NARRABRI TO PORT MACQUARIE

Well more than a couple of days have passed after vowing that I would attend to this daily! We did a day trip down to Mendooran to visit friends who we met while travelling. Just a 500k round trip but we Aussies often do a trip like that! So good to catch up Robyn & Bob & love your 5th wheeler. Enjoy while you can my friends.
Had lunch in the old pub there & as usual a huge meal.

Their daughter’s minature ponies.

A few photos of cotton being picked/harvested at our daughter’s.

Love this place for sunrise/sunset photos.

Early morning crop duster.
Rolling the awning up we realized that the spring on one end was broken so that would mean finding somewhere to get repaired.
After saying a goodbye to family and attending to groceries, water & dump in Narrabri we headed down to Gunedah and the country did not improve at all- so depressing .

Did not stop here as been here quite a few times so headed east to Tamworth.

Just north of Tamworth we noticed a van repair sign, so did a Uturn to see if they could do the repair instead of finding a place in big town. The small country town was Moonbi and 30 mins later we were away with a new spring. A new one would have been $300 but they had one taken from another van for $100. It was like new. Good country hospitality.
That night we spent at Bendermeer. This is a huge rest area, donation box at entry, off the highway but after dark the traffic was not a problem. Down in a hollow so knew it would be cold in the morning so we parked well away from other vanners as we would definately have heater going.

Wandered over to the old bridge for a look. This is higher than the new bridge which was built over the river and you would have to wonder why?

The MacDonald River with the old bridge as a walkway. Timber structures under are starting to rot.

Taken from new low level bridge with the old one up river.

The colours of autumn are so different down south – colours which we do not see in our part of QLD. The deciduous trees make such a mess!

These came down to say hello and they look as though they could do with some care.

4.4.12
Thursday morning we were still going east and down the Moonbi range, which we have been down before. There were a few vans coming up but what a long pull.

This person greets you at Walcha

Once again the streets are lined with Autumn colours. AS we had previously stopped at the towns on the way down we did not do it again.
As soon as we got over the range the country certainly changed colour, with signs that it rained over here. The elevation height 1152 mts.
On the way down the range we did a couple of walks into the waterfall & gorges. The first was the Aspley Falls which were non existent.

No, we did not do the walk down these steps as I would have never got back up.
We had a cuppa there and were joined immediately by this Currawong.

This water is top side of the falls but that is as far as it goes.

These were the only wild life we saw on the walks.

These falls did have some water!

We did not do the 5k. The walk we were on was sealed the first few meters then gravel with “ups and downs”. Only bird calls were obviously small birds but could not see them.

Da enjoying the view .

Continuing on down the range around hairpin bends which I took some photos showing them on the Navman

We were going to go as far as Ellenborough rest area but had lunch at the Stockyard Creek area & decided to stay there for the night. Right beside the road but traffic noise does not worry us. The noise from birds, which we could not see, was unbelievable. I am thinking they might have been Bellbirds.The noise stopped very suddenly about 4.30.
The only others we saw were couple of parrots and some Fairy Wrens .

5.4.12
Very quiet night with nobody else stopped and no traffic.Heater on about 5am as rather cool. There are composting loos here and reasonably clean.
Tried to get some photos coming down the range but not easy.

Continued on down the range, passing through Ellenborough and Wauchope at which we did not stop and have a wander as here many years ago.

We were soon into Port Macquarie for 5 nights. As we had already been here before we did not do the “touristy” things. Reason we did this big detour on our trip was to give daughter Sally support on her first Ironman competition.
Booked into our motel, a rather old one , with only about 20 van sites as most are now cabins.

The sunset from the motel room door and dinner with Sally & girls as well Kate & Andrew & boys. Good friends of Sally and Andrew is doing the Ironman once again.
Saturday was a reasonably quiet day with Mitchell Trent & Sophie also arriving to give Sally support. The cousins, especially the 3 girls, also enjoyed each others company as they do not get together too often.

One dolphin way in the distance.
Had to go shopping to buy Bruce some jeans as yours truly had somehow forgotten to pack his. He said he could wear his farming ones he always packs in case of work being needed on car or van but that was not happening.
The next 3 days were to be rather long & tiring , especially Sunday where we were at Sally & the girl’s motel room at 6.15am to watch her enter the water for the first leg which was 3.8km.

7.4.13

There were over 2000 contestants a few well into their 60s.
Next leg was the 180k bike ride!

Phone photo and not the best but mounting her bike

Smile & wave at 90k mark.
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End of 180k then heading out for marathon length run, 42k.

The next just over 5 hours was waiting at motel for she & Andrew to come past on their final circuit before the finish line.

There were literally thousands of spectators at the finish line, which was kept open to 12mn, the cutoff time to finish the full course. We were sitting having a champers at the motel & they were still running past at 11.30pm. Determination! 7.30am to 11.30pm .

From memory she finished about 9.30pm.

The loud music, the banging on the barriers, the yelling was soooooooooo loud- Bruce had his ears turned right down which I would have loved. There was even a proposal just before the finish line! The poor announcer, an American, must have had a sore throat next day as he called out eg “Sally you are an Ironman” as all of the over 2000 contestants crossed the line. As well a how many they had done.

As they go through the finish line they are asked if they want medical aid or food but she said she was just wanted to sit & have some food. They do get soup, sandwiches, fruit, drinks at comfort stops along the way if they want it but they all take something with them. Bananas, energy snacks etc. We crawled into bed about 12mn with hot water bottle to back & heat beads to other parts!
Monday Bruce & I both had very sore feet & I had muscles aching I did not know I had!
Tuesday I did washing, house work & Bruce washed the car & packed up to leave Wednesday.
All about ironman and sorry if I have bored you in my travel blog but we are rather proud of our 44 year old baby.

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