Moree, NSW 2400. Saturday 23rd December 2006.

Getting to bed at 2am didn't stop us being up and out of the house by 5am heading over to Inverell where Bob was taking part in an early morning cycle race.

After the race we explored the town beginning with breakfast at the River Walk Cafe with Mick, Bob and Tom. This is a very pleasant town with quaint well preserved buildings and a booming town centre; not entirely devoid of mass marketing but generally very individual.

Inverell is one of the booming country towns in this part of the outback. Australia like so many countries is blighted by countryside deprivation, but not here in the wealthy agriculturally belt of NSW.

After brekky we headed down to Mick's shop at Byron Bikes where we bumped into a few of the members of the Moree Cycling Club. Everyone remembered me from the other day at water polo and I am beginning to feel like a local.

Over to Tom's grandparents for an insight into local history learning that the area around Inverell is the Sapphire Capital of Australia with high quality production based in the hard ground of the bush that surrounds the town.

One local legend tells of the fact that the early tin miners in the surrounding area used to throw the "pretty stones" at each other not realising the significance of their find. Such stones were getting in the way of tin production.

Inverell was founded by a Scot and so we find towns like Rob Roy and streets like Ravenscraig and homes called Stirling all around.

My next stop is to be Tingha, a town established in 1870 as the biggest tin mining area in the country. Tingha became a very wealthy area and it was home to the large Chinese population that came prospecting for wealth in the late 19th century.

Wing Hing Long and Company is a fascinating store in the centre of town. Now a museum, the store was run by Mary Pratt, the daughter of a China Man who came to Tingha as indentured labour and who went on to own the store and a number of other businesses in town.

Mary took over the store after WWII and continued in business until 1998 when the store became a historical timewarp as a museum to life as was in this now ghost town.

The shop is wonderfully old-fashioned with the drapers and the ironmongers etc. There was also one of those wonderful old payment systems on the rails with money being sent to the cash office and your change and receipt being sent back on a pulley system.

Health and Safety still hasn't reached the museum and the joy of this is that we were able to climb the old ramshackle stairs at the back of the shop into the living accommodation and get an idea of what life was like both in the early days and in the shops more recent past.

I come all the way to Tingha and I meet the rellies here at the museum. These Glovers came to Australia from Britain in 1841 originally for the great-great-grandfather to work as a stockman on one of the properties.

It is great out here in the bush as we drive down roads of dirt red soil to see some of the farms Tom's family owned before heading back into Inverell to no:17 Mitchell Crescent, one of the oldest homes in town which is now lovingly being restored by Mick and his family.

After lunch at the Inverell Roadhouse we head up to Blair Athol House, a wonderful property on the outskirts of town that is now a bed and breakfast.

Over to Copeton Dam which is completely dry owing to the current drought and into the Copeton Waters State Park. Here we are on the western slopes of the New England Ranges in a 900 hectare outdoor playground. To give you some idea of the scale of this country we are some 550km Northwest of Sydney but still some 440km Southwest of Brisbane and there is still a lot of country between there and Darwin.

Copeton Dam has the capacity to hold three times the volume of Sydney Harbour, but today the waters of Lake Copeton are particularly low. Nearby the park are the myriad of fossicking fields were they still fossick today for the glint of sapphire.

When Copeton Dam was built there was great controversy in a similar vain to the controversy over the building of the Kinzua Dam. Again there was to be flooding of homes, in this case the village of Copeton. That said, Copeton Village was somewhat of a ghost town and most of the issues were around the fact that the cemetery would be covered.

From the state park we headed on through the bush to Keera, the first property settled in Bingara, before climbing up to Batterham Lookout to see the town in all its glory. Bingara is another beautiful country town and until recently it was a popular backpackers destination before the buses changed route.

I even got to learn the Shearers' Farewell...a leg of mutton up the arse and set the dogs on him.

Tonight we had a lovely quiet night of homemade pizzas and cards before the celebrations get into full swing with a tour of the house lights in various Moree neighbourhoods.

It may be very hot here in the bush, but there are many beautiful country towns of historic buildings and fascinating stories to explore, and I am loving it!!