Kaputar National Park and the Rocky Creek Glacial Area
The beautiful scenic drive out of the Warrumbungles leads to the little town of Coonabarabran. We just drove on, through the Pilliga Nature Reserve and State forrest where we stopped for the night and baked some Zimtsterne (cinnamon star-shaped cookies). Those had to be half-moon-shaped this year due to the lack of a star-shaped cookie cutter. What a disaster ;-) (They were still delicious!)
Our morning tea stop in Narrabri escalated into a longer christmas shopping but I'm sure it was much nicer and more relaxed than it would ever be in Carindale or Indooroopilly :-) In the Information Centre we tried out a real cotton picker and it was really hard to convince Sarah to leave. The view from up there is fantastic - even if it just shows the room.
It was only 35 km to one of the easily accessible short walks in Kaputar National Park (the larger part of the NP is not suitable for caravans) which is called 'The sawn rocks'. It's only a 1.4km return walk but it suited us well since it was the hottest time of the day and a sunny 33C. The rocks are beautiful and one of Australia's best examples of a geological formation known as 'organ-piping'.
Another 30 km down the road is the Rocky Creek Glacial Area, a beautiful river bed, great for swimming but at this time of the year there's only little water. We cooled our feet and hoped around for a bit but since it was still very hot we decided to drive on and camp in Bingara, which is a kilometre- long stretch of free camping, all sites with river frontage :-)
rocky creek, Bingara waterfront free camp, including horses