Dubbo

Monday, 17th June

Morning mist over Lake Talbot 

A chilly sunrise 

Every town in Central NSW seems to have a war plane 

Here duck, duck, duck 

Just as well we don't want to put out the awning!

We now know that yesterday morning was not cold – this morning was COLD! The overnight frost was topped off with thick, bone chilling fog. Cat stayed wrapped up in his snuggle blanket until lunch time and is still refusing to remove his scarf. The night was definitely a No 2 setting on the electric blanket for one and beanie for the other! The fog lasted until nearly 10.00 am, which made for some rather slow driving; fortunately there wasn’t a great deal of traffic on the Newell Highway.

We had a short stop (and a brisk walk to the local bakery for fresh bread) at West Wyalong, before continuing through similar country to yesterday, until we arrived at Forbes. As the sun was now shining and there was a very nice park beside the river, we decided to have our lunch break here. We found a nice park bench overlooking the water, parked beside it and soon had some friendly ducks offering to share our lunch.
Our afternoon drive was much the same as the morning’s, apart from the fog and a bit more traffic. We are staying overnight at the Big4 Dubbo Parklands Caravan Park and once again, we seem to have just beaten the rush hour of arriving tourists. This is a very nice park, quite close to the Western Plains Zoo, and security is taken very seriously. Today the jacks were been put down when we set up; much better than having to put them down at 7.00 pm when one of us starts to get seasick from the rocking motion of the caravan!

We didn’t see any native wildlife today, except for plenty of birds – lots of choughs, small parrots and the every present galahs. There are some very pretty parrots here in the caravan park and it sounds as though the white cockatoos have followed us from Tocumwal – hopefully Rambo didn’t come with them!