Our trip to Lismore via the Warrumbungles, Coonabarabran and Purlewaugh in January 2008.

We travelled to Lismore via Wellington and Dubbo so we were able to visit Wellington, the Warrumbungles, Coonabarabran and Purlewaugh.
There are pictures from these places in the accompanying pages and links.
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In Mozilla - choose Edit|Preference|Appearance - and choose resize images to fit in browser window.

James was supposed to be playing in the Under 14 ACT side however as you will see from the pictures in Lismore
there was no way any games could be played.

James travelled with the team, leaving on the 3rd. Ellen, Lawrence and I drove, staying at Gilgandra on the night of the 3rd.
We had a quick stop at Wellington at the cemetry and then a look at 26 Short Street.
On the 4th we went the south west way into the Warrumbungles, via Tooraweenah. I had never driven that road and the
countryside was beautiful after the rains they had had in December.
We went for a short walk in the Warrumbungles to give Lawrence and Ellen a feel for it.
Then on to Coonabarabran. Here we checked out St Lawrences catholic school and church, the showground and the main street. There have been a lot of changes - no Billy Woos, a Woolworths instead, the library is now the Centrelink office and the middle of  the street is different to name a few changes. I had forgotten a lot as well.
From Coonabarabran we then took the road out to Purlewaugh, going over Billy Creek and Baby Creek, up MacEvoy's hill and detouring in to Ulamambri. We took photos of the old woolshed paddock and the house from the front road and the top gate.
We went down to the s-bend and took photos from there of the paddocks. Then drove through Purlewaugh and took some photos of the buildings there.
We then kept on driving out on that road to go to Tamworth via Werris Creek. It was an enjoyable drive for me although the highway may have been a bit quicker.
We got to Lismore to find out it was flooded - could not get to the accommodation we had booked on the Nimbin Road, and that the baseball was cancelled.
We ended up going down to Ballina for 3 nights and was able to meet up with Deidre Gorrie for lunch. That was great as we
had not seen each other for many years.
James was keen to go fishing so we bought a fishing kit and went down on sunset, Lawrence and I both expecting him to not
have success. After losing 3 prawns in very quick succession he casted with his 4th, let way too much line out, then felt something. He started bringing it in, it was almost dark so visibility was very limited, and it had snagged on the excess line it seemed. We kept on pulling it in and lo and behold there was a beautiful bream hooked. We had fish for breakfast after Lawrence nobly cleaned the fish.
It did stop raining and the roads dried out enough for us to go and visit Allens block. We only paid a quick visit though as it started raining again and we did not want to get trapped.
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