Another freezing night & it has to be the last one for this trip. Aim is to make it home today! Packed up wet (ice in fact) - too cold to wait around. Coffee at Deniliquin. Detour to check out Picnic Point (11 km from Mathoura). Coffee at Kilmore before the run to Brighton. After 8 weeks & 10,000 km's, the adventure has ended.

Wasn't feeling too flash this morning so took it slow on the pack-up (& used more power). Did almost 400 k's today & found my headache was gone. Setup camp in almost exact spot used on 1st night. Great fire & hoping it will not be too cold. Plan tomorrow is to checkout Picnic Point which is south of Deniliquin. Remember it from when I was a wee laddie but never sure where it was located. Likely to overnight there & reach Melbourne on Saturday ...

Another cold night - thank god for the bottle! Traveled the lesser highways until Dubbo & the Newell. Visited the Visitor Centre at the Parkes Radio Telescope. Always wanted to see it but hadn't! Watched 3-D video of someone climbing all over it. My FreeCamps book is way out-of-date & stuffed me up around Parkes. Pressed on to Forbes & paid $27 for a powered site (same for unpowered)! Worked out well 'cos I had a little 2-speed heater on full-b...

It was so cold in the morning! Restarted the fire to create a small oasis of warmth. It was eerie how the birds gathered around the campsite - magpies, currawongs, bower birds & kookas. They just gathered - like a scene from Hitchcocks 'The Birds'! Reached Tamworth - In fact a little further as I searched for a campsite. Tomorrow I should reach the Newell & then my objective will be to get home ASAP.

My plan was to get to the Newell by as interesting a way as I could find & the drive to Tenterfield via Mt Lindsay was excellent. Actually camped 30km short of Tenterfield at Bald Rock NP. I was the only camper there which was not surprising given an overnight temp of zero made sleeping difficult.