We were very excited to welcome our first visitor from England this week. Robin flew in on Wednesday having spent a couple of days with Zoe and we were keen to show off our lovely neighbourhood to him.
The koalas at the Habitat decided to go into hiding but good old Ella was in her tree as usual so the koala box was ticked and the next challenge was to try and find some whales. This is not the best time for whale watching as the humpbacks have nearly all passed by on their migration north and very few have started the return journey with their calves. Clearly nobody had told the whales this because we went out  with our favourite whale cruise operator Imagine Cruises and, after a bit of desperate searching, we saw about six and were even treated to one leaping right out of the water at bang on four o'clock. The whale watchers call it 'breach o'clock' because this is when they jump, goodness only knows why.
Robin was very lucky with the weather and Friday dawned bright and sunny again as we drove inland to the historic country town of Wollombi. The town was a staging post on the Great North Road, built between 1827 and 1834 to link Sydney with the Hunter region. Up to five hundred convicts worked on it at a time in gangs of fifty and remnants of the convict roadwork can be seen today like the bridge in the photo. The road was never used as much as anticipated because steam ships started to transport people and goods to Newcastle instead.
Wollombi is typical of a town which would once have been home to far more residents than it is today. The usual General Store stands in the middle of the main street and the old court house is now home to a museum with a tiny police station hiding behind. There were a couple of other shops but they did not seem to be expecting much custom and one shopkeeper had popped a note on the door and gone off to do something more interesting. 
The last building in town was the pub which allows free camping in its garden on the banks of a creek, it looked like a jolly nice spot and we are planning to go back for a few days with the caravan and explore the area further.
We drove a little further to look at remaining bits of convict built road and passed a field with wallabies grazing (wallabies - tick). On the way home we spotted some kangaroos (tick) and a dead wombat, I'm not sure if that counts.