Entry 31 - 3rd November 2016
This year especially, we had come to adore our nomadic
lifestyle enjoying a vast variety of experiences, magnificent scenery with the
added bonus of meeting many like-minded people.
Every now and then you come across some extra special people
whom you meld with above the rest. That was the case with Brian & Anne and it
was quickly reiterated to us we were pleased we had made the effort to catch up
with them.
Our first night leaving Brian & Anne was spent at
Calliope at a magnificent setting for a free camp.
As we continued travelling south we became aware of another
special couple whom were presently located about 300 kilometres south. A quick
phone call and we found ourselves deviating about 40 kilometres off our planned
route to catch up with Mike & Bev.
We stayed at the Woodgate Beach caravan park where we were
visited by Mike & Bev for 4 hours of constant chatter. Mary cooked up a
fresh roast chicken tea which was much appreciated by the four of us. In the
morning we visited Mike & Bev at their hired cottage for morning tea (only
a couple of hours + a bit) before resuming our south bound driving
requirements.
We had previously spent time exploring the area of
Queensland near Woodgate Beach but hadn’t known or ventured into Woodgate Beach
which turned out to be a magnificent beach setting. It just reiterated to us no
matter how much travelling or exploring we do, we will never see all the sights
on offer around Australia. We had no doubt we would return to Woodgate Beach
during our travels. It was one of those delightful locations.
Over the last four days we had travelled a distance of about
750 kilometres since leaving Rockhampton, arriving at Toowoomba where we caught
up with another fellow traveller Jodie while hubby Shane was away interstate, promoting
Queensland tourism. We seem to cross paths with Jodie & Shane at least once
a year since our first encounter with one another in 2011.
The below picture was taken solely for the benefit of Shane
to show him what he was missing.
The requirement to continue driving was feeling rather
arduous and we needed to push ourselves to get motivated. We constantly changed
drivers and regularly stopped to stretch out, having a walk around looking at
the sights along the way to break up the monotony of driving.
This led to the discovery of another great location to our
liking about 38 kilometres south of Tenterfield in a bush setting called
Kookaburra camping & caravan park, a similar setting to a station stay.
Once again we thought photographs of this location would provide a better
description than words.
We were considering a second night at Kookaburra campground
if it hadn’t been for the arrival of rain. We checked the bureau of meteorology
web site and it appeared we were to experience rain for most of the day so we
chose to move on, continuing with our driving chores. As it turned out it did
rain most of the day and it was far more constructive sitting in the tow tug,
decreasing our required kilometre age, (about 260 kilometres) during the rain.
We had experienced some minor rain a couple of times during
the night in the last month but this was our first day since leaving Adelaide
on 1st April 2016 that we had encountered rain during daylight hours.
This being in stark contrast to our home town, Adelaide’s wettest winter in
many years, (promoted as decades) and we spent the majority of our time away in
bathers obtaining a beautiful summer tan.
We travelled to Tamworth during the rain with our first stop
at the information centre where we obtained material on local attractions and
then parked up at a free camping area opposite the quiet airport where we
deciphered our acquired information on what might be of interest to us in the
area. Tamworth is quite a large regional town (it had 3 McDonald’s) with little
highlights that we thought appealing to us. Our preference being beautiful
country scenery without the hustle bustle of city living.
We travelled about 50 kilometres south east from Tamworth to
Chaffey Dam where we spent the next couple of days camping in a beautiful
restful setting.
The below picture shows the setting at Chaffey Dam with Mary
hiking up the hill continuing with the conditioning of our legs for our Sydney
Harbour Bridge climb. Our caravan is just to the right of Mary.
We were now experiencing cool days with cold nights. The
weather forecast over the next few days at our present location was with
maximums approaching near 20 C with overnight minimums as low as 0 C. Our
diesel heater was being put to good use and we were now utilising two quilts at
night. Our summer attire had been put to the back of our wardrobe.
We were enjoying our current setting and re-assessed our
required kilometre age along with the number of days we had left to cover the necessary
distance.
It was decided we could afford another day of leisure but we
chose to relocate to another nice sounding location about 20 kilometres down
the road. A stop along the way at the small village of Nundle was very
satisfying with a great information centre, the Volcania Art Glass Gallery had
a lovely display of very affordable Australian made items, and the Nundle
Woollen Mill was another very worthwhile experience.
Nundle was another delightful location we could have easily
spent several days exploring, absorbing its atmosphere.
Our location for the evening was Sheba Dam, a freedom
camping location with a beautiful soul lifting setting amongst large gum trees.
It didn’t take long before we were once again, re-assessing our travelling time
frame. We were delighted we managed to squeeze in another day at Sheba Dam.
Sheba Dam would be a perfect location to base ourselves for a week or so while
we explored the region which we dutifully recorded in these chronicles of our
travels for our future reference. It was definitely time to move on from here
as there was a motor bikers rally here this coming weekend and they were
already starting to arrive.
 |
| There was a requirement to wear a hat due to a swooping magpie |
We continued slowly travelling south stopping off every hour
or so checking out the small towns along the way. A night was spent at Merriwa
where a couple of hours was occupied walking around town looking at the sights.
Continuing with our required kilometre age travelling south we stopped at a
couple of walking trails at ‘Hands on Rock,’ where we viewed some faded
aboriginal rock art and at ‘The Drip’ a walk along the edge of a flowing creek.
Both were pleasant walks in a scrub setting.
The Drip walk was particularly delightful with the sound of
running water and chattering birds around us in a magnificent lush riverside
forest with flowing water on one side of the trail and sculptured sandstone
caves on the other. ‘The Drip’ or ‘Great Dripping Wall’ is a towering sandstone
cliff face with dripping water tumbling down from the upper reaches of the
cliff face onto the creek bed below.
Travelling through this area there was a dramatic change in
the species of road kill scattered along the edges of the road from the normal predominate
kangaroos to be replaced by dead Wombats. The sightings of dead wombats with
the occasional kangaroo just reiterated how dangerous the outback roads can be
travelling at night when these animals come out to feed.
During our walks in this area we did see a lot of Wombat holes.
We continued south or sort of, with a fair bit of zig
zagging to view some of the highlights along the way whilst covering the required
number of kilometres even though it was at a slow rate with plenty of stops. Another
stop was in the town of Gulgong where we walked the streets viewing the
buildings and we spent a couple of hours in “Stacks” variety store which we had
been told we should see. It was a bit like a large department store all crammed
into a tight area but was still a large store, similar to a $2 shop or cheap as
chips. It seemed you could find just about all manner of items for sale in this
store. It was worth a deviation just to see the “Stacks.”
We covered around 137 kilometres for the day over an 8 hour
period which tallied up to about 60 kilometres we had actually travelled south.
A stop over at one of the larger regional towns of Mudgee
was a good location to acquire some minor items like new windscreen wipers as
ours weren’t coping with the sudden on-set of rain.
Continuing south we were now choosing to drive the more
picturesque tourist routes which sooths the soul viewing pleasant scenery along
the way and after travelling about 50 kilometres for the day we chose to stop at
another small township of Rylstone enjoying a walk around viewing the town’s
highlights.
The below picture shows our camp location at Rylstone
showgrounds located in the heart of town (free camp location) taken from about
300 metres and a second picture of our location taken the following morning at
about 30 metres.
We continued south from Rylstone expecting to spend time at
several locations along the way but unfortunately the townships of Kandos,
Ilford and Sofala didn’t live up to all the publicity hype in all the brochures
we had read. Kandos publicized a market day on the 5th Sunday of the
month which sounded special and it just happened to be the 5th
Sunday of the month but no market existed, Ilford turned out to be only about
half a dozen houses and the much publicized Safala tourist precinct was lucky
if 25 percent of the shops were open at 11.30 am and there were plenty of other
visitors (out for a Sunday drive) all walking around just as disappointed as
us. Rylstone was the pick of the area with a great camp area and a professional
precinct presentation.
Leaving Rylstone we ended up covering around 210 kilometres for
the day which was a huge day for us arriving at the large town of Cowra late
afternoon. We were somewhat spent and decided to stay at Cowra for a second
night recuperating from our long drive.
As it turned out Cowra was a very interesting place to visit
with plenty of options to occupy your time.
During World War 2 Cowra was the location of a POW camp
(prisoners of war,) holding around 4000 prisoners. Due to overcrowding and
unrest there was a break out by the Japanese on August 5, 1944 resulting with 234
Japanese soldiers and 4 Australians killed.
We found the preserved remains and signage at the prisoner
of war campsite very interesting, and viewed the nearby war cemeteries. This included
the Japanese war cemetery which is the only Japanese war cemetery outside of
Japan. Of interest we saw quite a few plaques in the cemetery of serving
Japanese soldiers who died in the breakout with ages in their 60’s and 70’s.
Nearby to the war cemetery and prisoner of war campsite is a
Japanese Garden & Cultural Centre with the largest Japanese Garden in the
southern hemisphere. We so enjoyed walking around the Japanese Garden which was
a tranquil experience.
Cowra long standing contribution to world peace had also
been recognised with one of 23 Peace Bells throughout the world being located
in Cowra. All 26 bells are rung at the same time on world peace day September 18th.
A visit to the Cowra Rail Heritage Centre was very
rewarding. Entry was via a donation. A gentleman greeted us and then spent the
next 1 ½ hours providing us with a one on one tour of the centre. It was
delightful viewing the old railway depot and being provided with a running
commentary of its history which was promoted as ‘not a static museum but a
living railway depot’ where work was being carried on in much the same way as
it always was. We saw people working on restoration and maintenance of a
locomotive whilst touring the depot.
Our planned destination of Canberra was about 200 kilometres
away and we spent a further two days travelling before arriving at Canberra. We
chose the shortest route and felt even then we could have allocated a few more
days to explore some of the areas we had travelled through.
We had been looking forward to this moment all year,
catching up with our son Timothy and wife Penny. Their home was to be our base
for the next week or so.
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