Sunday 7th February 2010 - Dorrigo

We had a nice diversion on the way home from our holiday at Byron Bay.

Our long, long time good friends Ken & Margaret Gardener have just finished building their new home at Megan (near Dorrigo) - they picked up the keys from their builder on Friday & have yet to move in. It seemed appropriate that we should be on the doorstep to celebrate the new house with some chilled champagne.

Ken & Margaret's daughter Carolyn is my God Daughter. Carolyn & her husband Brett have some lovely acres at Dorrigo and I have been promising her for six years that I would visit.

They have three young children now so my visit was well overdue.

We arrived to find Ken, Margaret and their eldest son Jim at Brett & Carolyn's. Jim is over from WA to give Ken a hand to move furniture & whatever from Gosford to their new retirement home at Megan which is about 9 klms from Carolyn & Bretts place.

We had a property inspection at Megan and celebrated the magic moment with champagne.

The property and house are lovely as you can see by the attached photos. We stayed for dinner at Carolyns & then went back to spend the the night at the "Lookout Motel" at the highest point at Dorrigo. The wet weather did spoil the outlook a bit but the countryside is magnificent even in the rain. It poured rain all night. We went back to Carolyn's for breakfast & to farewell everyone there before making the trek down the mountain towards home. The "Waterfall Way" (the road up to Dorrigo) is very narrow in parts and is prone to rock slides and washaways so it can be quite dangerous especially in the wet. I was relieved to get to the main highway without incident.

The trip home was slow as the rain was very heavy in patches but we managed the 500klms & got home about 5.00pm with stops at Kempsey for fuel and Pt Macquarie for lunch break.

Then of course there was the pile of messages and mail to wade through not to mention unpacking. I understand we have had something like 4 inches of rain here in the last few days.

I did not have to worry about the garden dying of thirst while I was away. I now have a jungle of weeds to contemplate.