A week in northern NSW.

 An early start saw me heading north on the road to Kurri Kurri - a small town a few hours from Sydney. It's sad to see the way these towns are dying. The reason I stopped here was because it is known for it's murals and the kookaburra seems to be rather popular. 

I managed to find one cafe open so fueled up before the next few hours of driving.

My overnight stop was at Taree. I had a very pleasant dinner at the Aquatic Club. I was sitting overlooking the river and that is when the rain started! 

The weather the next day was absolutely horrendous the further north I drove! I did stop for a couple of breaks, one was at Woolgoolga to see the painted watertower.

 The weather was even worse and the ocean swells were quite big. I finally reached my destination mid afternoon and the rain was still coming down!

Monday dawned very wet but we decided to have a drive to see the damage the floods had caused in Byron Bay and managed to get up to the lighthouse without getting too wet!

 

With the weather still wet and miserable we drove to Murwillumbah to a really interesting Art gallery - in fact it is the best gallery I've ever been to! Inside the gallery is the recreation of the house/studio of one of Australia's most celebrated painter of still life and interiors - Margaret Olley. There was hardly a space to sit as every spare inch was covered with art supplies, flowers and other items that she would have used in her painting. Some of the art works in the gallery were facinating and it was set in a beautiful area.

We have been very relaxed with plenty of reading and swimming in the pool. Lazy really!

On Friday  we went to the market at Mullumbimby - anti vaxa 'country' - it's obviously very expensive there because the women couldn't 'afford' bras and most people couldn't 'afford' shoes. It was a very interesting 'people watching' place. 

We had brunch in Lennox Head on Saturday before my friends went to a wedding.

Today we went to Ballina - saw the Big Prawn and bought prawns for lunch.

The sun has shone for three days but it is very muggy!

Start heading back tomorrow. Spending tomorrow night with kitty's sister in Coffs Harbour and then a very long drive back on Tuesday.

I hope that everyone has a great Christmas - Covid allowing!

  

 Well winter gave us one last blast with a temperature drop of 10C from the day before and it was back to jacket wearing! I had a drive out to Lake Wyangan and a good walk.

 

I then went to see if any of the small food provider were open and selling. First stop was Codemo Smallgoods where the owner told me about all the great events that had been cancelled because of Vivid! The food and wine festival, which should have been about a week ago, sounded really good especially the 'Festa Del Salsicce e Salami' - a long lunch celebrating the winner  that year's best 'homemade' salami!!

Another festival, which lasts for two weeks in October is the Spring Fest, where more than 100,000 oranges and grapefruit are used to make citrus sculptures  - I might need to remember that for next year!! The trees are laden with oranges. 

and the blossom of other fruit trees is beautiful.

 

     

   

                                                                                                                        

I also visited a producer of sustainable Murray Cod. They are in collaboration with some orchards by using their open 'ponds' to raise the cod. They were very obliging and packed my small piece of cod in ice in a special box so that it was fresh when it got back to Wollongong.

A very cold start 1C and ice scraping of the windscreen was the start of my 520km drive home.

I have enjoyed the wide open spaces but it's good to be back by the coast.

If yellow is your colour i suggest you head west as there is 'yellow' as far as the eye can see!!         

                                   

And so to Griffith

 On leaving Forbes I finally 'found' the sculpture I'd been searching for! It was difficult to get close and I had a couple of slips in the mud - such an elegant sight! 

 

After a 3 hour drive I realised that I'd made it to Griffith - the giveaway were the vines, citrus trees laden with fruit and the  massive 'Yellow Tail' vineyard and distribution factory.

Not having been in a large country town for a long time I had forgotten that most shops closed at luchtime. Griffith must have the longest main street I've ever seen and my feet certainly knew about it! Being a very 'Italian" town I managed to get lunch in an Italian restaurant! Another walk led me to search for the lane containing a number of wall murals.

Griffith is in full bloom with Cherry blossom, pink and white, everywhere.

After a bit of a drive I finally found the spot where the 'Hermit's Cave' was situated. The hermit was a young Italian migrant, who arrived in Australia in 1914, and added rock walls to the cave-like rock shelter. It was quite a steep and slightly slippery decent but as another couple had gone before me I felt safe in my mountaineering or otherwise endeavors - I was hoping they'd come to my aid if I yelled!

 

The weather was glorious, 25C, good for last but one day of winter! 

I have found some rather interesting facts about the Griffith region, which I would never have known if I hadn't travelled here ....

Grows 90% Australia's rice, 95% Australian prunes and is the largest citrus region in Australia. It is a significant chicken meat supplier and producer of olive oil, trellis tomatoes, quail and melons. There is growing industry of almonds and walnuts and a million hazelnut trees were recently planted for Ferrero!

Around Forbes

 Thursday - today was the day to look around Forbes and to see their ' Somewhere Down the Lachlan Sculpture Trail'. Should be ' You'll be lucky if you find them' trail!! This trail was based on the 'Sculptures by the Sea' on Sydney. I firstly had to visit the Council offices to get a map of where the sculptures would be. Being told that there were some in the local vicinity I headed off trying to study the map which was so small that you needed a super strong magnifying glass! 

I did find these in town. 

 

I then ventured out to find the 'Big Goanna and there he was down a dirt track.  It is a very impressive sculpture and in an interesting setting.

    

Following this discovery I decided that it was time to walk around Forbes lake - not sure if I was going to make it around the whole lake as it was 10 km!!It's not the usual shape that you associate with a lake as you can see but I set off with high hopes! I  actually did make it all the way around although there was a moment when I thought that if I didn't see a bridge or the end of the lake pretty soon there might be a splash as I swam across. Luckily the dirty flooded lake didn't really appeal!

There were some sculptures as I walked around and in one place was information about the Wiradjuri aborigines plus some sculptures dedicated to their customs.

Although the day started cool it soon warmed up but beside the lake was quite sheltered. I was very glad to get back to the car after that walk!

 

  

  

  

  

Today I was hoping to find another sculpture which should have been on the Lochlan Valley Way but either I'm blind or it has been moved because I couldn't find it! The road that I was on actually led to Eugoura so I went back to see some of the murals in the village. On my wandering around the village I stopped in at a pretty grotty looking cafe  but after hearing the owner of the roadside cafe, which I had previously stopped at, F-ing and  blinding at a local with no concern for non locals, I felt that he didn't deserve my patronage! The owner of the cafe was telling me all about the village and each year the mural painters come back to add to another mural to the collection unfortunately they were not able  to do anything this year because of Covid! 

I then thought driving to the local national park would be a good idea - perhaps a little ramble I thought. Unfortunately after all the flooding rain that they had a few days ago meant that there were numerous waterways to cross on the dirt road! After about 6kms of dirt, potholes and water I chickened out. I just didn't want to get stuck out in the wilds with no one around!

On to Forbes!

Yesterday I should have been on a plane to Tasmania instead I was on a 'Blind Freddy Bushranger' walk and talk. The guy giving the talk was like a bushranger with his wild beard. He had completed a significant amount of research about the bushrangers who had been in the Canowindra area and made the talk interesting. Unfortunately it was freezing cold!

It was then time to head towards Forbes. The wide open spaces were often swathed in yellow which was the rape seed plant in flower.   The countryside makes for pleasant driving.

I then arrived at Eugowra, a village known for it's murals on the sides of various buidings.

 

A walk aound the village in the biting cold demanded a hot drink. Luckily there was a van dispensing the hot drinks as unfortunately the couple of buildings with 'Cafe' displayed on their exterior were no more! So sad to see how much the country towns/villages have died!
                

Today (Wednesday) I headed to Parkes. First stop Information centre or so I thought but no I was in the Henry Parkes museum! I had an entertaining 20 minutes looking at the 'museum pieces' whilst listening - one couldn't help but hear - two old ducks talking about their ailments but when they came to the prognosis I was beginning to check myself out! Although some items are interesting in these museums if I see another old tractor I might wish I was somewhere else!

I did eventually make it into the Information centre and then subjected (?) myself to touring the 'Elvis' exhibit! According to an expert, obviously, on everything Elvis the exhibition had some very good memorabilia  and he'd been to Gracelands!!

I headed out to the  'Dish' yes that's the one they made a movie about! I must say it was impressive and its claim to fame   - the first moon walk - didn't go unnoticed!

The rape seed flowers were as far as the eye could see and the pilot doing the crop spraying was amazing - it was poetry in motion. How he (?) got so low was enough to make a few of us pull off the road.

From the 'Dish' I headed back to Parkes centre specifically to follow its 'Art trails but I only saw a couple of pieces.

Trying to get back to Forbes was a nightmare because something had happened to the barrier at the rail crossing - good to know they work but annoying when they refuse to return to upright! The cattle in the truck two ahead of me started to bellow and I think they were doing that for all of us! Finally with a few rail workers called they manually lifted it!

 

On the road again.

 Deciding it was time to head west again in my quest to visit places alphabetically in NSW I drove to Canowindra. My route took me to Crookwell - freezing cold at 3 degrees with sleet and snow on the hills!

Just before you enter Crookwell you come across a wind farm which was really quite spectacular watching the huge blades turning at speed. The drive here had been quite an effort with the strong winds buffeting the car so you can imagine the power being produced by the wind farm!

A quick trip into Crookwell Information centre was very useful as the lady there was telling me that lots of roads had been blocked because of flooding - I had noticed the streams and rivers pelting along. She also mentioned that 'being English you will understand about black ice - and I never think that my accent is stong!!!

 Brunch was needed but my only choice was to have take away in the car - the bacon and egg roll had never tasted so good.

It was only snowy in the field for a short time and it started to rain, On of the roads I had originally wanted to take was a dirt road but the information lady mentioned that it would not be a good choice because of the weather conditions so I erred on the side of caution and gave it a miss! It was so good to see the wide open spaces and the drive to Canowndra continued without a problem,

I always go to the Information centre when I arrive at a place and this one here in Canowindra was exceptional as it was also where you can see the 'Age of Fishes' museum where you can see displays of 360 million year old fossils from when the area was a large  inland waterway. These type of fish fossils have also been found in Alaska and Greenland!!!!

I am staying in a motel overlooking the river which has flooded quite significantly.

Today, Monday, I followed the Information centre's walking route looking at the historical places around the town. The cold certainly makes you walk faster than your usual pace!

Unfortunately, as with many of these rural towns, lots of the businesses have closed down.  Having ticked off the local walk it was into the car heading towards Grenfell. Driving along trafficless roads gives you the freedom to take your time and turn off at the last minute. I did this down one side road only to find 

There has been so much flooding that anywhere near the river is cut off. The sheep and lambs didn't seem concerned! Getting back on to the main road I can across the village of Goolooogong hoping for a coffee - forget it! With a population of 466 there's possibly no call for coffee. This was an area that had a significant number of land girls during the war to pick significant amounts of tomatoes for the local canning factory!

I carried on to Grenfell for the coffee and found a very pleasant place. A quick visit to the Information centre saw me with map in hand. After a short distance I really couldn't see which direction to go so I asked two ladies out walking their dog. They offered to walk with me to the Silos I wished to visit. They were really helpful and took me through streets giving me all the history of the places. 

I spent a pleasant half hour with them and we eventually arrived at the silos and gave me an insight into the painting of them.

 It was very impressive!  

I'm

 

 

Very nice to see some of the plants in bloom!