Today’s trot was to be a little
longer than usual...Mendooran to Moree....291 kilometres.
An early start was on our agenda, and as the rising sun cast long shadows over our still sleeping fellow campers, we were again ‘on the road’.
The Mendooran Road took us out through the misty and undulating grazing countryside,
for 55 kms until we again joined a major highway, this time the Newell, where we turned right for Coonabarabran (as I’ve said before...easy for you to say...try spelling it correctly!)
This was old ground for us, as all you avid readers
will be only too aware. We have travelled the Newell from one end to the other
on more than one occasion, and in late September last year we achieved an
ambition we had held for some time....we actually stayed here for a few days at
the John Oxley park.
But too many words without pictures is dull reading, and this was to be a long day. So for this once, I’ll break with tradition and include shots of previously covered ground, such as this
and this, the main street, which was more than familiar ground.
With a nonchalance bred of familiarity we negotiated the rather tight roundabout at the clock tower
and made our way out to the undulating section of the highway beyond the town
to the junction which would be our next change of course. Here the Newell takes a left hand turn and the continuation of the highway out of town becomes the Oxley Highway (just to confuse everyone).
It’s one thing to know where you are and where you are going...it’s another thing to get there. Now here I must pose a question. Have you ever noticed how a return journey along a rarely used road always seems shorter or quicker than the outbound leg? Believe me, the same applies to long stretches of major highways. We had not travelled between Coonabarabran and Narrabri for some years, and our collective recollection was that this was a bit of a haul, as this highway sign confirmed,
yet today it seemed like no time at all before we had made our way through Narrabri and were heading out past the huge silos
on our way to Moree. The relevant numbers on the distance signs were now rapidly reducing,
and we were again crossing the flat, open, black earth plains with the mountains in the distance which we both remembered well.
We were back in cotton and grain country, where the railway keeps company with the highway for mile after mile with the seemingly drunkenly lurching telegraph poles in close attendance.
This is also large silo country, and even tiny highway towns like Gurley feature massive storage structures.
And in another 35 kms, silos of a different type, and much larger, appeared in front of our windscreen.
We had arrived in Moree.
At the next junction, which was new
to us (a new large vehicle diversion has been built past the town) it was a
left hand turn and into Frome Street,
and the remaining half a kilometre or so to the entrance to the Gwydir Carapark and Thermal Pools complex.....and it is indeed much more than a mere caravan park.
This park is a real tourist operation. A 14 room motel (in which the rooms are of a very high standard we have been told), over 70 cabins and just shy of 150 caravan sites, makes this one of the largest parks in which we have ever stayed. And all this is to cater for the hordes who flock here annually at this time of the year and beyond (many for three months or more) to wallow in the artesian hot pools which are reputed to have wonderful therapeutic properties (?).
We had better check in and get ourselves settled before I take you on a tour. The office is at the end of a very practical, long ‘check-in’ lane.
At the time of our arrival, which was still relatively early, we had this to ourselves, but this was the exception rather than the rule. The movement of tourists in and out of this park is extraordinary, as you can see here. The long arrival lane is here for a reason.
Once we had done the new arrival
business with the redoubtable Karen (a cat lover who just had to hear some of
Max’s travelling tales), I did my obligatory ‘walk-thru’ to check our site and
plan the best approach. Many of our fellow travellers think this is a case of
being over cautious......I have learnt from our own experience, and frequently
from watching others, that the few moments spent doing this can save both angst
and embarrassment later. Apart from these very practical reasons, it gives me a
chance to stretch cramped legs and refocus mentally on the job at hand after concentrating on the road for the
preceding hours.
Here at the Gwydir park I was more than happy with what I found, as I’ll explain later. We were off.....to make a right turn into the first roadway past the office which took us past some of the park cabins
and, on the other side of the roadway, the outdoor eating area associated with the park cafe.
I had been instructed to make a circuit around this area of drive-thru bays (now empty but not for long)
before turning left to travel between these cabins
and out onto a large paved area, which I had found to my astonishment during my walk-thru are actually powered sites.
Off to our right was the entrance to the thermal pools area
and, as I brought the rig around to
the left again, ahead I could see the building which houses one of the park’s
amenities areas and a camp kitchen.
And guess where we were put?....right next to it. How convenient this was,
for more reasons than one. Ours was a wide, reasonably grassy patch, albeit a little uneven (the Waco stand legs ended up on blocks), we had no neighbour on one side, the heads were mere metres away, and the entrance to the pools complex, as you have seen, was no further than 50 metres. Compared to the distance those on the far side of the park had to toddle (or, in many cases, 'waddle') to reach the solace of the hot springs, we were on easy street.
In my next we take a tour around this
very commercial park and see just what it is which attracts so many for so
long.
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