Well, our first trip in Ruby was memorable. It started when the Antarctic blob hit Australia. This was a blast of extremely cold weather that brought snow to parts of the East Coast that hadn’t seen snow in over 15 years.

During out first trip Ruby moved about an inch to the right and was obstructing the driver’s mirror. This meant upon arrived in Quirindi Caravan Park, we had to take her off the ute. This was a double challenge. Partly because the weather was freezing, and secondly, because I am not great at directions. We could get her either centred or square on. But we struggled to get her both centered and square on quickly. After about half an hour, we had succeeded and we were inside celebrating preparing for our firat night in Ruby with the air conditioner on heat thawing out.

The quote “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” by John Lennon totally described our first Ruby trip.

We had planned to spend our first night in Ruby, at Wallabadah Free Camp. This is half an hour south from our eventual destination. When we arrived at Wallabadah, we discovered the free camp was closed. Later in fact, we discovered all free camps in Liverpool Plains Council Area were closed due to COVID. The advantage of needing to change our plans was that w2e stayed in a paid caravan park and had electricity so we could keep warm.

Quirindi is a small town on the North West Slopes in the Liverpool Plains Shire. The area itself has a rich agricultural history and the main street pays respect to the area’s heritage by displaying the original stock brands on the footpath.

Our overnight stay in Quirindi means there is still more to explore. Over the next week I will share with you the attractions we visited.

• First Fleet Memorial Gardens
• Who’d A-Thought It Lookout
• Bob’s Shed
• Peter Brock World

I hope you enjoy getting to know parts of Australia’s secret gems through the Ruby Tuesday series.