Pilliga & Beyond

I had to put the alarm on for this morning as we needed to be at Serena's by 8.30am for our day in the Pilliga. We headed off to Pilliga Pottery and got there at about 9.30am. We had a look through the amazing collection of pottery and Johannes who is the master potter gave us a demonstration which was very neat. We sat out in the beautiful courtyard in the sun and had a coffee and then bought a few little cool items. It is such a beautiful place and well worth a visit to. We left there at about 11am and headed out to the Sculptures In The Scrub about 60-70 kms away in the middle of nowhere. We did the 2.5 km walk which takes you past the 4 sculptures and through some spectacular bushland and also well worth the trip. As we were leaving a car pulled up and it was a couple of local guys that Serena and I knew but had not seen for 20 plus years. Funny the places you run into people. We left there and Luke and Tanya decided that it looked quicker on the map to go another way to get to Baradine so we went that way only to get about 15 kms down the dirt road to be faced with a creek we could not cross....sooooo back the way we came and after what seemed like forever on the dirt we hit Baradine. It was past 2pm by this stage and we were looking forward to going to Freckles for lunch which is owned by 2 very old friends of mine only to be faced with locked gates as they are not open on Monday's. So we went to the Discovery Centre and Jillian called Narelle and she told us to come around to her place for coffee. So we got some hot chips from the cafe and went to her house. I have not seen Narelle for about 12 years so it was really nice to catch up. She took us down to the shop for a look which was really great of her and it is so cool so we will definitely be going back there for a better look and lunch when we are back next. We said goodbye at the shop and then went back to have a look at the Discovery Centre and also to catch up with Jillian who I had not seen for years (except briefly on Friday night at the pub). 5pm came very quickly and it was time to let Jill go home and we headed back to Coona. When we got back to Dad's he was busy cooking his famous Chilli Con Carne. Kris arrived home late as she is doing overtime and then we enjoyed Dad's dinner with a bottle of Argentinian wine. What a great day to end our time in Coonabarabran. Off to Tamworth tomorrow.
Night xo