We made for Barraba. On the way we stopped for morning tea and rang the solicitor to make an appointment. He agreed to see us at noon so we hurried, the solicitor up the road from Manila to Barraba.
The contract we had sent by express mail from Hay last Thursday had arrived in Barraba this morning. We went through it with Phillip Kruit, the solicitor. He asked us to carry out another inspection of the house because the state of the house at the point of exchange of contracts is legally the state of the property which is being bought and sold. We must do yet another inspection prior to settlement to confirm that the property is in the same state.
I bought a topographic map of Barraba to check the flood situation. The surveyor had told me that there is no official flood level in Barraba and that anecdotal evidence must me used to obtain building permits. The map shows that the house is above the 500 m level and that the main street of the town is lower than this so the town will probably be flooded before we are. When we left the town I noticed that there is a low weir just upstream of the bridge which could possible cause the flood level to be higher upstream than is is downstream but my thoughts are that this would be a very small effect. The real estate agent told us that the last big flood reached some way up into our back yard but didn't reach the house. My guess is that we are not likely to suffer from flooding.
We met up with John Samin who assisted us with the inspection. There had been no change to the house other than the hatch in the floor that I had arranged so that the building inspector and the pest inspector could complete their work.
The hatch is in the corner of the living room furthest from the fireplace. I lifted the hatch and checked the underfloor space. Everything visible was in very good condition. Unfortunately, the construction of the house with all the internal walls rising from the foundations, made it impossible to check the space under any other room so we still don't know what is under the concrete floors in the hall and the front room. I'm confident that any problems there are very minor so I am happy to go on with the purchase.
We took the opportunity to measure all the rooms so that we can start planning in earnest.
Needing to get to Brisbane before the weekend, we left Barraba at about three o'clock, planning to stop somewhere up the road. Jean mentioned that several people have remarked on the very nice riverside camping spots in Bingara so we headed there. We didn't find the sites so I checked "The Book" again only to discover that the sites here are quite a way out of town and are not suitable for big rigs.
We returned to the highway and headed north again. On the way across the bridge out of Bingarra, which is really too narrow for two full width vehicles, the left hand mirror was carried away by something protruding from the bridge structure. This caused quite a shock and left us a little disabled as I now can't check the trailer when we make sharp left turns.
We drove on into the sunset and finally reached a nice quiet bush rest area just in time to watch Dr Who.