Winter is now definitely over, the weather seems to switch very suddenly into spring on September 1st and the shorts and t-shirts come back out for another nine months. Australia is unique in my experience in that even on the coldest days (admittedly only about 15C) when we are wearing our warmest coats, there is always someone wandering around wearing a vest (or singlet), shorts and flip flops (or thongs) even sometimes barefoot!
So with the weather renewing our enthusiasm for the outdoor life we decided to head back to Wollombi where we had spotted the free camping when we went there with Robin, our visitor from London.
Free camping is much more popular here than in England for a number of reasons, among them are space available and being able to keep warm without power. We had noticed a couple of people camping behind the pub in Wollombi and, upon asking, found that the toilets are left open 24 hours in return for the campers spending a bit of money in the bar, we thought we could manage that so off we set. 

Wollombi is in the Hunter Valley and only about a 90 minute drive from us, we arrived to find we had the place to ourselves and set up our caravan beside the creek. It was wonderful and we realised we had been wasting quite a bit of money on campsites in the past, they are never much less than $30 a night and we have a pretty comprehensive solar set up on the van and gas cooking equipment so did not miss much at all. The only issue is lack of showers but we have a camping shower so can make do when the weather is warm but that is more of an issue if it is colder. 
The little historic town was delightful again. Apart from being a staging post on the convict built road from Sydney to the Hunter, it is the home of Dr. Jurd's Jungle Juice, a drink originally made from the dregs of wine barrels and said to have medicinal properties but now it is commercially produced in its own right and bears a resemblance to port.
 It is also a bit of a cosmic place, many of the properties have been bought by city dwellers who have decided to get themselves a few acres and just sit and paint or whittle or whatever. There are a couple of art galleries and we made the mistake of going into one which was manned by a group of women in woolly hats. The artwork was an entire room with birds made of wool hanging from the ceiling and branches distributed around with dreamcatchers in them. Once in it was tricky to get out without being noticed and one of the women started to tell us how this was their offering to Mother Earth as Mother Earth is all around us blah di blah.... luckily another bunch of unsuspecting tourists wandered in and we made a quick getaway.
Joking aside, the cosmic element is a lot of fun and many of the old buildings have been restored using recycled materials thereby maintaining an appropriate appearance for their age. 
We were in a great spot for visiting the Hunter Valley, which is a funny place really, one minute the countryside is all beautiful valleys and wineries, the next minute you are among some of the largest open cut coalmines in the world. The motto on the sign at the entrance to Cessnock, a town right in the heart of the Hunter is 'Cessnock - Wines, Mines and People'. All this added to splendid wildlife, a Blue Tongued Lizard joined us for coffee and we saw plenty of birds we do not get on the coast like this charming little Double Barred Finch..