Beach Driving at Stockton Beach and on to Tamworth via Stroud and Gloucester (not the A46)

Finally I am writing with my shorts and "singlet" on, plus the sun is shining on the tent and there is country music on the radio (explanation below).  Damn rain - anyone would think this was Australia we are driving round wouldn't they?  Well sometimes it does not feel like it we have been so wet.  But today it does. 

We are in the Country Music Capital of Australia "Tamworth" in NSW (still).  It's 600kms North West of Sydney and about 500kms South West of Brisbane.  Quite outback in style, but large enough to have all the shops we need.  Tonight we might head out to soak up some country sounds with a Tooheys or two.  Now I know I don't know much about music, and less about country music, but out here is does just sound....right!

To get here we have had a fantastic few days, with a fair few kms but a lot of good sights to enhance the journey.  When we left Soldiers Point the first thing we did was some beach driving all the way down Stockton Beach, past a shipwreck and then looped back round to head up to Wallingat National Park.  Stockton Beach was very long, very windy, but great fun for someone who hasn't driven on the beach for a fair few years - and this was something else altogether!  The sand was very loose and quite deep at times, both cars did well considering how loaded up we are, but I think we all crapped ourselves a few times when either the cars felt like they were going to roll or (for me) I thought we were properly stuck in a tricky dune when we were trying to find the way out!  After a few attempts neither me or Paul could make it to the top of this dune, but you can see how deep and loose the sand is:

Great fun all round as you can see from the smiles on our faces!

Nick - a dead shark we spotted on Stockton, just for you:

After Stockton we headed on a tourist trail which took us through Stroud and Gloucester, we were so chuffed by being in the replica of the Cotswolds we did a full-on tourist picture:

Apparently an agriculture company founded the town and simply named it because of the area's similarity to the Cotswolds.  To us it was green and the hills were rolling, but apart from that it was most definitely Australian.  The same went for Gloucester although we did have a nice pie and chips there.

Barrington Tops National Park is listed as World Heritage status for it's rainforest area (along with many others up the coast of Australia), and it was definitely beautiful, but cold and quite similar to the Snowy's so we didn't linger long - although for the avid bird watchers out there (you know who you are, or is it just me?) we did see a female lyre-bird which are quite rare apparently.

We made it to Tamworth by mid afternoon and had a bit of time to dry our stuff in the sun before an early night