Day 16 saw us arrive in Coonabarrabran.

This was originally intended as a stopover between the Dubbo-to-Tamworth part of the trip, and we were looking at another guided tour of the nightsky. However, Mazzy was still thawing out from the Dubbo Observatory experience so a second stargazing session was a non-starter.

But to be honest, it didn’t matter. Coonabarrabran, like so many of these remote little towns was a welcome gem for all of us. The caravan park was pretty old, but it was immaculate and spacious. We even got to pick our own site, where we opted for one óut the back’, surrounded by the gum trees and not much else.

What Coonabarrabran also showed us, was that we needed a break, and being set amongst such a tranquil settling literally set us off to sleep. I think I grabbed a well-earned snooze, Jimi read a book with Bindi and Mazzy did Mazzy-things. It wasan immaculate, cloudless day, temeratures somewhere round twenty degrees. Not such a bad life is it!

Day 17 came round and it was time to go.

We were now moving onto Tamworth, but first of all we were going to see some of the Warrumbungles. We didn’t have a huge amount of time but we picked out the Whitegum Lookout as somethng worth checking out.

Well, so far this trip has thrown up plenty of surprises and the Warrumbungles were another one. They were spectacular to say the least but very non-touristy.

After another batch of mountain-driving we were there, and in awe of the scenery.

Actually, at one point on the way we stopped the van on the side of the road and starting taking loads of photos.

Australia’s backroads, amazing weather and out of the blue appears the Warrumbungles. It was only an hour or two walking round but if left an impression on all of us.

And that ladies and gentlemen was the Warrumbungles.

Unfortunately it was time to move on. It would have been great to have spent a day or two here, so its another one for the to-do list.

Our next stop was Tamworth and same old, same old, amazing and unexpected scenery on the way as we were unaware just how scenic Tamworth’s environment is. I’ll drop that into another post so stay tuned.