I could equally have entitled this post 'How to Miss Every Major Milestone Including Two Big Guitars and One Enormous Radio Telescope' or even 'How to Come as Close to Running out of Petrol as I Ever Want to Come'. But more about all of that in a minute...We had decided not to head back south the way we had come as (a) we fancied a bit of variety and (b) we had only three days to make it to Echuca and needed the most direct route and (c) we hadn't seen a single (live) kangaroo since leaving Geelong and knew that we could remedy that inland.
We drove down the coast as far as Ballina then headed inland along the Bruxner Highway as far as Glen Innes - remember, the one in competition with Maclean for the 'We're more Scottish than you are prize? Well, I can state for the record that Glen Innes has no tartan lamposts, and although it is surrounded by towns called Dundee, Glencoe and Ben Lomond, it's also surrounded by towns called Llangothlin, Bolivia and Wandsworth, and a miniature Stonehenge. So not more Scottish than Maclean then, just a bit confused....We then headed south on the New England Highway as far as Armidale - our planned stop for the night (and, I can advise, a WHOLE lot prettier than the Scottish Armadale...) this is when the roads got really straight... We could see for miles and were bound to see a kangaroo soon! Or not, as it turned out - got to Armidale with barely sight of another car, let alone wildlife , and parked up for the night. Armidale was really stunning, though we only saw it on the way out the next morning - Nick was joking around saying 'I bet they don't need any Orthopaedic surgeons here, just as we passed the sign saying 'University Hospital...' One to bear in mind for the future maybe!
So we headed off early towards Tamworth, Country Music Capital of Australia - planning to see another 'Big' on the list - the Big Golden Guitar. I mean, you couldn't miss it, right? Well, except of course if you were going through Tamworth during the annual Country Music Festival, and consequently were siphoned around the closed-off centre of town and saw only a couple of supermarkets, petrol stations and overpasses. Ah well, never mind - we'll be passing another Big Guitar later...
Joined the Newell Highway at Coonabarabran and kept heading south aiming for Forbes and planning to pass the big Radio Telescope at Parkes on the way - that would make up for the pesky guitar!
Passed through some very empty, desolate looking country on the way - and a great rain storm - and no bloody kangaroos either!! Had 160km of petrol left in the tank after leaving Dubbo (which is, incidentally, the best thing to do to Dubbo) and desided to push on to Parkes 120km away... Briefly considered getting fuel a couple of places outside of Dubbo, but the strains of Deliverance were too strong in our heads.... and then, we discovered that the concept of diustance left in a tank of fuel is somewhat elastic.....
As we neared the Radio Telescope turn off, we had 'lost' 25km worth of fuel somewhere and had only 35km left in the tank - it was 20km to Parkes, and 5km down to the telescope and 5 back.... so after a quick bit of mental arithmetic, we did a quick swerve away from the turn off and kept going.
Nevertheless, 20km on 35km worth of fuel? Not hugely worried yet, except, that is, until, we got stuck behind a slow moving truck on a twisty, uphill stretch of road.... and watched the fuel gauge go down 4 k's at a time.... 12 km to go, 16 km in the tank, 11 km to go, 12km in the tank, 10 km and 8, 9 km and 4... and by the time we had 8 km to go, the fuel gage read zero. Pretty stressed, but still, to be honest, I was thinking we would probably make it - don't cars always have a bit in reserve?? And then we started struggling up a long hill... there was NO fuel... Had visions of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with four hot and cranky children waiting for the next (a) helpful trucker, (b) NRMA patrol or (c) psycho axe murderer to come along. Don't know how Nick coaxed the van to the top of that hill, but he did, and then, like an oasis in the desert, we saw a petrol station about 500 yards down the hill. We had so little fuel we actually had to COAST in.... Not an experience I ever want to repeat!
Spent that night in Forbes about 30 km further down the road and left early again the next morning to set off for Echuca - stopped for Breakfast in Narrandera where (in theory) we should have seen another Big Guitar - but it was hot, we got sidetracked, and we photographed the 'Big Bum Trees' instead (my children named them...)
Kept driving through some increasingly windy conditions, and every truck that went by in the other direction nearly blew us off the road, and we could see a dusty looking horizon - but nothing prepared us for the dust storm we ran into after Jerilderie!
Not a driving experience I think Nick will ever want to repeat - as it turned out, a fairly unusual occurrence, but we didn't know that when we were driving - we wondered if it was always like that! Got to Echuca and everything was covered in dust - had to just sit in the van and wait for it to stop blowing... And yes, we still hadn't seen a single kangaroo!
So we headed off early towards Tamworth, Country Music Capital of Australia - planning to see another 'Big' on the list - the Big Golden Guitar. I mean, you couldn't miss it, right? Well, except of course if you were going through Tamworth during the annual Country Music Festival, and consequently were siphoned around the closed-off centre of town and saw only a couple of supermarkets, petrol stations and overpasses. Ah well, never mind - we'll be passing another Big Guitar later...Joined the Newell Highway at Coonabarabran and kept heading south aiming for Forbes and planning to pass the big Radio Telescope at Parkes on the way - that would make up for the pesky guitar!
Passed through some very empty, desolate looking country on the way - and a great rain storm - and no bloody kangaroos either!! Had 160km of petrol left in the tank after leaving Dubbo (which is, incidentally, the best thing to do to Dubbo) and desided to push on to Parkes 120km away... Briefly considered getting fuel a couple of places outside of Dubbo, but the strains of Deliverance were too strong in our heads.... and then, we discovered that the concept of diustance left in a tank of fuel is somewhat elastic.....As we neared the Radio Telescope turn off, we had 'lost' 25km worth of fuel somewhere and had only 35km left in the tank - it was 20km to Parkes, and 5km down to the telescope and 5 back.... so after a quick bit of mental arithmetic, we did a quick swerve away from the turn off and kept going.
Nevertheless, 20km on 35km worth of fuel? Not hugely worried yet, except, that is, until, we got stuck behind a slow moving truck on a twisty, uphill stretch of road.... and watched the fuel gauge go down 4 k's at a time.... 12 km to go, 16 km in the tank, 11 km to go, 12km in the tank, 10 km and 8, 9 km and 4... and by the time we had 8 km to go, the fuel gage read zero. Pretty stressed, but still, to be honest, I was thinking we would probably make it - don't cars always have a bit in reserve?? And then we started struggling up a long hill... there was NO fuel... Had visions of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with four hot and cranky children waiting for the next (a) helpful trucker, (b) NRMA patrol or (c) psycho axe murderer to come along. Don't know how Nick coaxed the van to the top of that hill, but he did, and then, like an oasis in the desert, we saw a petrol station about 500 yards down the hill. We had so little fuel we actually had to COAST in.... Not an experience I ever want to repeat!
Spent that night in Forbes about 30 km further down the road and left early again the next morning to set off for Echuca - stopped for Breakfast in Narrandera where (in theory) we should have seen another Big Guitar - but it was hot, we got sidetracked, and we photographed the 'Big Bum Trees' instead (my children named them...)Kept driving through some increasingly windy conditions, and every truck that went by in the other direction nearly blew us off the road, and we could see a dusty looking horizon - but nothing prepared us for the dust storm we ran into after Jerilderie!
Not a driving experience I think Nick will ever want to repeat - as it turned out, a fairly unusual occurrence, but we didn't know that when we were driving - we wondered if it was always like that! Got to Echuca and everything was covered in dust - had to just sit in the van and wait for it to stop blowing... And yes, we still hadn't seen a single kangaroo!
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