Stanthorpe

On the morning of Saturday 16th we set out for our next stopover at Stanthorpe.
Fairly soon after leaving Tamworth we started to climb up onto the New England Plateau.
We stopped at Armidale for morning tea, which was made by Rob King our driver. We only had 45 minutes in the town so Margaret and I did some quick exploring. For a country town there were many young people walking the streets. This is because Armidale is a University Town, housing the University of New England.

Our destination was the two cathedrals that we saw from the bus as we entered the town. St Peter's is the Anglical Cathedral and St Mary's is the Roman Catholic one. St Peter's was interesting and attractive, but St Mary's was magnificent. Internally it was one of the most beautiful churches we have seen. The photograph shows Margaret admiring the architecture of St Mary's.
We had lunch at Glen Innes which is famous for its Celtic Festival and visited the Standing Stones a short distance from town.
The next major town was Tenterfield. We stopped at the Tenterfield Saddler, which was made famous by Peter Allan. I would have preferred to see the School of Arts where Sir Henry Parks gave his famous Tenterfield Oration on 24th October 1989. Parks was the "Father of Federation" and his address was one of the main speaches leading up to the Federation of the Australian colonies.
Unfortunately we had already passed it and the driver needed to push on to Stanthorpe.
We had an excellent meal at an Italian Restaurant in Stanthorpe and stayed the night at a local motel.
On Sunday 17th we left Stanthorpe and traveled through the southern Darling Downs and arrived at Conrad Jupiters on the Gold Coast. We settled into our room, found a restaurant for our evening meal and then returned to the hotel for an early night.