After passing my Light Rigid driving test in the morning, saying a goodbye to my mum, and having our tyres checked, we set off from Griffith in the early afternoon towards Hillston.

When we arrived in Hillston we noticed our Tyre Pressure Management System (TPMS) was showing one rear tyre down to 55 psi so we called in at the local tyre joint to get it checked. While we were parked under their awning the big storm that we’d seen building as we neared Hillston finally opened up and down came the rain. It poured rain for about 15 minutes, then it eased off, then it hailed for a few minutes. I’m glad we were parked under the awning when the hail came down. It sounded so loud on the tin roof.

The tyre fitter couldn’t find anything wrong with the tyre so put it back on and pumped it up. We thought we might just stay overnight in Hillston in case the tyre decides to go down again and we would be close to the tyre joint however when we arrived at the little caravan park we found they were completely booked out. What to do?

As we still had a bit of daylight left we decided to head north and maybe make it to Mt Hope. It was not to be. We only went about 20km out of town and the tyre was going down rapidly so we turned around and headed back to Hillston.

We had passed a Rest Area just before arriving in town, opposite the Airport so went there and found a flat spot to camp for the night. We were going to get a bit of truck noise as it was close to the road but we didn’t have much choice. The free camp next to the Lachlan River was a no go after the rain storm had turned the track to mud.

We’d have to get the tyre looked at again in the morning.