Day 4 - Narrandera to Forbes

After saying that our kids rarely wake with the sparrows, both of them were awake before 7am this morning which did have some benefits in that we were up and about and getting organised to head to Forbes at a reasonable hour. Still, we were one of the last to leave the caravan park even though we did get out before 10am.

We headed up the Newell Hwy stopping at West Wyalong for lunch. Two fabulous things about West Wyalong; the park at the start of the main drag (sorry, can't remember the name...if anyone knows it, please let me know), and the Round About Bakery. The park was simply the best lunch stop for the kids as there was a tops little playground which was completely fenced and had a great array of play equipment that even a toddler could use, and the bakery made the yummiest pies (although the beef and pepper pie was quite spicy..but still delicious). The sausage rolls must have also been pretty good because both kids woofed them down.

The Newell was a bit of an undulating ride - something I have never noticed in the past when driving up and down to Brisbane in years gone by. But then, I wasn't towing 500+kg behind me and the car I had at the time was pretty crap in itself! Impressively, there are many truck stops and rest stops along the route which allows for caravanners such as ourselves to easily move off the side of the road when a number of faster cars (and big rigs) are behind. Maybe those in power that are in charge of the Geelong to Warrnambool stretch of the Princes Hwy should take a trip and take notes.

We landed in Forbes around 2pm which gave us a good site and heaps of time to get settled. The Lachlan View Big 4 Caravan Park is a small park but has a handy playground for the kids which includes a jumping pillow which all of us (big kids included) thought was pretty good! Apparently there has been an enormous dust storm go across much of NSW in the past 24 hours, and it seems that Forbes was not spared. Certainly not by the colour of the kids clothes after they had finished rolling around the jumping pillow!

We are still finding that we are in need of a few things for the van, so we took a trip into town to the supermarket and took the opportunity for a quick squizz around. Forbes seems to be reknown for a couple of things; 1) the burial place for bushranger Ben Hall, 2) the burial place for Kate Kelly, the sister of even more famous bushranger Ned Kelly, and 3) some amazing heritage buildings. Tomorrow we will call around and see some of these attractions.

Caravan park wrap up: the Lachlan View is a nice little park with good sized grassed sites that allow for annexes to be pulled out and still leave you enough room not to be on top of your neighbour. The camp kitchen is reasonable and clean with a few implements (kettle, toaster etc) available for use as well as fridge and BBQ (20c/15mins). A slight problem with the BBQ's starter meant that we had to go in search of some matches but this is not a deal breaker. The playground is good and toddlers can use the equipment, although Biddy needed some help getting up on the jumping pillow (which, judging by the other kids playing on it, is a huge asset). The showers are clean and the water is hot. There is a baby bath sink in the ladies, although I found this too late and had already bathed Biddy in the laundry trough, which she thought was fine as she got to chat aimlessly to a lady who was waiting for her washing! There seems to be a number of things that happen in Forbes (a Ben Hall festival is coming up), so I would think that this park would fill up quite quickly as it is more of a smaller park.