Tamworth to Dubbo
First stop in Tamworth this morning was the visitor information centre which also houses the Walk a Country Mile Museum - this was pretty interesting as it outlines the growth of Australia's country music and had some really cool memorabilia. Then we went to The Big Golden Guitar - the icon of Tamworth! We also went into the Gallery of Stars Wax Museum there and had our picture taken with some of the stars. Some of them were so lifelike! Then we drove back into town to find the some famous handprints in concrete but that was a bit of a let down, and because Callen was getting tired we decided to move on. The only other thing we wish we could have done while in Tamworth was to visit the Powerstation Museum (Fun Fact: Tamworth was the first city in Australia and the southern hemisphere to have electric street lighting). But it wasn't open :( The drive west from Tamworth was much more enjoyable than the previous day and had some familiar agricultural landscapes, just on a much bigger scale to Tassie. There are some huge properties! We even saw cotton harvested and baled on the side of the road. Gunnedah is "Home to the Koala", not just Miranda Kerr! But we couldn't see any koalas there. We did see a mob of kangaroos today and thought it was funny that they were just out in the middle of a paddock, in the middle of the afternoon, eating the farmer's grass. We've also seen some foxes dead on the side of the road since we've been traveling, which is a novelty for us Tasmanians! We stopped in Coonabarabran at the Crystal Kingdom (shop and museum) and got our geology fix. Although this town is known for it's links to astronomy (there is an observatory nearby that we didn't have time to venture to) we discovered that there are a LOT of different rocks, minerals and fossils to be found in the local area. Kent was also quite excited when he saw that the business is "For Sale w.i.w.o". But we made do with just buying a few specimens (yes people, we bought rocks!) Then we went onto see the Diprotodon (largest known marsupial) fossil. All of the displays were very good with lots of information and we could have spent ages there! It was getting late and we needed to decide where to try and camp for the night, so we drove on through Gilgandra and have stopped just outside of Dubbo with the plan to visit the open plains zoo tomorrow. Can't wait!!!