Category Archives: Travel -NSW

Mount Kaputar – NSW

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Here are a few of our pictures from our little weekend away shakedown with our new Cub Campers Drover in the beautiful Mount Kaputar National Park. At 1500m high we underestimated how much cooler is was up there. Narrabri being around 39 degrees we thought it would be late 20’s early 30’s, but Mitch had to put some socks on with his thongs to keep warm (Now that’s saying something 😜).
We were lucky enough to be alone at the Dawsons Spring campsite, which was really nice. An awesome spot with really great, clean amenities. There were plenty of Kangaroos around the camp which people obviously feed.. they would come from everywhere as soon as we would start to prepare meals was kinda annoying as you could tell that people feed them. 

There are lots of great walks within the park, a few easy and medium grade ones which we did, with our favourites being Sawn Rocks and the climb to The Governor. Everything is very well signposted with tonnes of information for the kids and adults to read.
Mount Kaputar is the perfect place (10/10 if it wasn’t a total fire ban) to relax and reset.. we would highly recommend it!

Jindabyne and Thredbo

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THE SNOW- JINDABYNE & THREDBO

After leaving Geelong, we headed to Wagga Wagga to stay with some great friends who took us in and spoiled us with a warm bed, great company and an absolutely delicious dinner! The kids especially loved this stop.. It was hard to get them in the car to leave. Thanks so much Hackett’s!

We left Wagga Wagga, travelling along the Snowy Mountains Highway to spend a week in Jindabyne. It was like a winter wonderland! We were so lucky to have a big snow fall just 2 days before we arrived. The excitement in our car as we found snow, before we had even got to Cooma, was just priceless!

It was a week of memories we’ll treasure forever. We were lucky enough to find a great big house to share our snow adventure with our family, overlooking Lake Jindabyne.
With this being our first time at the Snow as a family, we all took on Ski lessons. The kids just amazed us at how quickly they picked it up. They were doing the bigger slopes before we even got up there. We all enjoyed it so much that we think this will definitely become a yearly trip!

Next stop Canberra…

Onwards to Broken Hill

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Lightning Ridge – Broken Hill

We left Lightning Ridge and head towards Louth  and stayed at a free camp on the western side of the river. Bloody Cold this time of year. We then headed to a little farm stay called Nelia Gaari which was beautiful and will stay at again.
We set up camp out at the Broken Hill Racecourse and would recommend it to anyone looking for affordable unpowered/powered campsites with amenities. We even had lush green grass 😜 spoilt!

The first day in Broken Hill we checked out the sights of the town. The miners monument on top of the big mollock heap was a good reminder of how tough it must have been mining back in day! The list contains the name, age, and cause of death. Hundreds of people have died working in the mines over the years, which brought about unions in Australia, to try and improve working conditions. Did you know that the mining company BHP was started at Broken Hill, and stands for Broken Hill Proprietary?!
In the afternoon, we couldn’t go past having a look at the ‘big picture’ at the Silver City Mint and having a soda spider at Bells Milk bar.

Silverton was a great day out. Stopping into the Daydream Mine for a tour with Boss, which we all found really interesting, and then treated with fresh scones straight out of the wood fire oven, yum!
We drove out to the Mundi Mundi Plains and had a picnic lunch at the Reservoir, which use to supply water to Broken Hill and Silverton.
Next stop was the Mad Max 2 museum which was definitely a highlight and then a cold one at the Silverton Hotel- where Mel successfully completed the ‘Silverton challenge’.
Finishing off our big day at the Living Desert and Sculptures, right on sunset.. Amazing!! #Drifta #snowpeak #camping #4wding #silvertonhotel

Lightning Ridge to Longreach

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Today we set off for 5 weeks on the road… Yep, that’s right! 5 whole weeks!! Woohoo! Heading up into Queensland, over to the Northern Territory, up to Darwin and back down, with a detour into Birdsville for the Big Red Bash!! We are so looking forward to this adventure, one we have all been excited to go on for months.

We crossed the border into Queensland just 70km from Lightning Ridge, at Hebel. Had a nice lunch stop and play at the park by the Balonne River at St George and then onto Mitchell, where we pulled up to stay for our first night. We enjoyed a great meal at the Courthouse Hotel to celebrate Mel’s Birthday! Then headed back to the Major Mitchell caravan park, where we had set up camp.
The next morning we awoke to a freezing 1 degree. It was definitely hard to leave our nice warm beds, but the excitement of moving on to our next destination got us up and going pretty quick.

We had a fairly big day on the road today… 613km to Longreach. A few of the towns we drove through were Mungallala, Morven (we picked up the most delicious and freshest bread at the grocer here), Augathella, Tambo, Blackall and Barcaldine.
We couldn’t believe our eyes when we were heading out of Mungallala, we came around a corner to find a motorhome pulled over but still taking up half of our lane. With their hazard lights flashing, we pulled up next to them to see if they were ok, only to find the male driver standing there for a pee break!! All we could do was laugh… Hahaha Touro’s huh?!

We arrived in Longreach just before dusk. Spotting the Qantas boeing 747 (i don’t think you could miss it) as we drove in. We thought we would check out the ‘free camping’ not far out of town, only to find out it was Caravan, camper trailers and Motorhomes ONLY! What the?! It was packed full of just those… caravan city! So we headed back into town to the Longreach Tourist Park. Which turned out great anyway, with lots of our own space for the kids to run around in (much needed after spending the day in the car) and excellent amenities.

Leaving Lightning Ridge

 

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Crossing the border at Hebel

 

Mitchell is at Mitchell

Mitchell is at Mitchell

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First morning at Mitchell 1 Degree Celcius

First morning at Mitchell 1 Degree Celcius

 

Augathalla

Augathella

 

Thats a huge plane - Qantas

Thats a huge plane – Qantas

 

Sun setting over Longreach

Sun rising over Longreach

Countdown is on!

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How good is it when you finally get to start a real count down to something! Less than two weeks to go and we are heading on a 5 week camping trip from NSW, up into QLD, across to NT and back via the Big Red Bash at Birdsville.

We just did a quick weekend away to Inverell for a tester to see what we have and don’t have, or better yet what we don’t need. The Patrol was pretty loaded on the roof with the 30sec Tent, swag, 20lt jerry, 25lt water, chairs and the top box. In the rear we have the 50lt Waeco, two hard tubs – one for staple foods and the other for cooking stuff, A camp oven and the ‘The Wedge’ bbq is there along with the 12 volt oven. All the clothes and sleeping bags for a family of 5 had not been put in yet but should fit ok. 

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Orange, NSW

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Last year we heard about there being snow at Orange, NSW. So we decided to travel down and see if we were lucky enough to be there when it snowed. We found a nice 2 bedroom unit next to a pub that did meals and was fairly central. We wanted to go to Mount Canobolas and also head out to Ophir, where one of the first gold rushes were, so we could have a crack at panning.

On the first day we headed out to Mt Canobolas and parked near the top. It was quite nice at the car park, but the road to the top was closed due to ice on it. We rugged up and started to walk up. As we were walking we started to see ice/snow on the edges of the road which got us excited. A bit further on and we had snot running out of our noses it was that cold haha. There was icy snow everywhere and the kids loved playing in it. We had a rough attempt at making a snow man. This was the coldest place we had ever been to. It was very windy up top and it felt like there was clouds blowing past us. When the cold got too much, we started to descend and on our way back down the hill it actually started to snow! Very light snow but it was nice to close your eyes and feel it lightly land on your face.

The walk to the top of Mt Canobalas
Making sure the kids are warm
Beautiful green moss
Yay icy snow
Snow balls
bbbbbrrrrrrr

The next day we headed out to Ophir, which is only a short drive out of Orange. It was a beautiful spot, nice and green with plenty of shady spots to stop and have lunch. There were heaps of little of tracks where you can go off and explore. Keep an eye out for people’s active mines, there should be signs that say ‘keep out active mining’ so you shouldn’t have any issues.

We had a crack at panning and found lots of iron stone and a few specks of gold but nothing to write home about. The kids just like playing in the dirt and exploring, throwing rocks into the water and all of us just being together.

Good times 🙂 Mitch

 

The Inland Cafe, Tamworth

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G’day guys another post from us and I’d like to let everyone know about a Cafe we went to in Tamworth, NSW recently.  The Inland Cafe is situated at 407 Peel St Tamworth.  It is owned and operated by two sisters who are fantastic! This place is amazeballs for families. They have 3 sitting areas, their staff are helpful, and the food is beautiful! Click HERE to view their Facebook page and give them a like! Or even better next time your in Tamworth go and have a feed!

Getting sick while camping

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So yesterday our little boy fell off a monkey bar type thing and I heard that sound when he landed that was different to all the other falls. The cry he let out told us straight away that this was different!
We are camping at Tamworth while the patrol was at ARB getting a lot of work done, so the last few days we had been walking everywhere.

We decided to have a counter lunch as it was midday and we were standing out the front when Levi and Milli started to play on these bars,  I was on the phone to ARB at the time trying to organise a loaner as ARB needed the patrol for the rest of the day and the start of Thursday.  That’s when it happened.  I heard that ‘sickening thud’ and picked him up, he was holding his arm and I knew it had to be broken.  He calmed down after a little while and had been bugging us to eat before he fell. We asked him whether he wanted lunch before going to Hospital and he agreed to lunch as he was starving.  The poor little bugger struggled to eat,  so I scoffed mine down and went to get the loaner.

We arrived at the ED at 1300 and were given a bed straightaway.  Pain relief came but took a while to get it under control.  Had some x-rays fairly quick as well.  At 1930 the orthopaedic surgeon finally came and he was admitted at 2030.
So I did the mad rush back to camp and got some things and tag teamed Mel with Charli and Milli.
The surgeon told us Levi should be first cab of the rank in the morning.  After a very sleepless night in the ward we were up and ready at 0700, the surgeon came in at 0800 and said that Levi is being pushed back due to two emergency c-sections, an appendicitis and another fracture similar to his.

At 1730 this afternoon the nurses came to wheel him into theatres. 27 hours after we arrived at hospital. Sometimes I don’t get why it takes so, it is probably just me being a worried parent, we could have driven to Sydney! And the thought did cross my mind.
Anyway I realise they get busy but this is a big city and we were at a major trauma hospital!
Anyway rant over and he was being seen to!
Update – Levi has come out and has a huge cast on. Doing well but was struggling with the weight of the cast on his arm. After two days though you wouldn’t even know he had hurt himself. Already overcoming most activities of daily living with one arm. He is a pretty tough 6 yr old I reckon.