Dirranbandi

I thought that all I would write about this place was that it was the home of famous author Robert G Barrett and his famous character Les Norton oh and the land of the croaking frog. Another nice spot by the river where the first night we had a raging campfire and Rob played Tabla by the full moon.

Well that all changed at about midnight when the rain came down hard and we awoke to find that we were well and truly stuck!! Rob said he hadn't given up hope of getting us out so with shovel, branches logs, stones and some bucket loads of gravel we managed metre by metre to inch our way out - 6 hours later we were closer to getting out but still a long way off - wet, cold, muddy and buggered. Determined and showing a steely good temperment Rob kept going. Rob was down to his undies and we had bare feet as the mud was sticking to us like glue.

Hooray the cavalry arrives - two Toyota Landcruisers arrived with some hardy local farmers who had seen us previously and as you can see by the photos and video hauled us out nicely to a hard spot near the entrance.

We decided to stay an extra night after a shattering day. Later on a little camper arrived and pulled up next to us as it was to boggy to go much further. We enjoyed a lovely evening sitting around the campfire with this couple from the mid north coast. We depleted what was left of our alcohol supplies. Thursday morning we got a early start on the road to Hebel leaving behind a trail of mud for about 2kms. We spotted our Nindigully friends stuck in a campsite at Hebel where we stopped for a couple of hours. They eventually got out as well. We ventured on then to Lightning Ridge just in time for the opal festival - a lucky treat. We are off to stay at a friends brothers opal claim and we are going to see first hand what opal mining is all about. Stay tuned to see if we can uncover a black opal or two and to hear some wild local stories............