Realising last night that we didn't have enough milk for breakfast, we decided to leave early and have breakfast on the road. The big kids are becoming more and more involved in setup and pack up of the van on this trip so it took about an hour from waking up to leaving as we stood back and let them attempt the whole process. More steep climbs and descents as we made our way towards Walcha. In one section they were doing guardrail work so we were stopped by a traffic controller on the uphill. Had we been in the old car, I wonder if we would have been able to start again! So glad we bought this car.
After descending from the mountains we passed beautifully green undulating farmlands with new lambs and calves sprinkling the flocks and herds all the way to Walcha where we stopped for a bite to eat. The mountainous passage through from Bretti had taken longer than originally anticipated so our breakfast had turned into brunch. We had originally stopped at a park right in town but it had no BBQs (or cache) so I suggested we move to another park a little further along and cook some snags (but didn't mention the new park did have a cache). At the new park, everyone decided just to have sandwiches anyway so we could have stayed at the original park (but I'm glad we didn't). After eating, playing and caching we jumped back in the car for the last leg through to Armidale.
Our arrival in the early afternoon into Armidale allowed us to set up the van, let the girls have a dip in the pool and then head off to explore the town. I decided the best way to explore was to find a couple of caches. One took us to St Peter's Cathedral
and by default, the even more stunning catholic cathedral further along the block.
The other took us to one of the many large parks in Armidale and a historic wool wagon. We had booked to go on the Armidale Heritage Tour the next morning so just finished with a general drive through the town and back to the caravan park.
The kids went to explore the park and discovered a number of recreational activities were available. Emily wanted to have a go at mini golf so she and Tim went off with their hired equipment for a game. Tim returned to the van after a while to offer his club and ball to me. Apparently he had had enough of chasing his ball in the bushes! I had a lovely game with Emily. There was much hilarity as we attempted again and again to persuade the ball to go through the small tunnels. Another swim followed mini golf before we called it a day for dinner and bed.
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