On the Road .. and loving it!!

We've finally left Yamba and are on the road down south.  We decided to try the inland road .. and wow, were we in for a surprise.  What amazing country-side!!  We had no idea what we were in for .. the roads ended up being extremely steep and they seemed to go FOREVER..  every turn there were more hills and they seemed to get steeper and steeper.

We left Brooms Head about 10am this morning, headed to Yamba and had a hot shower (sooo nice!) and waved goodbye to the yacht (still no solid offers .. although there are a few things in the wind).

I found a church on the way that I'd like to buy, only need a cool $199,000 - and it's right across the road from a Timber shop and two antique stores.. and a river.. beautiful!

It was so refreshing to be driving through country side that we haven't been through .. and the mountain areas up to Dorrigo are really beautiful.  It's funny, looking on the map, you have no idea what the roads will be like - smooth, rough, steep or windy.  I guess we need to read a little more into the places we are headed to so we have some kind of idea what we're getting ourselves into!  We passed a small town that had a petrol station - but knowing that there was only about 100km to go and 4 small towns in between,  we wouldn't worry about it.. oops.  Mental note to self, start carrying more fuel and fill up more often.  I'm getting a bit of dejavu here writing that sentence.. and seem to recall we might have said something similar in Cape York as well.. you'd think we'd learn wouldn't you?!

As we were driving up yet another steep hill through the glorious mountain side, we came across a Jeep on the side of the road, one of the occupants was holding her head in her hands.  Here we were thinking the worst, that someone had had a heart attack or something .. so as we were racking our brains for the last time we did any CPR, we pulled over to offer assistance.  Aaron is the first one to pull over if there's a car on the side of the road to help out - just one of the many things I love about him.  Turns out they were out of fuel and a car going the other way had told them that the first petrol station was another 2.5 hours away...  Major crisis averted!  Although, as we were listening, we were also thinking, "Oh boy, we're in trouble" .. although you can imagine the language we were using in our heads :)  We were nearly at the red light zone (in petrol terms) .. and here Aaron was pulling over to offer assistance - hello knight in shining armour!  The Jeep took petrol and we luckily had some in the jerry can on the roof - that we were using for the tinnie.  So ol' Macgyver (aka. Aaron) got out a coke bottle, cut off the end and using it as a funnel poured the last of our petrol into their car.  Our Troopy runs on diesel, so we couldn't have used it anyway.  So as the boys were doing their manly duties, we got the maps out to try and work out how far to go until the first petrol station... we had no idea!  After all 5 of us looked at them, we decided it wouldn't be too far .. or perhaps that was just wishful thinking!

We took off.. and you guessed it, more steep hills!  We hadn't even gone 3km and the red light came on in our car.  Which sucked donkeys balls, because we went passed the best photo opportunity - and we couldn't stop, because we didn't want the other car to worry about us and use unnecessary fuel to come back to get Aaron to get more petrol.  As we were making our way up another hill, the Jeep came back with flashing lights and arms flailing outside the car to tell us to pull over. .. yep, you guessed it, there was a petrol station!!!!  Although not sure you'd even notice it was a petrol station if you blinked on the way passed!  We stopped and got our Diesel (at a very "competitive" rate of 171.9/L) and were on our way.  We asked the lady who was behind the counter (you need to picture this place.. there were no lights on at all, there were random groceries on shelves, two dogs with very peculiar growths on their underbellies and then a brand spanking new Mac on the counter) what we could do in the area, as we were heading to Dorrigo.  I don't think she was a huge fan of the area - as everything we asked about, she told us was "Shit" ... sooo, we made an executive decision to make up our own minds and disregard everything she had told us.  And after arriving into Dorrigo, we are very glad we disregarded what she was saying!

The mountains up were nothing compared to the countryside we experienced once we got up the mountain - words can't describe how beautiful it is.  The air is fresh (albeit quite crisp) and the meadows are a brilliant green - and the houses are so quaint, cottages and old houses .. beautiful!  There was a river running along most of the way to Dorrigo after we left the "petrol station" .. and it was crystal clear - just magic.  The properties are beautifully manicured and you can see how much they love the area - so much pride taken in everything.

Just before we drove into Dorrigo, we looked down the mountainside and saw just lines and lines of old trains .. and it turned out to be a private collection of trains and train memorabilia that they are working towards building a Museum to house for public viewing.  They had spent over $7 million of their own money to acquire the collection and are all putting their own time into building the infrastructure.  It's a shame that the Council don't see the potential and help them out - but they won't give them any assistance.  Such a shame.

Can you see the lines of trains???  And that wasn't even half of them

There were some HUGE cows overseeing the trains .. thank goodness there was a fence!!

We did the touristy thing and pulled over and took photos of the trains, as well as the potato farmers harvesting their potatoes on the way in.

Potato farming .. was pretty interesting to see how it's done

Once we got into town, we both just fell in love with it.  You can imagine the feel - old buildings that were still in their former glory, funky little stores as well as the old Pharmacies and Butcher.  And the most amazing shop EVER, was a second hand/antique store .. I don't think I've ever seen such a great collection of antiquities in one place.  The store itself used to be an old Department Store.  We found so many little trinkets that we would have loved to buy, but we were strong and didn't buy anything.

Dorrigo Antiques, Hickory Street, Dorrigo

I did cave to a little handmade chocolate at the sweets store (just doing my thing to support the little guys) .. so quaint!  A wattle seed flavoured chocolate .. yummo.

My Wattleseed Chocolate from Dorrigo Sweet Shop

http://www.dorrigosweetshop.com.au/

And then across the road was a Vodka Distillery .. all distilled right there in the shop.  I tried the Truffle Vodka .. very different.  There was also a Lime Vodka, Potato Vodka (apparently the most popular) and heaps of other really unique flavours.  We got talking to the owners who were locals and they were such lovely people - they were telling us about the area so we got some real insight to the area.

Dangar Falls

We are staying at a little camp ground just outside of Dorrigo, next to Dangar Falls (not pronounced Danger Falls.. as the shop keepers were very quick to point out.. hehe).  We can hear the Falls from the caravan.. beautiful.  It's quite fresh - I can only imagine how cold it gets in Winter!!!!  Apparently there is snowfall in Winter sometimes but it melts before it hits the ground.  We ran into the Owner, who is a weathered old guy, we think probably over 70 years old, and was telling us about his property and how he got the house transported here... really interesting.

Our camp site for the night .. 

Our view from the van

So we're here for the night and then tomorrow we'll do a bit more sightseeing.  The Vodka shop lady was telling us about Crystal Falls and you can walk behind it, which would be amazing, but then she told us to  expect a few leeches .... *shudder shudder* ... so I might have to carefully consider that one .. hehe.  As I type, Aaron's checking out the maps to see where we're headed tomorrow .. only time will tell where we end up tomorrow night :)


And now some photos...

 Not your usual "Slippery When Wet" sign .. that's when you know it's going to be cold in Winter!

Such a great initiative - free filtered water - more towns should have these!

A log just out of town - it took one of these logs to build one Australian cottage