In the morning we went for a walk to Hickey Falls taking a few photos. We only had a short drive today so no need to rush off. The first few days of any trip is mostly driving with nothing to exciting happening on the way. But today we meant a force of nature we had not encountered before.
Just outside Dubbo we passed several cars coming in the opposite direction that looked like a flock of birds had flown over them and dropped their cargo, with hardly any clear windscreen. We passed more cars in much the same state; we then noticed the car grills were full of bugs. Then we hit them, swarms of grasshoppers, you could see them in the distance but could do nothing to avoid them as they crossed the road. Not only did you hear the thud as they hit the windscreen we could see the visual impact as they splattered over the windscreen, sliding up with the force of the wind, leaving slim marks as they went over the roof. They got worse the closer we got to Forbes seeing hundreds of dead bugs on the road as we drove along. It was bad enough hitting a couple of grasshoppers but when there was a great big swamp crossing the road it was thud, thud, thud, slim. Slim, slim. We have found out grasshoppers don’t have red blood but lime green, with evidence of it on the front of the car and van. By the time we got to Forbes there was very little clean windscreen left and we looked like the same flock had dumped their cargo on us. My job when we fill up with petrol is to clean the windscreen. The locals at Forbes have said they are nearly in plague proportions this year.
We have stopped for the night at a lovely rest stop at Forbes right on the creek, an older local couple came to give us the phone number of the local police as they are having trouble with some of the local gangs, asking us to call them if they turn up, this is a popular rest area with several other campers. One of the other campers has taken it upon himself to warn all the other campers. Very nice of him but gee he could talk under wet cement.
We went for a nice walk around the creek which has a loop walking track around it. We saw fish jumping and quite a few locals fishing.
