Eager to continue our trip home, we were on the road at 8:00am and found a service station (unfortunately in the wrong direction) and refuelled the motor home.
We then headed south at a reasonable pace and stopped at Tenterfield for brunch.
The bakery we chose for lunch offered a good variety of pies. “He” had their “Ned Kelly” pie (beef, egg, bacon and cheese) and claims that it was the “best pie ever”! To top off the pie, “he” also had a milkshake that can also be described as the “best ever”.
The bakery is “The Tenterfield Bakery” and in our opinion is well worth a visit. (We are very surprised that a “Google” search failed to find reference to the bakery and its menu – hopefully we can fix that now!!)
We continued to on to Armidale where we refuelled before continuing on to Tamworth. Last time we visited this area we did not have the luxury of being able to use the bypass and even though Armidale is a lovely city, we were grateful we did not have to travel through it with the car in tow.
Just before we arrived at Tamworth we had a call from our friends advising us they were going to camp at a free site at Wallabadah which is just under an hour south of Tamworth and just before Willow Tree. Once again we had to say “no” as we had booked into a caravan park and were happy to get off the road. We had not realised how hilly the New England Highway is and the car attached to the rear only made things worse.
The car has been invaluable during this trip and would have been invaluable if we had gone to the Northern Territory and South Australia as we initially planned. It saved us at Townsville (four days in Townsville without a vehicle would have been tragic) and has provided us with an escape means we don’t normally have with the motor home. On the other side of the coin, it has increased our fuel consumption (we estimate just over $200 for the entire trip) and has considerable slowed our progress with the speed limit of 90kph imposed on the Suzuki. There were times when we would have travelled at 110kph and our speed up long climbs has been poor. We have also had to be very careful with descents when the motor home had to be restrained due to the Suzuki speed limit and also on very steep descents when the additional weight pushes the motor home. We will continue to tow but will be very selective. If we ever do a lap of Australia, the car would probably have to stay behind.
After we established our camp, “He” grabbed a camera and headed to the hill that overlooks Tamworth to photograph the sunset. We went to a pizza restaurant for our evening meal and watched television after we returned to the motor home. We had a comfortable “last night” in our bed.