16 November 2008 - Rain, mostquitoes and lots of driving!!

11th November

We awoke to the sound of heavy rain, the weather was really starting to grate on us as we are unable to do much with out staying wet for a long time afterwards! We sat in the van to eat breakfast and drink out tea and promptly left hoping to find blue skys else where!! We stopped at the town of Armidale to do our food shopping then drove a couple more hours to the town of Scone, where we found a caravan park to stay in as we needed to shower and wash some clothes.

12th November

I managed to sleep in till almost 8am, Sarah was already awake as usual, dan and I were feeling rather bad as she had only had 1 good nights sleep since being on the road. The weather this morning wasn’t looking great but thankfully it hadn’t rained through the night, as not only had Sarah’s tent leaked the night before we had put our washing out to dry, so we needed them to dry before heading off..

After a shower and breakfast the sun came out, by 10am we were ready to leave, I offered to do the first driving stint, so we drove toward the hunter valley having planned to stop at a vinery on way. We ended up skipping the winery as we would have had to have taken a detour to get there so instead we pushed on with the driving. That afternoon we stopped at a layby I the valley tp prepare lunch, we decided to have our main dinner now as the meat may not last any longer in the heat. Today is the first day we have experienced the Australian fly’s, they were everywhere, not only on the food but also around our faces. In the end we had to eat our food in the van as it was unbearable!

That evening we stopped at a free rest stop in Biplin, a small town on a tourist drive called the bells line of road, the mosquitoes were rife here and we ended up taking shelter in the van as Sarah in particular has so far been attacked the most.