Out in the Country

20th February, Tamworth, Australia

Ian writes:

For fans of country music, our destination today is like a regional Mecca - Tamworth, dubbed the Country Music Capital of Australia.

Frankly I'd rather chew my own arm off than listen to country music, so why did we go there?

In all honesty, consulting the large map we have of Australia we had two choices - either head back toward the coast or head further inland and on to places like Dubbo, Parkes and then come in to Sydney via the back door, so to speak. The latter option would be different from the usual tourist/backpacker route, but it would also mean cutting out more of the coastal towns that we wanted to call in on. So, Tamworth was a compromise - head a little further in, take a look around, then come back on ourselves once more. And look what we saw:

Ethel in front of the Big Golden Guitar, Tamworth [parked directly over the spot that says No Parking,naughty].

Apparently, the golden guitar is some kind of accolade for country music ("Most Innovative Lyrics About A Small Child Being Killed While Playing With Heavy Machinery" and what have you - isn't that what they sing about?). Presumably they're normally a lot smaller than this one.

Our stay in Tamworth didn't last too long - as well as the golden guitar, we took refuge from the heat in a shopping centre and took some photos around the centre of the pretty looking town (while I clicked away, Manda cooked away inside Ethel, as temperatures reached 40 degrees). We then did an about turn and headed back towards the coast, a journey of some 240 kilometres. The sun was still in the sky, and I was a little wary still about driving in this temperature (if you remember, kombis are air-cooled and even the wind up here was warm, if not verging on hot at times, so I wasn't convinced that the air scoops would be cooling the engine down as well as they should).

The drive turned out to be more challenging than I thought. Although roads may appear straight on the map, they are often very twisty-turny, and the stretch from Walcha to Wauchope was very testing. The sun was going down, and we found ourselves in fading light, then pitch dark, driving through mountainous roads, with the signs informing us that the winding road would continue for another 45 kilometres. This was tiring driving, made more dangerous by the possibility of meeting a kangaroo on the road and what appeared to be sheer drops to our left, and I desperately wanted to find somewhere to stop - we weren't going to make it back to the coast tonight! Thankfully we found a place, a 'resort', that had camping places that were 4 kilometres down a dusty track then into a field with very long grass and a million and one flying things that were immediately attracted to my torchlight. It wasn't the best spot, but at least we were safe and sound for the evening. And the view of the stars above was incredible - but only if you wanted to stand outside and brave the insects!