Mudgee to Stanthorpe

We have spent a great couple of weeks at Mudgee catching up with Fabs, Emily, Elliot and Violet.  It was good to spend time with them and watch them go to school and Kindy.  Elliot received a very good report card at the end of his term and loves going to school.  Garry and Fabian managed several games of golf with Fabs the clear winner.  Fabian takes the group of ‘littlies’ including Elliot and Violet for tuseday afternoon golf lessons and Garry went along to help at a couple of sessions.  The kids loved the lessons and the local Pro is very appreciative for the help.  We also spent last Wednesday evening watching the big screen at the Golf Club in the midst of a heap of NSW supporters.  We were happy with the result. 

In the hills outside Mudgee there is a great area called ‘The Drip’.  It is a gorge along a sandy running creek between sandstone walls and is very pretty. The sandstone walls have plenty of ferns and moss with the largest wall having a small waterfall through rocks and several ‘drips’ dropping from the overhanging rocks into small sandy pools surrounded by ferns.  We enjoyed a peaceful picnic lunch then headed home via the Mudgee Honey farm.  We sampled several different flavoured honeys and took home the large 1kg economy sized tub of bush honey.  The girls enjoyed quite a laugh when Garry decided to share some honey by refilling a squeeze bottle from the large tub.  Honey doesn’t run through a funnel into a small hole like it should!!

riding to school with Dad on their bikes

playing games during hockey training

one of many ledges along the cliffs of The Drip gorge

lost in the ferns

"The Drip"

chillin'

the arty shot

layers of ferns

clear cool water

lovely green moss in the morning winter sun

the 'supermoon' of last weekend

We bid our farewells after a great Queensland win and decided to tackle a big drive to Copeton Dam outside Inverell.  We had contacted friends Russ and Jane and found them camping at the Dam.  The North Shore Park is fairly rough and ready but the fees are very low and the sites are large with good views. Apparently the fishing is quite good with some good cod being landed.  One regular landed a 78cm cod a few days earlier but we did not wet a line.  In fact nothing much interrupted our socialising and we enjoyed a couple of the longest happy hours of our trip.  There is nothing like a good red wine, a large fire, and a couple of guitars spent in good company over a few hours.  There was quite a bit of rain on the way up to Inverell and again on Saturday as we left Copeton Dam and drove up through Bonshaw and Texas where we crossed the Queensland border back into our home state.  There is a really nice grassy free camp site beside the Dumaresq River at Texas and we pulled up there for lunch.  There were a dozen vans in the area and room for plenty more.  We heard a rumble during lunch as 150 motor cycles pulled up opposite the park for a photo near the big Texas Queensland sign.  Lawrence Springborg was in attendance for the photo to commemorate Texas becoming the first “Motorcycle Friendly” town in Qld (or Australia).  The coppers were in attendance and the few dozen bikes that passed us on the road after we had left Texas were all very friendly and thankful for guidance on when to overtake us.  It was showering at the time and I was glad I was in an enclosed vehicle. 

Go Queensland...

Happy Queenslanders

Stanthorpe has not changed since we were through here in October 2011, it was cool.  A bit of sadness has crept in the last couple of days as we have come to realise that our big adventure is nearing its end.  It has given us the opportunity to reflect on the great places we have been, the nice people we have met and the realisation that it really is a great country we live in and how lucky we have been to be able to enjoy so much of it.  

Our last blog will appear in a week or two and will include a summary of our journey and our selection of the 12 best photos from the more than 32,000 that we have taken since we set out 22 months ago. 

Beechworth to Mudgee

We were advised by several people to visit the Beechworth/Rutherglen/Bright region and they were all correct. Even if we did head south again into the cold(er) weather, it was well worth the stay.  The area has a rich gold rush history and of course plenty of attractions glorifying the Kelly Gang and their exploits.  Apart from the old stuff the region is a beautiful wine and cheese region and is on the doorstep of the ski fields.  We were looking forward to a quiet sample of a wine or two but had unknowingly coincided our visit with the annual Rutherglen ‘Wine Walkabout’ at which coach loads of visitors buy a commemorative wine glass for $25 and proceed to tour the Wineries on provided coaches. It is a great tourist idea but suits the 25 year olds much better than us ‘olders’.  We still had a nice drive around several wineries and loved the gardens and buildings of All Saints.  There was also a great Cheese Factory at Millawa with a nice log fire coffee shop/café attached.  It was also very popular on the long weekend.  Brown Brothers also had a very nice area in the King Valley.  Between Beechworth and Rutherglen is a great set of waterfalls which a not signposted all that well but provide a good viewing platform and nice scenery.  It would be good area for a picnic and swim with kids on a summer’s day. 

Woolshed Falls

All Saints Winery front garden

All Saints driveway in autumn

The drive south through Myrtleford, Bright, Mt Beauty and back around through Yackandah was beautiful.  There are lush valleys through to Myrtleford and Bright and then a steep road with great lookouts over the mountain range to Mt Beauty.  Bright is a beautiful town that caters for tourists very well and also offers all the snow gear you could ever need.  The shops were a great wander and the Brewery looked very inviting.  We settled for a cuppa in one of the parks alongside the bubbling river that runs through town.  Two rivers join in the middle of town and it is so peaceful sitting beside the streams listening to the water running over the rocks.  The range between Bright and Mt Beauty is covered in rain forest and snow gums and the two lookouts over the valley and then over the town of Mt Beauty across to the Snowy Mountains and the Mount Hotham Snow Fields was spectacular.  It is very popular with cyclists as Carol counted more bike riders on the trip over the mountain than fellow motorists. We watched a glider being towed up from the Mt Beauty airstrip and it seemed to be in the air but still thousands of feet below us at the lookout.  Mt Beauty is very much a town to service the snow fields and we were wondering if they ever got to use the outdoor Town Swimming Pool even in summer??  The drive back along the valley full of  dairy cows to Yackandah was peaceful and very green after the good rain over the past few weeks.  Yackandah is a quaint little town with a main street full of antique and book shops and a good bakery and plenty of coffee shops.  Afternoon tea was very pleasant before the drive back up the hill to Beechworth.

Happy cows

Bright town centre

bright riverside parks

footbridge at the junction of the two rivers

valley between Bright & Mt Beauty

Mt Beauty township with Mt Hotham in the background

Beechworth has one of the best Bakeries we have seen and it is good to see a small business idea succeeding.  The bakery / coffee shop has some of the finest pastry, cakes, and biscuits on offer and is located in an old sandstone and timber two storey building in the middle of town.  Every time we passed it there were customers everywhere.  The Bakery has been so successful that we had noticed several other similar bakeries that have been established throughout regional Victoria.  The first one we saw was in Echuca.  Good luck to them.  Being very busy on the long weekend we noticed another cute café along the same street that served high teas.  We went in for lunch and thoroughly enjoyed eating off a white linen tablecloth on fine antique furniture with old fashioned tea pots/tea strainers and linen serviettes.  We had a choice of about 30 tea flavours and enjoyed the tea and the lunch.

Swish tea cafe

Beechworth's latest RACV assistance vehicle

Courthouse where Ned, Dan Mother Kelly were tried and snetenced

Ned stood in the box at the door on the left

The handcuffs/leg irons used were not light duty..

Including the Information Centre, Beechworth has some very well preserved heritage buildings from the gold rush days.  The street opposite the Info Centre is lined with the Court House, Police Station, Telegraph Station, Gold Administrators building, etc.  They were all constructed in the Gold Rush days of the 1850-60’s and are in excellent original condition.  The Court House where Ned, Dan and co were tried offer a great display including many stories of the trials and prisoners held within its walls.  The Judges Chambers and still intact from the 1800’s with hundreds of Law Books still lining the walls on floor to ceiling shelves.  The Courtroom is filled with really nice furniture made from local hardwoods and standing the test of time.  Behind the Info Centre is a modest looking Museum that hides one of the best displays we have seen in a regional museum.  There are many artefacts from the Kelly Gang including the suits of armour worn by all four gang members.  The old powder pistol used by Dan Kelly is on display but the best feature was at the back of the building where an 1800’s street scene has been setup with shopfronts, streetlights, penny farthing bikes and goods from the time all on display as they would have appeared.  Each of the shops including a blacksmiths, embroidery shop, barber, and ladies fashion shop were filled with goods and tools used back then.  It was a very impressive display.  There is also one of the largest displays of stuffed Australian Birds we have seen with everything from Wedge Tailed Eagles to tiny Finches.  There is also a pretty good mineral display with gems, and minerals from the local area and far and wide on display.  The Van Park we stayed at in Beechworth was run by very friendly people who gave us very good advice on how to plan our trips during the busy long weekend and made us feel very welcome.  It was cheap and had a great location close to the middle of town on the shores of Lake Sellwyn. 

Streetscape in Beechworth Museum

Line up of Bikes

suits of armour worn by Ned & Dan Kelly, Joe Byrnes, and Steve Hart

outside the well constructed 1850's Theatre

Main Street today

Beechworth Powder Magazine complete with 1852 lightning arrestors

waterfall and gorge in the middle of town

Trestle Bridge built in early 1850's with granite blocks and no mortar. Designed to last 200 years and well on its way

Lake Sellwyn

Leaving Beechworth we returned to our northwards aim and travelled up through some back roads through to Wodonga, Albury, and Wagga Wagga.  We overnighted in Wagga and Cowra and had a catch up with Emily’s Mum Carmel for a relaxing afternoon tea.  The weather was a bit ordinary so were elected to push on the next day after not much sightseeing and stopped the next night in Cowra.  This is a great town with WW2 history of the POW breakout by Japanese soldiers in 1942.  The Museum has a very good display on the breakout with a hologram telling the yarn.  The Japanese Peace Gardens are beautiful and well worth a wander through.  On another wet day we headed toward the dry weather and camped at Orange.  Several people had questioned that decision and suggested that it would be cold.  They were right but just forgot to mention the continual drizzle and wind. It was bitterly uncomfortable so we elected to wander among the warm shops and take in a movie in the heated cinema.  Orange is a nice area and I would like to return and spend some more time between Wagga Wagga and Orange districts.  We will wait for different season though.

Wangaratta church residence

impressive Wangaratta Cathedral with huge timber bell tower

Cowra's Japanese Peace Gardens

cute companion on our walk

Canberra to Beechworth

The Snowy Hydro Authority that operates the dams and power stations of the Snowy Mountains Scheme has a very good display at Cooma with many pictures, stories and objects from the construction. It was an amazing engineering feat taking 100,000 workers from 30 countries 27 years to build 16 dams, 7 power stations, 143km of tunnels and 75km of viaducts (open channels).  The workforce was made up of 60,000 Aussies and 40,000 foreign workers.  That’s a lot of 457 visa paperwork!!  

Wild T4 Theodolite used on the Snowy Scheme

Canberra is without doubt the most picturesque city in Australia.  It has a unique layout and always looks pretty, especially in full autumn colours.  We spent several hours at the War Memorial engrossed in the video, planes, vehicles and stories on display.  I found yet another version of the raid on Japanese shipping by the crew of the “Krait” who sailed from Exmouth to Singapore Harbour.  The displays are fantastic and it is clearly the best museum display of modern Australian history during wars.  We were particularly interested in the Boer and Vietnam War displays and the ‘Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’ is in a very special citadel.  A quick evening visit to the new Parliament House resulted in a good photo or two and I had a chat with Lane Calcutt (Ch9) who was standing in the cold filming a news story.  We both wanted Queensland to win the State of Origin contrary to the crew from Ch7 and Ch10; glad we didn’t run into them on Thursday. The National Portrait Gallery was new to us and was worth the visit.  There are some great paintings of many well known Aussies on show.  Over the road is the (actual) National Gallery of Australia which also houses a huge amount of art from around the world and included is a very large indigenous art section.  Many great artists are represented including Monet, Albert Namitjira and also a reasonable amount of absolute crap that we taxpayers have had purchased for us.  Next day we spent the morning at the Museum which is also a new(ish) facility and includes some great displays.  A feature was a large area dedicated to life in Australia during the last 100 years since 1913.  Some of the clothing, transport and building options available in 1913 were great to see.  It was interesting that the feeling in Australia in 1913 was one of great hope and opportunity and yet a year later we were in a war in Europe that nearly bankrupted the Country.  The Museum is a great place for the kids to visit with heaps to see and a large enclosed garden area inside when they are sick of the old stuff.  As the sun was out we slipped up Telstra Tower on Black Mountain for a view of the city from on high.  We were looking forward to a display on telecommunications marking Canberra’s Centenary this year but were quite disappointed with the 10 minute video and the 2 display cabinets of old phones.  One observation we made was that the business of Government; i.e. spending our taxes, is obviously booming as there is more high rise construction going on in Canberra than in any other city in Australia. 

 Canberra also treated us to our first heavy frost with a minus 3 and ice covering the car at night. 

WW2 Bomber

WW1 Fighter - first plane with guns

Canon used in Boer War in Africa 1899-1902

Citadel housing the 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier'

War Memorial to that House full of clowns at the moment

Skeleton and depiction os a Diprotodon

Enjoying some old sewing

Genuine Convict items from the 1700's in Sydney

Canberra from Black Mountain Tower

Next we took a loop heading north out of Canberra to Yass, around to the West through Gundagai, and along some back roads through Tumut to Talbingo, a small town on the shores of Lake Blowering in the foothills of the Snowy’s.  It is a very friendly and quiet little town.  We had read about the Yarrongabilly Caves between Talbingo and the Mt Selwyn ski fields and visited them.  The caves are in limestone mountains and are amazing.  We chose to pay for a guided tour through one set of caves and Garry then went on a self guided tour through another cave system.  The caves are beautiful, large, very well lit and contains heaps of stalagtites & -mites, water pools, sparkling rocks like they are covered in diamonds and some of the most pure white limestone flows we have seen.  We were lucky enough to be the only ones on the tour and the guide was very patient allowing us to take plenty of time looking over every feature and taking all the photos we needed.  The second set of caves is accessed through a huge opening on the cliff face above the Yarrongabilly River and all of the caves are in mountainous eucalypt forest that was great to see.  There are some beautiful heritage buildings near the office that can be rented and would make a great comfortable camping holiday.  Surprisingly there is also a thermal pool down beside the river which remains year round at 27 degrees despite the freezing cold water running a few metres away off the mountains.  It was a really special place and comes highly recommended from us.  

waiting on top of a cold mountain for the tour to start 

Limestone flows - one of the coloured ones

huge deep caves

impressive -tites

a sparkly flow

a couple of large -mites

white as snow

cool reflections

at the deepest point of the cave system 100's of metres into the hill

1800's heritage accommodation building for hire

the arty photo - cute tiny plants a few mm's high

Huge opening in the cliff face of the South Glory Cave system

impressive entry

whiter than snow!!!

Further on from the caves we checked out the Mt Selwyn ski fields which are busily preparing for the upcoming snow season but at the moment only have some patches of icy snow in front of their snow making machines.  It looks like it was going to be fun but cripes it must be cold when it snows because it was bitterly cold up there with a wind blowing.  

battery and hillside of the Kiandra Goldfields of some time ago

high country scerery

Mt Selwyn ski fields awaiting more white stuff

dead trees covering the hills with lush green underneath??

great colours when the sun peeps out

Got some great shots of the clouds and fog on the mountain forests and plains though.  We also saw some beautiful colours on the waters of the dam above Talbingo which feeds the Tumut No 3 Power Station.  It seems like there are power lines running over every mountain you see.

soft evening colours over Talbingo Reservoir

Tumut 3 Power station below the dam

Saying goodbye to Talbingo and not really wanting to talk to anyone about rugby league we spent all day today on one of the prettiest drives we have been on in Australia or anywhere else.  We drove along the edge of several lakes (Lake Hume is very pretty), up through pine and snow gum forests, through the apples growing region around Batlow, and into very quaint old towns like Tumbarumba, Yackandandah and Beechworth where we have decided to spend the long weekend.  It wasn’t an easy drive being through mountains most of the way but with patchy blue skies, green hills, lakes and forests we were never short of great scenery. 

back towards Talbingo along Lake Blowering