Did you know???…

Tamworth was the first place in Australia to have electric street lights? There you go! This morning we visited Tamworth powerhouse Museum which told us the story of electricity in Australia and had some very interesting old artifacts. The kids enjoyed pulling all the old light switches and were facinated with the old ovens and fridges. I imagine it would have been what my grandparents would have used.

After lunch, we drove up the hill to the Wildlife Sanctuary. This was free and absolutely brilliant. I could have stayed in the bird aviary for hours. It was such a lovely, peaceful place and set up well for kids with games, sandpits (with sandtoys!!) and lots of wildlife.

Afterwards, we stopped if for a look at the Powerhouse Motorcycle Museum. Josh and Kaytlin picked out bikes they wanted for their birthdays!

Heading towards Armidale the next day, we stopped at Bendemeer for lunch. The Bendemeer Hotel is famous for being robbed by the famous bushranger Captain Thunderbolt. This was a gorgeous place for a pit stop- Josh liked exploring the river whilst Joe and Zach battled it out in a game of soccor.

We then stopped at Banalasta, a lavender and eucalyptus plantation. After being invited to ‘go out the back and see the animals’, Joe and the kids jumped a electric fence to pat a horse and donkeys. A crazy ostrich came over- not at all fazed by Joe and his new cowboy hat- and pretty much scared them out as they all ran for cover crying!!!

Arriving at Armidale, we stayed at Penbroke Tourist Park, which was just lovely. we just relaxed, played some tennis and had a nice BBQ for dinner. That night, I didn’t sleep too well because it was sooo cold!! Little did we know, but it had dropped to -2 degrees that night- the air con froze up and the water in the pipes froze so we had no water! I think Armidale will go down as the coldest place for this trip.

First stop along Waterfall way was the gorgeous Woolomombi falls- at 260m , they are the tallest falls in NSW. The kids learnt how to ‘Coo-EEE’ off the gorges.

Next stop was the Dutton Trout Hatchery. A very interesting stop! The kids got to feed the trout is the different ponds and then watch the hatching process from tiny fish eggs- quite a hands-on experience. I really recommend this place!

Following this was a stop at the gorgeous Ebor Falls- so pretty once again- could have stayed longer!

Waterfall way in general was quite narrow and windy, so after lunch in Dorrigo, we just decided to keep going to Coffs Harbor. We would love to go back and spend longer on Waterfall way as other interesting stops included the Rainforest Centre and Belligen.

We checked into the gorgeous BIG 4 at Emerald Beach, 20km north of Coffs. There are bush turkeys and roos with joeys all around us- such a beautiful places. We have decided to stay 3 nights here as we didn’t end up back tracking to Port Macquarie and Taree. We finished the night with a campfire, with toasting marshmallows and toast!

The next photo is showing our trip so far. coding- red- 1 night, green- 2 nights, yellow- 3 nights.