On the road again

Today we were meant to be going to Broken Hill, but then we changed our minds and decided to go to Wilcannia which meant we had 196km less of a drive today.   Then we heard Wilcannia was a bit unsafe so we decided to go all the way again.  Of course then we arrived in Cobar and thought hey this is nice why not stay here.  So needless to say we really had no idea where we are going to end up today, just the direction we were heading.  That is the best thing about this trip, it is totally open to change if we desire.

So Hamish doesn’t spend his whole trip watching the DVD player we also play some games in the car, draw pictures and he has his nap (on the big driving days).  It is certainly interesting playing eye spy with him.  Jason can’t get over how good I am at guessing what Hamish sees.  Everything today started with the letter ‘Z’, and apparently there was a Zebra, Dragon and Dinosaur.  I bet that makes everyone want to do the drive from Bourke to Cobar now.

We arrived in Cobar (160km south of Bourke) for morning tea.  Things weren’t boarded up like Bourke and the playground, well Hamish did not want to leave it.  He just ran from one slide to another going “oh wow”.  Okay it wasn’t anything too fancy but after going from nothing it was a sight for his poor little eyes.

Unfortunately I dropped the thermos and broke it – well shattered the inside (who knew one could do that). Luckily we were heading down the main street for a walk and there was a little gift shop open. Inside Jason found a new thermos, Hamish a toy car, and me some amber bead anklet for Kayla. So everyone was happy. Jason especially as apparently the thermos is unbreakable -–it is like he has given me a challenge J.

We visited the information centre and were told about an open cut gold mine (well the pit anyway) outside town with a viewing platform. So off we toddled and checked it out. Hamish got to see a big truck come out and up the side. Kayla was getting tired so we decided to take advantage of the fact she would have a nap for a while so decided to continue on along the highway to Wilcannia. Mind you this is no small drive ahead of us –only 250km to the Wilcannia. We are now 80km in and Kayla has woken up and Hamish has crashed

 

Hamish checking out the open mine pitt.

 

Jason and Kayla

There are a few free camp spots along this road and we are hoping if we can make it to the other side of Wilcannia it would be ideal, but realistically if we get half way we will be happy.  Every kilometre down today is one less we have to do tomorrow.  I even drove the car with the van attached for the first time today.  I was most proud of myself and it wasn’t too different or hard like I thought it would be.  Mind you when we got to Wilcannia I just pulled over in the easiest spot as there was no way I was going to attempt driving into the fuel station on my first go.  I could see us then making the news for this van taking out a fuel station pump!

Rest stop that had a playground and a few other vans already pulled up so decided to quit while we were ahead.  Mind you there were about 5 other vans already there and we were wondering why no one was sitting outside and being sociable.  Well when we stepped out of the car we worked out why.  The locals (flies) are extremely friendly.  Setup didn’t take long at all as we just got out the essentials and then had a chat to some of the other people set up.  That is one thing about being on the road, everyone is so friendly.

In Hamish's eyes you can't get any better of a site.

 

All set up for the night.

Something seems to have affected the connection point for the power to the lights so whilst the bottom half of the van worked fine on the battery, none of the lights worked on the roof.    We will have to get that looked at when we get to Broken Hill tomorrow.  It wasn’t really a big issue though as we could cook dinner, watch a movie and we still had light as Jason moved his lighting strip from outside to the inside.

I know we are only four days into our trip, but I really feel this time is bringing us even closer as a family.  Hamish and I watched Tangled together last night and at the end we got up and danced together to the music.  There isn’t a lot of room in our van, so it must have looked so awkward to the flies who managed to sneak into the van, but it was a moment when I thought  how truly blessed I am to have such a great family.

I thought I would end today with a quote I saw at the shop today.

‘People who are rich have a lot of money; they just make the most of what they have’.