Hay to Condobolin NSW

Friday 21^st September Today we were up fairly early and have made our way to Hay.  This was one very nice drive but were quite tired by the time that we arrived J
Visited the tourist info centre and then found the caravan park and settled in and got some washing done and on the line to dry.  The weather is not as hot today and the breeze is almost as strong as yesterday.  Managed to get all the washing dry though.
Had a slow afternoon watching all the other vans pull in – had some interested methods of parking and setting up :D

 The hawk that we saw at Lake Benanee with a fish in his claws

 

 a field of wild flowers

 

Saturday 22^nd September.  Got permission from Trevor (the manager) to leave Buster attached to the van whilst we went into town and visited the Shear Outback

 entrance to Shear Outback

 

 the real entrance

 Border Leicester Fleece - newly shorn

 

 and the Dunera Boys exhibition at the train station. 

By this time we had been gone for about 4 hours so returned to the park.  The lady that had come in next door said that Buster just sat in his chair and watched the happenings and her two dogs didn’t even realise that he was there.  Trevor said that ‘Muttley’ was very well behaved.
There really is so much to see in Hay that we will have to do a return trip to see all the other things that we missed this time.
The park is almost chocker block full tonight and every ones seems to be getting set up to watch the different codes of footie that are to be decided tonight.  Ahh well – Darryl will have to listen to it on the radio as he still refuses to get the TV out of its box, which is still under the bed.
Sunday 23^rd September.  Up and on the road by 8.30am and heading towards Condobolin.  We arrived at Goolgowi at about 10am and stopped for a pit stop and to let Buster have a run.  Then we headed to Rankin Springs for the turn off to Lake Cargelligo.  We had to stop again so that Buster could have another pit stop.  We continued on our way and arrived at Lake Cargelligo at 12.15pm.  As we turned out of the main street we went through a swarm of bees.  Interesting seeing these huge bees sitting on your windscreen and the buzzing was incredible.  We continued on our way and arrived at the research station and Wendy and Ian’s house at 1.30pm.  It was good to see them again and catch up as much as we could.  We will be going to Wellington this Thursday and they will be travelling to Sydney to go to the Gold Coast for the long weekend.
Monday 24^th September.  Up at 7.30 to say goodbye to Ian (I just missed him but Darryl said goodbye – Ian was going to Wagga Wagga for a few days for work). Said farewell to Wendy as she left for the days work and then we got stuck into spring cleaning the van.  We pulled everything out from under the bed, swept it, vacuumed it and the washed it.  We rearranged some of the items to make them fit better and it created more space – Yes! – even managed to get all the big blankets and other things out onto the line for a flap in the breeze and a good airing.  The van smells really nice now J.
We then sat inside for the evening and the temperature dropped from 26 degrees to 10 degrees within an hour – brrrr.  Wendy lit the fire and it kept us all nice and cosy.
Tuesday 25^th September.  Brrr – we almost froze last night J – the temperature got down to 0.1 degrees. 
We are going on a treasure hunt today! J  We are going out with Wendy to a plot of Crown land to look for “Pine Donkey Orchids” diuris tricolour – an endangered flower in NSW.  So at 9.30am we headed out for the ½ hour drive and then we went into the scrub looking for these plants, not know how big they were to be or what sort of stems etc J.  Within a couple of minutes Darryl had spotted the first of the plants – hidden amongst the grasses and with really small heads on them. YES – success. 

 

 

We wandered through the scrub taking GPS co-ordinates of all the plants that we found, so that Wendy can upload them to the right department when she gets back to the office. We were really luck as I think we probably found about fifty plants in the hour and a half that we searched.  Wendy said that last year when she came out to do a search she did not have any luck at all – so the rain that they had last week had certainly helped this year’s flowering.  Back to the cars for morning tea and then had to go back to Condobolin as Wendy had another appointment. 
Once in town we wandered the shops waiting for Wendy to join us and then we all retreated to the Happy Daze café for lunch.  Once we were replete we headed back to the house and Wendy went to work.  Darryl is now out in the van having a Siesta.  All up we had a really good day.