Saturday nights alright for fighting

Once we had negotiated the labyrinth of road tunnels that go under Brisbane, we were on the New England highway heading inland, well away from the coast road, surrounded by beautiful rolling hills, with views willingly offered up by the Great Dividing Range. Even the sky seemed to have grown.   It felt like we had begun a new road trip. Our first stop was Warwick – as always we were reliant on the tourist information centre to provide us with answers & we weren't disappointed. We walked around the town which, like many we have visited still retains the original hotels & shop fronts from when the town was built. It was quite busy but felt very ‘local’. This was confirmed when I overheard an elderly man saying “I don't know where all these people have come from but they aren't Warwick!”. 
We were heading to a national park but it had been a busy few days so we decided to stop off at a campsite along the way and recharge ourselves so we could do some hiking when we got there. It was the worst campsite we had been on. Not because all the backpackers who were staying there whilst fruit picking at nearby farms, but because it was dirty & neglected. They had their own water source that was the worst colour I have ever seen. Our friends B&J,  who live in deepest Yorkshire, & whose water comes from a stream, is like pure spring water compared to this. It was dark brown. I had no intention of putting any of my parts in that. Thankfully the Girraween National Park was a complete contrast in a beautiful & tranquil setting on a site that was barely half full & clean refreshing hot showers (for 4 minutes) A real bonus was the visitors centre had free wifi 24/7. I didn't want to leave! 

All across this vast area there are huge rocks, some randomly balancing on others to create ‘castles’ or ‘pyramids’.  We followed one of the small 2-3k trails when we got there & the following day we did a much longer hike up into the hills with great views. We pretty much had the place to ourselves up there which was lovely. In the evening more than a dozen kangaroos appeared to feed on the grass near to our camper van which was so nice to watch. On the second night we were invited to join some ex pat campers  & their friends for drinks. It was a pleasant relaxing  evening  sharing stories & drinking wine until the arrival of the rain sent everyone off to their beds. 

Back on the road the next day I was struggling to pick up a radio station until we hit a small town called Tenterfield,  where the local radio DJ, an elderly lady by the sound of her voice told of a very sad tragedy in the town where 3 people from the same family had died cleaning out a storage tank. She was so emotional about it - & then in the same breath announced the next song – “here's Elton John singing Saturday nights alright for fighting” !!!

We arrived in Glen Innes – a town famous for its Celtic standing stones – described to us as Australia’s equivalent of Stonehenge. No. It most definitely was not,  but it was a nice park with some nice stone sculptures. Our campsite was just a few minutes from downtown so got showered ,’dolled up’  & headed into town. First stop the RSL services club – Similar to the British Legion. We got signed in & were delighted that drinks were ‘club’ prices - $7 for a schooner of beer & mini bottle of fizz. 
It was an entertaining evening where 4 interesting things happened: 1. we ran into the governor of New South Wales, 2. we witnessed our first bar room brawl, 3.we were rescued from a huge downpour by a kind bus driver & 4. one of our camping chairs went missing. This may not sound that exciting to you but we haven't been out on a Saturday night for some time so it was quite a treat for us. I'm guessing you might want more details so in summary the governor and his wife were attending a reception at the RSL club, the main perpetrator of the fight got a three month ban from the bar, the bus driver went off his route to drop us at the campsite to save us getting wet and the camping chair turned up safe & well the following day.