You haven’t really been to Australia unless you have seen something of the country away from the big cities. You could be in a different world altogether. Mile upon mile of long, straight, empty roads; areas of rich pasture land and shiny fattened beef. Stunning mountains and rock formations resulting from erupting volcanoes millions of years ago. And small country towns like Narrabri. It would be too easy to dismiss it as quaint and old fashioned; certainly there are none of the big coffee chains littered around. Instead, you have family run delicatessens offering home made pastries and sandwiches and all those bars and boxes of delicious chutneys and gifts you didn’t know you needed.

As the dusty travellers pulled into Riverside Farm Retreat, we agreed the Head of Entertainment had got another gold star (second of the day after narrowly preventing Captain Cockpit from taxiing into an air ambulance, but we will gloss over that for now. I may need it as ammunition in the future). Our accommodation was literally exactly as described on the tin; a retreat on the banks of the Namoi River. Ian and Meredith have built this 500 acre horse stud and holiday destination from scratch. Over a few (rather a lot actually -Ed) beers, they shared the history of the area; how they hand-raised Pepper the Emu by hand; how Ian single handedly jacked their house up to stop it flooding. We were introduced to Darcy the Australian heeler dog and Rusty (the glove puppet Possum ) Some things that happen in Narrabri have to stay in Narrabri.

We have seen Sawn Rocks - a natural Masterpiece that wouldn’t look out of place in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We hiked through eucalyptus forests to the summit of Mount Kaputar and bought wine and local steaks ready for Jonathan to ruin on the BBQ tonight. WiFi is refreshingly intermittent out here so we teenagers can’t be glued to our phones. We have all managed to contact home at some point just to check everyone is alive - in particular our precious doggies. Photographic evidence would imply they haven’t given us a second thought! It’s an early start tomorrow as we are heading towards Brisbane where, worryingly, storms are forecast. We have to get there in time to catch the ferry to Frazer Island; even number 1 son Tom is impressed we are going there, so as long as we don’t have another “near miss” on the ground, we should have lots to report .