Day 4 - Driving North

The plan was now to continue north to Tenterfield (Ryan's old stomping ground) and Bald Rock National Park. We were following a map from the NPWS website, which was somewhat lacking in detail. It appeared to be a relatively short drive north out of the national park, linking to the Old Grafton Road which would take us out to Glen Innes. In reality, it turned out to be 50km of fairly rough forestry road which took us up to Dalmorton. Here were the remains of what was once quite a large gold-mining town. Exploration was somewhat limited by Ryan's fear of free-ranging cows (I love you honey), but we did take the opportunity to have some morning tea while we read the signs in a fenced off section of the town.



We both assumed that the Old Grafton Road would be big and tarred. Wrong again. It was in fact much better - a narrow, winding 110km of dirt that followed the river along the valley floor. Part-way along there was even an old tunnel to drive through. If anything beats riding on ferries, it would have to be driving through tunnels :-) 

We stopped briefly in Glen Innes for lunch, then continued onwards to Bald Rock National Park to set up camp again.



As night fell, a cat-like shadow flitted across our site and we were surprised to see a quoll - an endangered species and an unusual sight. Pleasant surprise quickly turned to dismay, though, as this particular quoll turned out to be a seasoned campaigner in the campground. He would run right up to our picnic table and jump on the struts underneath, with only the most persistent shouting/clapping/stomping scaring him off temporarily until he would line up for another attack. We did manage to get through dinner without sacrificing any of our food, but it wasn't a particularly relaxing meal...