we hope it is a sign of things to come.

The next morning was blue and sunny and as we were preparing to head out and see the sights we discovered a problem with our inverter.  Uh oh, no inverter, no 240V power.  Bill spent most of the morning on the phone with the guys in Brisbane and so now we head east instead of north to have it fixed or replaced (still under warranty) and go north from there.  No rush though the solar is still operating most things so we'll take another day to look around here and hope the clouds don't come back soon.

Lake Cargelligoe is a little town some 600km north west of Sydney.  Known as the Oasis in the Outback the lake is home to many birds mostly of the waterbird variety.  We drove out to Round Hill Nature Reserve and on the way stopped at a well known birding spot called 'Chat Alley' where this little Song Lark seemed quite happy to play on the wire.  Once at the nature reserve we were unable to access any of the tracks due the the recent rains.  Lots of water standing along the roadside made for a very muddy car.

Bill spent a morning at the treatment plant/wetlands and enjoyed some time with the birds there.  This cheeky little Butcherbird stayed and posed for him.

The next morning we began our drive to Brisbane so we'll stop here and continue soon.

until next time........