Tuesday 27th October

Today was a travel day. You know the routine, pack up and rack off.

We expected the road to be muddy after the storms but she had dried out and all that was missing was the dust.

The run down the Namoi River Road is a delight. The hills come up close and personal at times and then drift away to make some attractive skylines. At one point there is an intriguing rocky out crop which had deep reds and purples contrasting with green vines that entwine it's robust ankles and thighs.

We came out at upper manila and the whole map mix up which confused us when finding the park was made clear.

The country had opened up considerably by Manilla and we took the short cut across past lake Keepit - it's not a lake it's a dam - and they have a state park but you have to pay to enter, so we skipped that and just stopped for smoko by the road.

Gunedah was a stop for groceries and a bottle of wine and that was interesting. The spirits are locked behind a sliding glass door. The lady informed us they had too much trouble with theft. So no longer are small country towns locations of peace and tranquility. Beneath the surface there is crime, drug abuse and everything else that happened only in New York in days gone by.

We had lunch in a small town that we had stopped in on our way to SA on the bike last year. The difference e was there was massive storm when we were on the bike with the road a sheet of storm water. Today it was sunny and dry, but still green so rain has been around.

We turned down the Black Stump Way and finally found Jannine and Glen's place up on the ridge above Coolah. What a neat little place, they have 2 acres and a large 80's vintage house.

The wind was blowing a gale so we did not lounge around under the large pines and other trees in the yard but retreated to the lounge to catch up.

Janine's cousin is also staying so when they arrived we all popped down to the local hotel for a great meal and Mal finally called it quits at around 10pm and staggered off to bed. He's not a young as he used to be.

Wednesday 28th October

The wind had blown off to somewhere else, the morning at rest. Peter and Vicki finally roused us to let us know they were off to their haunt in Shelly Beach near Gosford.

The main task for mal in the morning was for Mal to help Glen lift up the clothes dryer onto it's bracket in the laundry. That was easy and the next task was to try and work out the HN7 gps that Jannie had bought and was having difficulty using. Well Mal worked at it all morning and sorted out how to put in a way point, rename a way point and delete a way point.

The instruction manual is pathetic; the online videos are a little better but still totally inadequate in their scope and also in their coverage of tasks on the HN7.

All in all if Mal had to do a product review he would value the device at around half the money they actually cost.

Perhaps with more time he could give you a detailed description of how to use one and specific details of what it won't do. Consumers probably fill in a lot of blanks when they don't know and have to find out the hard way that the device will only do half the things they would like it to do.

To date mal found that in off road mode what you get is a Hema map and the GPS will tell you where you are on that map - that is good.

However this map is just a photo of paper map so it is not interactive. While in off road mode it is not possible as far as Mal could work out to navigate to the next town and have the device calculate how far etc - to do that you have to get out of the off road section and go to the navigation software which is like a separate program - and you don't have a tab function where you can flick from between functions. So when you go out of one and want to go back you have to start all over again.

Now it might be possible to load more detailed maps than the Hema maps. We looked at the roads into the two national parks we have just visited and could not find a Hema map which showed a road even existed.

Now there may well be a Hema map that shows those roads but the Hema maps in Mal's opinion are all over the place and it would take some time to learn which one you need to select to find a particular location. So Mal could not find a function which allowed a search of the Hema maps for say, show me the most detailed map for Sundown National Park.

So far not easy to put hand on heart and say, this is a great system and one not to go without. Maybe Mal will get to have another go and maybe he will feel more positive next time.

In the afternoon we sat out around the campfire and enjoyed the afternoon as the sun lost it's punch and the evening lady used her cool fan to take away any heat the land had absorbed.

We all sat down to yummy lamb shanks for tea and then had an earlier evening that last night.

Thursday 29th October

Another beautiful day in Coolah.

We never got back to the Hema Navigator, code named the Hemmoroid. We all put on our walking boots and wandered up through a beautiful forest at the back of Coolah to a spot only the locals know. The highlight of the walk was the lichen and subsequent colour in the trunks of the pine trees. Beautiful dark reds and greys.

Back at the house Sue had a wonderful opportunity to photograph the musk lorikeets feeding on the bottlebrush flowers.

In the afternoon Sue and Mal watched the original 1966 crossing of Australia by the Leyland Brothers team. What a great show. Footage of waterfalls running down off Ayres Rock, shots of Australia that very few have ever seen and places that have changed so much that no one will ever see them like that again. Also not a single infomertial for "Cooper Tyres" or Old Man Emu suspension and so on that we get in current DVD specials from people like Pat Raveonabout alltheproducts Callingihan.

We had a little concert under the pines in front of the fire from Mal asnd his guitar before heading out for Chinese. Great meal, we had better get to like the cuisine because it soon will be our national dish.