Bye Sydney...Hello Barrington

Well it was an early start, on 10th July, to say goodbye to Sydney and a nice way to go as we left over the Harbour Bridge with a view of the sun rising over the Opera House. It was a nice place to visit but I was happy and ready to leave.
We had a couple of stops on the way to Barrington. A bunch of us decided to make a load of spag bol so we bought all the stuff and split the costs.
We arrived at Barrington about lunchtime and it was quite stunning. www.thesteps.com.au Where we stayed was in the valley of the Great Dividing Range and reminded me a bit of Scotland with the lovely river and green hills all around, was nice. Everyone seemed pretty friendly as well. Frank and Dave who jointly own the place. Nick, Talos and Shrek who are all Canadian and were working there. Adam who also worked there but had a farm nearby as well and Donna who had been there a few weeks and was a hairdresser, bit bossy though!!
We had our free BBQ lunch which was ok and then a few of us had decided to do the mountain bike ride. We were told it was an intimediate track.
We set off around 3.30 and it was pretty tough. I really enjoyed it though. Apparently it was about 9km, 7km of which were downhill. We started by being driven a bit of a way to the start point and then began by cycling into the bush. We had to walk up a few of the bigger hills which was ok. Some of the downhill was pretty steep and I could feel my back wheel skidding a bit in the dry dust. I did well though, I thought. We ended up coming out of the bush onto the top of one of the hills and then going down the side of that. We were out for just over 2 hours which was great but it had got pretty cold. My hands were killing after it though.
When we got back we all headed up to the bunkhouse, where we were cooking/sleeping, and all chipped in to cook dinner. It was a really good meal and we sat around the table chatting for ages. A bit late on we headed down to the miners den to sit by the fire and warm up. Generally it was warmish in the day with nice clear skies but they would stay clear into the night so there was often frost in the morning.
Kelly and I decided to stay in Barrington for a few days, doing a bit of work and getting free food and accommodation. Tash, from our bus, also decided to stay but for a different reason - Nick!! Anyway we stayed til Friday 14th and did barely any work. They had Oz buses coming in daily so we met a few people and some of the drivers which was cool. They had an all you can eat pizza dinner which they did nightly so we helped make the pizza, clear up after breakfast and sometimes help clean the bunkhouse. Pretty easy stuff but we were ready to leave by friday. We did really do much else there, did get pissed for the first time since I left home!!! Kelly was being sick....haha. Got to everyone quite well so it was a bit sad to leave. It was fun and nice to be in the middle of nowhere and unable to really be contacted or contact people. Oh we did briefly see a platypus in the wild, also saw possums and a few other things.
Well that easily takes you guys upto Friday Morning