Blue Heelers, Horses & Golden Guitars

Friday the 25th of May... This morning we woke in a start, it was 9:15 and we had to be packed up and off our site by 10... It was all hands on deck as we jumped out of bed and started packing up house.  We packed up the way we unpacked - in the rain.
Almost done - the kids were sent to empty the bins while Richard and I were doing the final check.
We were stopped in our tracks by an elderly lady who had walked across the caravan park to ask us if those three kids were ours. By her tone of voice I was about to disclaim them - when she started crying, telling us how beautiful and well mannered they have been. She gave us several stories filled with emotion before I felt compelled to give her hug while trying to wipe the huge smile off my face... She had made our day.
Next time I won't be so quick to disown them ;-)

All packed up and driving out, half the caravan park had come out to say goodbye so we stopped along the way to wish everyone well in their travels. We drove out taking another look at stunning Shoal Bay and still not knowing where we were headed. There's nothing like leaving things until the last minute.
Map in hand we decided we would head towards Tamworth. Richard and I have always wanted to go there.

Along the way we drove through many country towns including Aberdeen, the home of the Blue Heeler (sorry no pictures of Blue Heelers, Richard wouldn't stop)and Scone, the home of the horse.....

Horses....

Horses....

...everywhere.

before finally arriving in the home of the golden guitar - Tamworth.

We stopped to get the obligatory Golden Guitar photo....

The kids in front of the Golden Guitar

...and then wandered through the country music star wax museum.

Jack & Harry with Lee Kernaghan

Harry, Nina & Jack with Slim

Harry & I with my favourite, Troy Cassar-Daley

We also went into the Don Bradman memorabilia museum which was jam packed with cricket bats, autographed by the legend...

The Don Bradman memorabilia museum

Bats and more bats

We then drive through the town centre, it really wasn't what we were expecting.

Richard and I both expected a quaint historic town with grand pubs on every corner and buskers in the streets, but instead, it was a big country town with very little ambiance.
We decided to continue on,  stopping along the way to take pictures of the beautiful sunset and admire the countryside from a lookout.

The sun sets over the hills

The NSW tablelands

 It was dark when we arrived in the Historic town of Uralla to set up camp for the night.