Gunnedah to Narrabri – 60 miles

I checked out of the Red Chief Motel and went to McDonalds for breakfast. I know you’ll be disappointed with me but it was Sunday morning, choice was not available, and wait till you see where I bought a sandwich!

(I had a McMuffin that replaced the bun with a waffle. Whoever made this recipe up should be shot after being made to eat 5 of them consecutively. It was disgusting.)

Jenny and her mum were at the next table and had been for a walk. It was my usual 7am routine and, no doubt, they were avoiding the anticipated heat and now restoring the calories, and more, they’d lost. Jenny first introduced me to an Australian government app for weather and then went on to tell me about her day. Yesterday she’d been mowing the stalks of some sorghum they’d harvested and today she still had 50 acres to complete. Sorghum is a bushy plant that the Chinese like for making alcohol and also adding to chicken feed. It makes the yokes darker. I worry Australia with its mining and agriculture is very dependent on them (Chinese not chickens.)

On the way out there were a great number of young people up at this ungodly hour on a Sunday and I enquired why? This character told me they were going to launch a rocket. About 20 other students all fell about laughing at this. They’re from a Sydney University working on rockets and they were planning on launching one today. He went on to tell me that the large team involved students looking at the propulsion, trajectory, duration of flight, monitoring etc. etc. Good for them. I’m glad he’s clutching a hash brown and not my waffle abomination.

I needed a sandwich and found one with tuna in it.

After some of the difficult days this was bliss. Flat, 24°C and no real traffic and certainly no trucks.

There are 17 million kangaroos on this continent but finding some who have avoided becoming road kill is uncommon. Apparently they graze at dawn and dusk but sightings by me are few and far between. I will start collecting the signs as I will see many more than the animals before Brisbane.

I was very surprised to discover that they grow cotton around here. It’s a very thirsty plant and you’d think that other lower cost countries would grow it instead. I was told the commodity price at the moment for it isn’t high.

Oddly you’ll see dead trees painted blue throughout NSW. It’s to do with a mental health charity. Their random appearance is meant to generate conversations.

I haven’t found a car museum but I do love these Holdens. They look so sleek and sporty.

I got to Narrabri, not a town that will live long in my affections, and pitched my tent and then locked up my bike beside it. As I did this a member of staff appeared and suggested I didn’t due to a high incidence of bicycle theft and that I should use a special shed on the campsite. Obviously I complied. He went on to describe the thieves very inappropriately suggesting it was the indigenous youth. Theft, generally, and some violence is now are putting the town on edge and is quite a blight.

I attach an Air Tag to the bike and the little rucksack shows it’s snug in the shed.

I couldn’t spend the afternoon in my tent and so I retired to the local equivalent of the British Legion. Here I drank, dined and used the internet. Several members were playing pokies. This refers to brightly lit neon machines that you feed cash into until you’ve lost sufficient to decide to stop.