We are now at Coonamble after coming down from Lightning Ridge through Walgett. Between Walgett and Coonamble we encountered some water over the road in a few places, the deepest about half wheel height. Paddocks awash with water. Lake like in places.

Arrived at the camp for a late lunch after setting up. Put our feet up for the afternoon. Rain came down in buckets for about an hour at around 4pm, caravan park with great pools of water. We are on slightly higher ground so spared the puddles and mud.

The camp ground is beside the Castlereagh River, protected by a levee. The river is flowing at a great rate, well below the top of its banks so no worries flood wise for the town. The river is reported as actually the fasted flowing river in NSW. After rising in the Warrumbungles it flows more or less south and the west to Gilgandra before doing a loop ( looks like a fish hook) and then going north west to join the Macquarie River not far from that river’s junction with the Barwon River, which ends up in the Darling River near Bourke. For most of the time the Castlereagh is a dry sandy river bed and only flows after rains in the Warrumbungles area.

We waked the next morning to clear sunny blue skies, quite a pleasant contrast with the past few days of clouds and on and off rain. So we got out and about for a look around town. Being a Sunday it is very quiet, everything in the Main Street is shut apart from one cafe where we have morning tea. Low and behold they are selling Portuguese tarts. For my blog readers you may recall that these are a version of the famous custard tarts that we sampled along the Murray River a few months back. Allthego hasn’t tried them before so just had to have a go! They are warmed up a bit and are quite tasty, the pastry was a little flabby and not flaky…. not sure what it is meant to be, so will need to check.

A couple of the towns big old pubs along the main street appear to have recently closed their doors, there are threats of reopening apparently, but the cob webs are taking over.

The ‘Sons of the Soil’ looking particularly derelict , one suspects it was a wild place in its hey day.

The Coonamble Cup race meeting was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. But the weather has caused its postponement to next Wednesday. Our afternoon at the races has been stymied! We had a sure fire tip as well from Homealone’s sister Sandra. We will have to check out what we missed out on later.

The town has a water tower and of course a mural has been painted on it, by the John Murray from Lightning Ridge. The base has an indigenous story line to add ‘country’ to the overall design. Quite impressive.

Back at the van we have a pleasant afternoon in the sunshine with the feet up reading a book and doing some craft of course.

Next stop is the Wurrumbungle National Park for some bush walking. The sunshine, with a bit of cloud, looks like holding for the next few days.