29 November 2013 - Mother of Ducks Lagoon, Guyra, New England Highway, New South Wales

I should have known it was tempting fate to wax lyrical about the summer-like conditions; I was woken to the sound of rain during the night and got up to shut the roof vents left wide open to the skies. By the time we woke again this morning, the rain was steady and it was tempting to suggest we stay put and sit it out. However I went on line to check weather forecasts and that for Armidale about 170 kilometres north suggested that there would only be intermittent showers by midday, so we pulled the caravan legs up and set off along the road toward Tamworth.

This part of the country really is lovely, travelled in this direction or the other, although I was more appreciative of the countryside as we entered Tamworth from the south than I had been when last here. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact we were more intent on finding an overnight free camp after spending the day in Tamworth hunting out ancestors and their pursuits.

Today we did not even bother going right into the city, but took the by-pass and were soon heading toward that dreaded hill. This turned out to be quite a let-down and all I can say is that we must have become very blaze about towing over the intervening years and months, because when we got to the top, Chris asked me how far I thought we were away from those “really steep climbs”.

Uralla lies seventy kilometres to the north east of Tamworth, sitting up at 1,000 metres ASL. Here we checked unsuccessfully for a newsagency, still not having been able to source our favourite daily. Now you with your iPads and iPods and other fancy iThingies may wonder why we dinosaurs don’t simply get the newspaper digitally, however this is of no use at all when you are in places that have no internet reception. There will come a time when we are more anchored then this will be a less frustrating exercise, but in the meantime, the-seeking-of-the-daily-newspaper remains one of our chores for each day.

Further north we detoured off the highway into Armadale, Australia’s highest city and a city chocker full of universities and private colleges. We filled the diesel tanks and bought that dratted newspaper, before heading on our way again. All these wonderful places have been explored before and must be left for the third visit, if ever, to be re-explored. For now, this is simply a way of getting ourselves back up to Queensland.

Guyra is only about twenty five kilometres north again, the highest settlement on the New England Highway at 1,330 metres ASL and with this charming little lagoon where travellers can overnight for free. It was a little after midday when we arrived; we ate lunch and decided to settle in for the day. While the skies are a little brighter, the rain could continue for some time yet. If it does pause for more than a couple of minutes, we just might put our coats on and wander up to the CBD, all half dozen shops or so. We might even find that there is more to Guyra than meets the eye.