Bathurst - Broken Hill (via Forbes, Dubbo and Cobar) ~ 18th July - 23rd July 2010

The day of the wedding was beautiful and we loved celebrating with John and Kate. All Saints Chapel was quaint and romantic and Tonic Restaurant for the reception was superb!! Great food, wine and company - great to catch up with Macca and Nicole......

The next morning saw a chilly pack up and another farewell to the family - for the long term now!! 6 months without seeing them really is a long time!! We headed off for lunch in Forbes. Zali, Ella and I had been there last year with Nan and Pop, but Peter had never been. A quick lunch by Lake Forbes and then an attempted visit of some old friends (they had popped out for some lunch) took us back to the town where I was born nearly 35 years ago. The farm where mum and dad worked back then is now an orange juice farm (on the banks of the Lachlan River). There was no time for a trip out towards West Wyalong to show Pete this part of my early life, as we needed to be in Dubbo before sunset.

As we left Forbes, we pointed out the 'dish' to the kids in the distance, but the call of the DVD screen has much more pull than us (and is also our saving grace on long legs of the trip). We arrived in Dubbo at about 4.00pm for set up and a play on the jumping pillow, swings and a feel of the pool. So glad the heated pool was not a goer, as it was far too cold for me!!

Monday, 19th July saw us head to the zoo for the afternoon. No bike riding this time (took far too long to recover certain parts last time), so we hired a golf cart and headed off to explore the open air zoo. So lovely to be at the zoo when it wasn't busy as we could explore at our own pace and desire. Zali and Ella are also a great age to take in all the information around the exhibits and are still talking about the cheetah being the fastest 4 legged animal on land and that an elephant has 40 000 muscles in their trunk. A highlight of the day was watching the Galapagos tortoises being fed their fruit and veg meal of the week. Amazing how quickly they eat considering they don't have any teeth!!

Following on from Dubbo, we headed out to Cobar for the night. As we left town we saw the saddest of sights as a family stood outside and watched their house burning down as the fire brigade tried their hardest to save it. The reality of winter, I suppose..... Much debate in the car about which DVD to watch (Ella is not into Dora, Diego and Barbie and Zali just can't understand why not!!). Eventually a decision was made to share the time and this brought some happiness to the back seat. The fields on the way out west are magnificent - so green and full of feed for the animals on the farms. We arrived in Cobar just after lunch and again did the caravan set up - we are getting quicker!! As we were only staying one night, we only did a basic inside setup and the kids sat and completed their school work. We were all guns blazing until a little boy, Lachlan, hunted out the only other kids in the caravan park and was our nemesis (along with his little sister) for the next few hours. Some parents are obviously more adept to let their kids wander and sit in caravans of people they do not know!! An afternoon drive around the town - much more pleasant than I had expected - saw us finish up at the lookout on the east side of the town. An amazing view of the open cut mine below was worth the drive. The old buildings are also beautiful to see. No TV for the night, so we got out the dominoes and had some games. It wasn't too long before we realised Zali is a dominoes queen - and very proud of her efforts!! Ella was a little speechless that we were all getting beaten by a 3 year old..... revenge is on its' way over the next few months!!

An earlyish pack up and departure saw us on the 460km drive to Broken Hill, via Wilcannia. We had been given so many warnings about being careful in this part of the world, but the local Aboriginal people were beautiful. Not sure if it was because we had Ella with us, but they went out of their way to make sure we could find what we were looking for and to make sure we got what we wanted. We paid the most yet for fuel - 159c/L - necessary to continue the dead straight roads we were driving along. 5km out of Broken Hill, we had to ditch all the fruit and veg we had on board (this surprised me as I thought we would only have to do this as we crossed state/territory borders). After setting up (and a blow up from me about parking the bloody van straight, so Peter took over and he did a good job - surprised me!!) our nemeses from Cobar - Lachlan and Charlize - managed to track the kids down again. This was our cue to go and start the site seeing straight away!! So off we went around town - first to the Information Bureau to get some hints. We trekked up the hill to the Miners' Rememberance Wall and Lookout (so sad that so many have died and some so young as 14). The view of the town was amazing. After some chilly time up at the centre, we started planning all we could fit in tomorrow - mainly Silverton and RFDS. I am very disappointed that the School of the Air is shut til next week, but not so disappointing is that BHP shares rallied 1% the day we entered town......