Yesterday just after I crossed the border into Queensland outside the town of Stanhope I stopped at a rest stop where I made myself a picnic lunch and retired to one of the benches to enjoy the same, whilst I was there eating ham salad rolls and quaffing Pinot Grigio the local plod turned up in his super pick-up to investigate the Wicked camper littering one of his tourist rest stops (Wicked had a reputation for putting colourful - read crude - graffiti on their camper vans so they were banned for a while until they cleaned up their act in Queensland) 15 minutes later as I was clearing up and preparing to leave an unmarked pick-up arrived with a uniformed cop in the driver's seat he got out and paid a too short a visit to the ablutions before driving back the way he had come from, I was expecting to be pulled over when I drove through the town but they missed me, te he.
Following my sister Gillian's advice I went to the local bowls club in West Toowoomba for dinner and after being signed in and having bought the compulsory raffle tickets I found myself in the company of David, Karen, Brian and Merle, who were well travelled and with an average age of 74 had a slew of stories to tell, it is always good to meet the locals, they have a more in depth knowledge of the area than the sweet young things one encounters at the average tourist information centre, mind you I cannot complain, when I swanned into the tourist info. on Thursday in Armidale and asked for their recommendations for a cheap and cheerful accommodation the two ladies could not have been more helpful, unlike most places where they give you a load of leaflets that have no bearing whatsoever on what you are looking for, I suppose the exception.......
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