After leaving the gold mine we stopped in the nearby town of Bingara looking (without luck) for an ok coffee for us and a bakery treat for the kids. There was however a morning tea fundraiser for breast cancer going on at a local shop which we happily donated to. As we walked away, the fundraisers called us back to offer the kids a lovely pink cupcake each which brought a smile to their faces. We cut through narrow country roads towards Armidale, and there was almost no traffic around at all which was really nice. The drive took us past rolling fields of cows and sheep and was really scenic. After arriving at Armidale we stopped at a local park to let the kids have a run around. As usual, they were keen to see if there were any op shops in town, and having found one we walked the 15 minutes to it. After a bit of a look through it we wandered back to the car and drove the final 40km to the Wollomombi National Park. The campground was awesome, with huge sites, well spaced apart, surrounded by bushland, and each with a fire pit. The added bonus was that there was firewood provided. I went for a quick explore into the bush behind our camp after setting up and found a lyrebird back there so called everyone over to take a look. He was just scrounging around, scratching the ground with his sharp claws, looking for food. He didn’t seem too bothered by us but still kept his distance. We headed back to camp and it started to rain a bit so we took shelter under the awning and the kids made some comic books while Kat and I enjoyed a game of Scrabble. The rain eased and I got a fire going so I could cook hamburgers on the hotplate. The kids enjoyed marshmallows after dinner before we got them into bed and attempted one more game of Scrabble, but the cold and sleepiness got the better of us so we aborted the game and headed to bed.
The rain fell most of the night and was still going when we woke in the morning, but it was not heavy. We eventually got up out of our warm beds and got some breakfast going. With the rain continuing, the kids made a couple more comics and I even managed to pen “The return of the raging rock monster from outer space”, a sci-fi thriller featuring the heroes Stickman and Grassboy. With no sun around, the car battery running the freezer wouldn’t make it through another day and night, so we decided to drive into Armidale for lunch and another explore. We found a cafe that looked ok and had things the kids would enjoy, placed our order and then found a Scrabble board that we could play with while we waited for our food. Unfortunately they seemed to be busier than they could handle and almost an hour later we still didn’t have any food. After asking where it was, we were told it would be another 10 minutes. Figuring that might be closer to 20 minutes, we decided to just abort and head to Woolies around the corner to get some baked treats instead. With bellies full but disappointed, we decided to just head back to camp. We sat around doing journals, comic writing and blog updates before we enjoyed an amazing show from the lyrebird. He was doing his dance, with his long tail feathers all splayed over his head. The kids had initially been disappointed by the lyrebird as they thought it would just copy anything they said straight away, but they were still impressed when they heard all the bird calls it was imitating. It kept repeating about 10 different bird calls including the magpie, kookaburra and currawong, and went on doing it for about an hour. We got a fire going before dinner and the kids did a bit more of their iPad movies before we enjoyed a warming bowl of spaghetti bolognese around the fire.
The next morning we awoke to clear skies and sunshine which was great to see, not only because we like good weather, but also because we were going to stay a few days with a mate in his apartment and so needed to pack up the trailer dry or it would start to grow mould on the canvas. I got a small fire going with the last few pieces of wood we had, which was a welcome treat given it was pretty cold that morning, having dropped to almost zero overnight. After breakfast around the fire, we packed up everything but the tent itself and headed off on a short walk to the lookout over the Wollomombi Falls. With the recent rains in the area it was flowing well, creating a long but thin trail of water down the steep cliff. We then wandered back to camp, finished packing the trailer and headed off, excited to finally be heading to the coast where the weather was now supposed to be nice and warm with no sign of rain.
Wide open spaces 