Our service day went well in Dubbo. We drove to the zoo carpark to empty our cassette and fill up with water. There were advisories all over town that all water for drinking must be boiled, so we filled up the tank, but not our drinking water containers.

The next stop was the laundromat, conveniently located in the same block as the supermarket. Stephen did the shopping and I did the washing. It took time, but with large machines that accepted card payment (from my phone), I was in washing heaven. Mind you, it was expensive.

We then drove to a small village which offers $10 overnight stays at their recreation centre. It includes power and water, though we chose to just hook up to power and fill up our tank in the morning. That meant we got a spot on the blue metal. Bays are laid out clearly, with lots of room for caravans to stay hooked up. There were also flushing toilets available. There is a permanent caretaker who registers you and assigns your parking spot, in general, we got to choose our actual parking bay and we able to get level.

It was a beautiful and peaceful night and sunrise tempted me out of the van as soon as our alarm went off to take some photos. The alarm is set for 6.45 a.m. and in winter that’s ideal as it’s enough before sunrise to get the pre dawn shots.

Yesterday our first destination was a rest stop with a waterfall. We had been driving towards a range of hills with strangely rugged tops and the waterfall (Hickey Falls) was located amongst them.

We arrived in time for a fairly early lunch, then on to our next park up, a golf club at Coonabarabran. They have a big field at the rear where RVs are welcome to stay for free. A very nice addition is that there is a good Chinese (Lotus) restaurant located at the club house, so we enjoyed a lovely meal. We bought drinks and the meal was takeaway, and of course, wore our masks when indoors. Nobody else did and we felt a bit odd, but I think not wearing a mask defies all logic and I can’t understand why people aren’t taking precautions.