We only had an hour and a half drive today from Mudgee to Bathurst. With a late start and a nice long stop in Sofala we stretched the trip out to nearly 4 hours so arrived in Bathurst around 2ish.

Easy check in at the cabins where we discovered Rodds Aunty and Uncle had paid for our nights accommodation. We were both a little tired after our non stop holiday so decided to have a bit of a nap before we went and said hello to Wendy and Ross. We awoke an hour or so later feeling much refreshed so popped up to say a quick hello then we headed into Bathurst for a look around and to buy some nibbles to take to the BBQ, you know the old conundrum over what to take when the host says "don't bring anything"... I mean you can't turn up with nothing can you? It's just not done!!

Around 6pm we headed down to the pool area where Rodds Aunty Wendy had set up quite a spread in his honor! This part of our trip had been added to the itinerary some months before when Aunty Wendy and Uncle Ross stopped in to see us in Longreach as part of their long caravan trip. We spent a couple of lovely days with them here chatting and it was nice to see Rodd with some family. My family is so large and there is no shortage of cousins, aunties, nephews, neices and of course all of their offspring ( and we are an overly opinionated and outspoken lot ) that I feel it must sometimes be hard for Rodd being thrust into the midst of us all considering he has very little family. Only his Mum and brother and now after knowing him for 7 years I finally get to meet his one and only Aunty, Uncle, their 3 girls with partners and children.

Rodd had spent a lot of his youth with this family on their property just out of Bathurst, and in the '80's Cheryl,one of his cousins, had gone on a trip to the States with him but he really has had very little contact with any of them since then. So of course the night was all "remember when" and there was a lot of Rodd "bashing".... apparently he was a bit of a male chauvinist so and so as a younger man and a fairly wild one at that!! I found it all very amusing but I think Rodd would have liked to change the conversation many a time through the night. So all in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable stop and I'm glad we included it in our trip.

It wasn't a terribly late night which is probably just as well because all this holidaying is getting pretty exhausting! Tomorrow it's off to Sydney for one night before heading to the Sunshine Coast to see the kids.