Left a sunny Lemon Tree Passage to head inland where many areas were still quite flooded. This sounds a little foolish but we were meeting Zoë, Shaun and the boys midway through their first big trip in their new caravan. They were travelling from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and we planned to meet them at a couple of the stops they were doing in New South Wales. 

At the end of our last trip we spotted details of a free camp on the Castlereagh River at Mendooran which looked quite interesting, so we decided to start  this trip with a couple of days there as it was only 30 minutes from the first town where we were to meet Zoë. The roads were badly potholed after all the rain, we are used to this at home but our potholes are mainly on side roads whereas these were on 100kmh routes, so we had to keep our wits about us on the Golden Highway. After a coffee stop in Denman we rocked up at Mendooran Rest Area and walked in cautiously to see how flooded it was. There were a few muddy areas but plenty of flat, dryish plots overlooking the river.

 If a camp is free we try to have dinner in the town so we headed to the pub  and ordered our meal. The landlady was a bit short with everyone and when I enquired about eating in the large garden with Harvey she said dogs were not allowed. We decided to get a take away instead and eat it  on a bench on the wide verandah overlooking the street, again she said no, that was an alcohol free zone. So there we were with a wine, a beer, a dog and a dilemma. In the end we tied Harvey to the outside of the garden fence while we ate inside the garden. Various locals came out to chat with us, I think they were a bit embarrassed about the frosty welcome we had received. One man said the pub had been sued because a dog bit a customer but I have my doubts.

It rained non stop over night and everything was pretty muddy when we woke up and walked into town to get a coffee. The town itself looked very sad with most shops closed, including a new cheese shop I had seen in the tourism literature and was looking forward to spending some money in.. There was a lady cleaning the front of the art shop (Nana's Knitting Nook more like) and she told us there were plans for a big celebration the following week to celebrate Mendooran's 170 year anniversary, the oldest town on the Castlereagh apparently. I hope it went well for them but, if they seriously want to attract visitors, they need to sort out that pub landlady and open the bloody cheese shop! 

It was very wet again when we woke the next morning, fortunately we had anticipated this and packed everything away the previous evening. As we drove out of town we passed the cheese shop just in case but it was still closed so I took my tourist dollars away with me. Ian needed to have his identity confirmed at a Centrelink office for his pension application (yes, we are that old) and discovered there was a really helpful system for remote towns where this could be carried our at participating Post Offices, so he checked online and found the closest was in Dunedoo, just 30 minutes away, in the wrong direction admittedly but not too far. When we got there the woman in the Post Office had no idea what she was supposed to do so we got back in the car and drove to Dubbo where there was a proper Centrelink Office. The whole thing was carried out in a jiffy there  even though we were now rather off our planned route. It had rained all day so we would not have been able to do much and now we were quite near Eumungerie, a favourite stop of ours. We pulled in to the camp ground expecting our usual, bone dry, $5 unpowered spot only to find the place was flooded and all the caravans had to be squeezed into one tiny area by the toilets. We were astonished, Eumungerie is one of the driest places I have ever visited! Anyway, it was all good and we trotted over to the Drover's Dog for a shnitty and chips, still couldn't take the dog but we left him in the van.

The caretaker was selling a few bits on the side so Ian bought a lightweight solar panel from him before we left then we drove the short trip to Tooraweenah in glorious sunshine at last. The Tooraweenah Caravan Park was delightful. $30 with power, quite old but clean and well kept with colourful murals on  walls, a dog exercise area, little metal sculptures and fairy houses which pleased Ted when he arrived. There was also a big area with a fire pit set up for the daily happy hour. At 5pm the owners came around handing out bags of crisps and inviting all the campers to bring a beer or wine over and join them around the fire.

 The next day we walked the boys into the tiny town and admired the old buildings, which were labelled with information about their history, then went to the playground. There was nothing much trading any more apart from the Post Office, pub and a mechanic but it was a great little town. In the afternoon we visited an emu farm. It was free to look around the shop and animal enclosures where they kept the chickens, ducks, guinea pigs and they do tours at certain times for $15. We bought Harvey some incredibly smelly emu jerky then went for a picnic in the Warrumbungles National Park . Harvey had to be kept hidden in the car and we took it in turns to walk down to the stream with Ted.

Back to the caravan park for the 5pm social where Ian made the mistake of offering help to a couple of women who had got into a real mess trying to park their new camper. They were very rude to him then ended up having a huge screaming match with each other about who was to blame for the parking disaster while we all sat and watched. 

It was Labor Day and NRL Grand Final weekend so we were expecting the next caravan park to be expensive. We stopped in Coonabarabran for coffee passing a huge anti vax protest and dodging a group offering to open us up to the Holy Ghost only to walk into another group trying to get us to come to their bible classes. We escaped and drove onto Narrabri which is a service town for the new inland railroad construction which should be finished in 2027. It will be freight only carrying huge trains from Melbourne to Brisbane taking 110 Road Trains off the roads every day. The size, variety and quantity of the equipment we saw taking part in the construction process was amazing.

We arrived at Moree Tourist Park and were pleasantly surprised to discover the powered sites were only $36 a night. It was quite a nice park with hot spas fed by the hot springs, lots of cabins there which were occupied by the rail workers. Ted liked the tiny playground especially when a cat strolled in and casually went down the slide. The playground backed on to the Mehi River and the key to the gate was kept at reception for people who wanted to fish there. The river runs through the centre of town and is usually pleasant and tranquil but it was brown and raging this time. It had burst its banks in some spots and, after we left, it rose up and flooded most of the town. 

Moree has a bit of a reputation and there are warnings everywhere about keeping your possessions locked up, but I like it. As long as you are sensible it is a great place to stay, the buildings are beautiful, there are plenty of cafes and good shops and it has the hot springs. We took the boys swimming at the public Artesian Baths. One pool is pretty warm where we played with the kids but the second is really hot and people just stand around in it. I find that creepy, rather like being in a bath with strangers.

 We stayed one more night after the family moved on but started to receive flood warning messages on our phones so decided it might be sensible to head home more quickly than we had planned. After a quick detour to see the Big Plane (it is just a plane so I don't think it should really count as a Big Thing) we scooted towards home, stopping for a quick look at a Lake in Barrabba which looked like a great place to stay but would be asking for trouble this trip. 

 After an unforgettable few days in Mungo National Park we rose early to head off to retrieve Harvey from the kennels. There were a few spots of rain so we wanted to get the 100kms of dirt road out of the way before it became slippery. 

This trip was all about discovering new places and we still had plenty of time before we needed to be home, so once we had collected Harvey, we retraced our steps and struck off to Balranald in the Riverina. Our journey took us along the Sturt Highway, a couple of hours of long, straight road until we eventually reached Balranald and checked out the free camp. It was in the car park of the swimming pool and looked a bit grim so we moved on to the Balranald Caravan Park, $25 unpowered on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. Since our return from this trip there has been terrible flooding in these areas and, at one point, large parts of Balranald were actually in the Murrumbidgee but, while we were there it was beautiful.  

 The town was small but had a little supermarket, pub, cafe and a splendid visitor centre all walking distance from the caravan park and it was very pleasant to walk beside the river keeping our eyes open for endangered Southern Bell Frogs who hide out in the area. In the evening hundreds of galahs landed to graze by our van and as the sun went down the frog chorus began. 

Harvey was strangely sticky with an odd whiff about him when he came out of the kennels so our first job before heading on our way was to stick him under the outside shower. Once he was presentable again we grabbed a coffee and egg and bacon roll at the visitor centre cafe (excellent) and set off. The journey took us across the Hay Plain which is incredibly dull, 1.5 hours of absolutely nothing. Towards the end the monotony was broken by massive cotton farms, thousands of bales of the stuff and huge reservoirs storing the enormous amount of water it controversially takes to grow cotton in a hot, dry country like Australia.

 Eventually we reached Hay and a free camp named Sandy Point, very nice, short dirt road in with a few muddy bits but beautiful on the Murrumbidgee with spotlessly clean flushing toilets. The campsite became really busy after we arrived and someone turned up with a guitar (pet hate of mine when camping) and strummed away assuming we all wanted to hear how talentless he was. We drove into the town but it was rather uninspiring, some lovely old buildings but plenty of newer ugly ones squeezed in between. 

Hay did not have a great deal to keep us there and rain was forecast which could have made it tricky exiting the camping area so we made a late decision to move on to Lake Cargelligo. We drove back into town and got a hot shower at the visitor centre for $2, bought firewood and went to have a look at the museum at the railway station before we left. The museum was housed in two railway carriages and full of fascinating information about prisoners of war who were placed in a camp in the area. The British shipped almost 2000 residents who originally came from enemy countries, to Australia. The reality, however, was that their countries of origin were not always enemies of the British in fact they included people living in Britain who had come from Poland and Czechoslovakia. The prison camp was set up on the Hay Plain where there was nothing for about 100km in any direction so nobody was going to be escaping. The Australians then added some of their own residents with foreign backgrounds, many of whom were already naturalized Australians, quite shocking.

 After that sobering experience we hit the road again and drove the incredibly boring 2.5 hours to Lake Cargelligo which was gorgeous! Frogs Hollow was the name of the free camp with toilets on the banks of a huge lake with pelicans and beautiful sunsets, a great spot for birdwatchers and walking distance into town. As soon as we arrived an elderly chap pulled up in his car and sold Ian a plum pudding(?) these things happen in small towns more often than you might imagine. Lake Cargelligo was a very friendly town with a large aboriginal community. There were a couple of cafes, a pub and a mobile barber/nail salon doing a roaring trade. 

Woke to sunshine but cold winds and picked up some supplies before heading to a free camp just outside Forbes that a camper had recommended to us. We stopped in Condobolin for fuel and discovered a marvellous art installation completely made up of utes all of them represented something very Australian. Condobolin calls itself The Home of the Ute but, apart from the display of utes, the town did not have a lot going for it. There was a bit of an uncomfortable feel to the place with a few people lying on the pavement outside the supermarket and a ute full of hillbilly types cruising around throwing rubbish out of the windows. We decided to move on and got back to the Lachlan Valley Way. Every so often we would pass a sign indicating a sculpture just off the road so we pulled over to look at each one, some were great, some less so but they added a bit of interest to the journey.

 The recommended camp was at Jemalong Weir. It was a bit disappointing actually, completely empty and miles from anything which made it feel a bit lonely. It was tidy with decent toilets and apparently the fishing was good but I wouldn't stop there again. 

We were heading for the home straight after our month away with only a couple more stops to go. Peak Hill was on the route so we stopped to have a look at the gold mining exhibition and walk there, which was great. The town was terribly run down and a huge, nameless company was buying up all the surrounding farms so I don't know what is going to happen there.

 We passed through Forbes, Parkes and Dubbo, all of which we have visited several times before pitching up in Eumungerie. I don't know why we like this place but we do, it is a great stop in a tiny town by a grain railway, $5 unpowered, $10 powered and a fenced oval for the dog to run in. We had dinner at the Drover's Dog which seems to be permanently for sale and the caretaker even supplies firewood for a gold coin donation. 

 Jerry's Plains was to be our last stop because we have become a bit obsessed with checking to see if the pub has opened. Every time we visit it is closed then we see a Facebook post saying it has new owners etc. and we saw one of these recently so we were hopeful we would finally get a beer and a meal in Jerrys Plains.After stopping in Gilgandra for coffee, bustling little town with a couple of very dilapidated antique shops, we passed through Mendooran and resolved to stay there next time. We pulled in to Jerrys Plains and paid our $5 donation then walked over to the pub to find it closed again until further notice.