We set off towards Gunnedah up the Newell Highway.
The decision to use this route proved to be a disaster, Jean had had a bad day yesterday but today she was so sick that she couldn't eat. The Newell Highway and the Oxley Highway are curate's egg roads, "good in parts". Unhappily the other parts are bad to dreadful with some stretches of these main highways reducing us to less that 50 kph to keep us from being bounced about. I don't know what is the major cause of our problem. The roads are getting old and I suspect they are not maintained as they should be, the Motley is getting older but the shock absorbers were replaced two years ago so they should still be OK, and we are getting older and perhaps less able to tolerate of this kind of physical treatment. Jean certainly suffers on bad roads because it seems to aggravates her TMJ .
I apologised to some of the trucks I held up saying "I have a sick lady on board and have to slow down because the road is so lumpy". They all wished her well which proves that truckies are generally good guys.
We stopped for morning tea at Tooraweenah and for lunch at Mullaley. We stopped at Gunnedah to top up the grocery stocks before we get back to the limited range of stuff in the IGA.
We stopped at the rest area at Red Bank Creek just to the east of Gunnedah. We would only have a relatively short journey tomorrow so we would have plenty of time to unload the Motley before the sun sets. It had been pretty hot all day so I parked well away from the other vehicles, started the generator and switched on the air conditioner. We had a quiet evening.