Friday 25th July 2014 – Inverell to Moree – Fine & Sunny

We left the motel and headed to the Brake Repair Centre for 9am to have the trailer looked at.  Harry was very thorough and checked everything.  We have backed off the electric brake controller to allow the left hand shoes to bed in.  We had a brunch at McDonalds, refuelled and headed off for Moree.

The roads became longer and straighter and with the appearance of the cyprus pines we knew that we were on the north west tablelands.  A lot of fields have been ploughed for the spring rains and there are a lot of green fields due to the recent rain.  We went through a couple of little towns on the highway, Delungra and Gravesend.

We are staying at the Girraween Carapark which have their own artesian pools.  We unpacked and headed to the pools for a soak.  My first thought on entering was that it certainly wasn’t the fountain of youth! The pools were crowded with pensioners, yes oldies just like us, well maybe older as there was a lot of white hair.  There were a couple of young teens holidaying with their mum, grandma and great grandma, I told them “Go, save yourselves”, look what this water is doing to them, they looked like you yesterday!. Hopefully I didn’t soak for too long…..

There are 5 pools all different temperatures -  34c   35c  37c  39c and the cold one.

The park is very popular because you can use the pools as often as you like without charge.  The Artesian Spa in town is $10 per entry.

Tomorrow we have a full day’s drive to Thrushton National Park.  We will travel north and cross the border a Mungindi which is the only town in the southern hemisphere where the town straddles a border and the town name is the same on both sides of the border.  It is the first time that we have crossed from NSW/Qld at this crossing.  We will head to St George and then west to Thrushton  We are booked there for 3 nights.  Thrushton is unusual as  you can find both eastern and western species of birds which are at the edge of their range. Time to put my camera to work.  Tuesday will see us on the road again for another full day’s drive to Charleville.