Friday, June 09, 2023

Coonabarabran to West Wyalong - Thursday 8th June 2023

It must be holidays when your trip is defined by food. Today's travels was all about making sure we were in Dubbo at lunchtime, to visit an old favourite. And we found a new favourite in Gilgandra for morning tea too!

The rain started and turned quite heavy while we were still having breakfast in Coonabarabran so I had to rethink my outfit and resort back to boots - and a jumper! The warm weather is well and truly over. We were on the road just after 9:30am and enjoying our audio book as we drove through teeming rain. Although we were going to be in Dubbo for an early lunch, we still needed elevenses so turned in Gilgandra to find a cafe and luck was on our side with a car park right out the front of one (handy when it is still bucketing rain). Gilgandra is a cute little town on the banks of the Castlereagh River and we have been in the impressed in the past with their RV friendliness (Launceston could take a leaf of this small town's book!). so a shout out to Cafe 41 in Gilgandra who gave us a complimentary small slice of cake with our very good coffees.

The rain was just starting to ease as we drove through Dubbo, past the zoo and turned left towards Red Earth Estate. It is a winery owned by a Chinese family (in an area not known for its wine making) and they have space to park your caravan for self contained camping - which we did back in 2019 - and they make the most amazing dumplings. In 2019 we arrived with Neill and Jude in time for an early dinner of dumplings and chatted to the owner who told us he exports all his wine to China and that the dumplings was just a side business. Fast forward to COVID when they had to close, had no workers to pick their grapes, couldn't export to China even if they had wine - it was a disaster for them. We were so pleased to hear they were open again and it was great to catch up with them but it does make us wonder how long they will last, now that they only sell their wine through the cellar door, But their dumplings


make up for it! Possibly the best dumplings we have ever had, so we really enjoyed them (and had seconds) and bought some wine to give them some business. Glad we came back.

On the road again and the rain seemed to have eased, as the sun came out after Parkes, through Forbes etc. A rock was flicked up to us between Forbes and West Wyalong and put a decent star shaped chip right in my line of sight so we found a smash repair place here (who specialises in windscreens) and he filled it for us - so well, it just looks like a smudge of dirt now. We are camped up in the same caravan park we stayed here in 2014 and it's probably the oldest cabin we've had on our trip (and not the cheapest!) but it will do. We have some luxury coming up over the next few nights!


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