This was one of those ideas that was thrown around for at least year before it actually became real… I’m not sure where it orignated, but it kept surfacing until Denise (my dear friend and photographer extraordinaire) set a destination and a date – 6th of June for the Henry Lawson Festival in Grenfell NSW – Denise’s home town.

But as with any good road trip… it wasn’t about the destination (although Grenfell IS a very cool and worthy destination) it was about the journey….

At some stage Lightning Ridge entered in to the equation, but the rest was made up as we went along.

So.  For some reason we decided that we would leave Bris at 1pm in the morning.  Why was that again Denise?!

We looked at the map and decided that Goondawindi (Gundy) would be good for a beautiful sunrise shot.

As it turns out it was very dark still when we passed through Gundy so we kept going until we saw a silo (my good friend the silo) and a peep of dawn.

I thought I would be clever and bring my smaller, lighter travel tripod and tried to attach my very heavy D3 to it and make a lovely 3 second exposure.  But it didn’t work so I got a blurry Silo photo and a bit grumpy with the tripod (I think Denise may have the photos of this…)

Random car shot to get a hang of said tripod and heavy camera combo -

We were kind of disappointed with the early part of the sunrise, so continued driving until  the sky went like this…

yay!  definitely worth the early departure

Denise out doing what she does best -

after a lot of flat desolate looking landscape near Moree, there was this…

more flat stuff but add some trees to the mix…

we took a break at this strange looking mini-valley thing…

Sheep, yeah!  I like sheep…

Random weedy things…

Somewhere near Collarenebri, (say that 3 times really fast… ) I made some new friends…

this is Harold, he enjoys bike riding, soccer and playing backgammon with his friends…

This is Maurice, Harolds best friend and a state ballroom champion…

This is Margie… she’s shy but loves long walks along the beach and going to the movies in her spare time.

This is Boris, he likes fast cars and fast women….

This is Gretel.  She thinks she’s a horse.

This is Sammy.  Margies eldest… a lovable rogue…

and this is Simon* (not his real name)… he refused to sign my model release form, so I can’t reveal his identity.

see ya later guys…

A glimpse of a modern day drover… I had a romantic notion that he should be on horseback… My man from Snowy River fantasy remains unfulfilled…

next stop, Sheepsville… Sheep as far as the eye can see!

Ah Sheep… they’re so cool… and Sheeplike.

Ok that’s probably more photos of livestock that you’ve ever wanted to see, but next stop is Lightning Ridge…

oh wait… lets grab a vege burger at the take away joint in the middle of nowhere before we go…!

Stay tooned for old cars at dawn, dead tractors, sticky mud and endless straight road in my next installment of Roadtrippin’ Bliss…

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