Day 248 / 2014 - Lightning Ridge to Dubbo

 From Lightning Ridge we are now heading towards Dubbo where our TV Antenna will be repaired. We tried to book in to a caravan park in Dubbo unfortunately for us the school holidays are on as well as the weekend was a public holiday so there are no vacancies for another 6 days, we had to decide what to do until then.

Dave and Norma left Lightning Ridge at the same time as us heading for Burke. We arranged to meet in Walget for a cuppa tea before going our separate ways and stopped in a rest area just south of town. After the break we said our goodbye's and would keep in touch we then continued south towards Dubbo.

Not sure where we would stop for the night we continued on past each of the rest stops they were all a bit small, you had to share with trucks and very close to the road. Wiki Camps had said there was a small van park in Gulargambone that was very friendly and a $20 for the night we though good value so pulled in there for the night.

It was quite a suprise it was indeed a very friendly park the owners came out to greet us and helped choose and back into a suitable site. We were then invited to the happy hour organised by the owners of the park at 4pm each day where they put on Pizza and Damper for a very small donation to the flying doctors. Each Sunday and Wednesday they put on a roast dinner for $10 a head with the proceeds going to the flying doctors.

The town is quite small and like all small towns stuck between larger ones struggle to survive but the locals refused to give up. When the post office closed the locals decided to create a RTC centre and man it with volunteers to keep the post office open. They then started a project to create a coffee shop come function hall come Tourist Information centre called Two Eight Two Eight which is also maned by volunteers. There is a 15 minute video you can to see how Two eight Two Eight came about.

We had planned only to stay one night but ended up staying the whole six. There wasn't a lot to do but just sit back, relax, talk to other caravaners and mix for happy hour.

On the seventh day we sadly said our goodbyes to our new found friends and headed the final 100km to Dubbo arriving at the Big 4 caravan park and booking in. After setting up we headed off into town to have a look around. Today is a public holiday so there were not to many shops open . We grocery shoped as well purchased as a few items from BCF. Tomorrow we head off and collect our mail