We are now safely tucked away at the Scarborough Holiday Village park (Redcliffe, Queensland) and will be here until the end of Jan or maybe even mid Feb; so I thought It would get the last of the updates for 2009 done before 2010 gets here.
Both Linda & I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and do have a fantastic New Year; we wish you, your family and friends all the best for 2010. Stay well and drive safely over the festive period (look out for the lunatics).
TAMWORTH
After leaving Forster we headed down to Raymond Terrace to pick up the New England Hwy to catch up with friends at Branxton (near Singleton); stayed on there property for a couple of nights before heading up to Tamworth.
We stayed at the Paradise Tourist Park ($29 p/n); this is a Big 4 which we are not normally keen at staying at but the park was in a good location to town and we were only staying for a few nights (ended up 4 in total). The park is divided into 2 areas but it does not matter which one you end up in; amenities were good and well maintained and the overall maintenance and cleanliness of the park was very good. Sites were a mix of slab and grass but with a large van the grass sites would be the pick with plenty of room to move; they did have some shady sites but as always my opinion is stay clear of trees; bats, bird shit, sap, leaves, seeds, twigs, branches falling on the van does not make up for the shade (up to you). The park does have a pool, & BBQ’s, a little disappointed of them charging $1 for 20 min cooking time on the BBQ’s (penny pinching in my opinion), being a Big 4 no dogs allowed but there are a few parks in the Tamworth area that allow pets.
Tamworth is a good place to visit and if you were going during the country music festival (mid Jan) it would be a blast; it is not my cup of tea as it is more a very busy regional centre rather than a country town and very commercialised. Don’t get me wrong, it is just the population of 40’000 leans it to just another place to look at shops. We seem to enjoy ourselves more in the smaller towns of say 10’000 or less, they are certainly more friendly and “Major Retailer” free apart from maybe a Woolies, IGA or Coles.
Our site at the Paradise Tourist Park (no trees for us).
The Golden Guitar; thats me with the training bra and money belt.
Chad may have had the biggest teeth but was no competition for the biggest ……………………NOSE (what else did you expect).
Part of the walk in Tamworth of the bronze statues; the kookaburra did not seem to care who’s hat he shit on!
BINGARA
After Tamworth we headed up the “Fosikers Way”; this is classed as Nundle, Tamworth, Manilla, Barraba, Bingara, Warialda, Inverell & Glen Innis. Our first stop after Tamworth was Bingara; the main reasons we did not stop before then was the bush fires and the extreme temperatures. We stayed overnight at the council park in Bingara ($20), it was 43 deg C. The park had good amenities and they were clean; we were told it was only $8 a night but council bumped it to $20 just recently (only what I was told).
The Roxy cinema in Bingara; tours cost $3 and well worth a look at the old cinema complex, we could not go on the tour owing to a catered function being set up but thanks to the staff taking us inside we did get a couple of pictures.
Inside the Roxy; brings back some memories of how it used to be.
INVERELL
What a great place this is for a relaxed break from the travelling; so much so we started here paying for 3 nights but ended up staying 2 weeks. The population here is just under that magical 10k and it is somewhere that will be on the repeat visit list.
As I always do the park review comes first; the park is called the “Inverell Caravan Park” and is closest to the town centre, it is owned by a fairly young couple who purchased it from council some several years ago. The work put in here by the owners should be highly commended as it is hard to fault. Amenities are first class and are spot cleaned throughout the day. The slabs as shown take you van and awning; we have our van on the slab with legs down plus the awning out and we are on a one complete slab. The park only has tourist sites along with the usual holiday accommodation cabins; the mix is 60% slab, 40% grass and all have plenty of room. The park is pet friendly, has a salt water pool; rates are $25p/n or $150 p/wk.
We are the van in the centre of the picture; note the size of the slabs in the foreground
Copeton Dam is 30km from Inverell; the catchment area is 5360 square km and has a submerged area of 4600 hectares, when full it holds 3 times the volume of Sydney Harbour. You can drive over the dam wall and continuing for another 3km will bring you to Copeton Waters State Park, not sure what the camping fees are but once paid it includes the use of a camp kitchen, BBQ’s, 9 hole golf course, adventure playgrounds and floodlit tennis courts. Boat hire is also available (or take your own).
One of the days whilst at Inverell we headed down to Tingha (25km from Inverell) and above is the Tingha post office; all of the businesses here had wire security screens, the ones at the post office looked like they had been made out of reo. Tingha was involved in tin mining and was mostly mined by the Chinese which kept the town thriving in its early years. The town has a population of around 900 so only a pub, general store and newsagency plus a servo here.
The above is typical of the houses and landscape with exposed rocks everywhere from the old tin mining days.
The above is a picture taken from the lookout at Inverell over the town.
TENTERFIELD
Stayed at the Tenterfield showgrounds overnight; fee was $16 and the amenities were okay, nothing flash but at least clean with soap & paper hand towels. Plenty of power and water points available but if you get in late you may end up on the more uneven parts of the ground and need to level up. The town has just been graced with a target country and a Bi-Lo and has a good array of the small country town stores; having a population of approximately 7000 makes it big enough to warrant some larger stores (like the Bi-Lo and Taget) but keeps it very sociable and friendly.
Above is where we set up; we did stay hooked up as town was only a 500m walk away.
Above is the Tenterfield Saddler; the song written by Peter Allen was about his Grandfather (George Woolnough) who was the Tenterfield Saddler for 52 years. The building dates back to the 1860’s.
Above is the oldest cork tree in Australia; it was brought over from England and planted in 1861, the thick trunk and branches are covered in a thick textured cork.
Above is St Stephens Presbyterian Church; this church was the venue for the marriage of Australian poet A. B (Banjo) Paterson to Miss Alice Walker.
We were told of the butcher in Tenterfield (above) which sits opposite the Tenterfield Saddler; the meat sold here is all local and the various flavoured sausages are well worth a try. We bought several different cuts of beef, pork, lamb etc and all so far has been first class. Typical of an old butchery the meat is all wrapped and packaged into the old style brown paper butcher bags. Tenterfield is well worth a few more days than we had and there is lots to see and the history goes well back to the mid 1800’s.
Well that is it for 2009; we are hoping to get further afield in 2010, it has been a mixed year with my Dad’s health but overall not too bad considering. Linda & I hope you enjoyed the Blog this year and follow the updates we do next year.
Have a great New Year and stay safe on the roads; looking forward to seeing you somewhere on the road in 2010.
Will post again soon – The DavLin Rig – David & Linda
