Scone – Woolomin

Scone is the horse capital of Australia. I’ve never seen so many horses in all my days. Sandy and Bree you’d think you’d died and gone to heaven! It must be a horse breading mecca also as we passed Emirates Park on the way out. A very flashy stud with a picture of a Melbourne cup type jockey riding a horse as their logo.

I had to take a picture of the Scone Veterinary Hospital. Not only did it look like a hospital due to its size and stature, but there must have been nearly 20 vets posted on the wall outside. Round the back was a huge stables area, possibly part of the original Victorian buildings, and they’d also built 4 horse float unloading ramps. They advertised every human speciality of medicine for the equine variety except notably plastic surgery!

Warmed up early so we headed off up to Glenbown Dam, just 10kms out of Scone. It was a sad place. Really uninviting for a State Park. There were very few trees and it really looked dry and unloved. We decided to head on to the next dam, closer to Tamworth.

Stopped in a strange little town called Wallabadah. Its claim to fame is that it has Australia’s only memorial to The First Fleet. According to their signage the descendants from all over the world call in to see it.

They had little garden beds all around the little park with a picture and name of the boat and tombstone like tablets with the names of all who sailed in each vessel etched into them in alphabetical order.

To top it all off they had a tall ships styled shade sailed covered picnic area to enjoy your lunch. It kind of felt like you were at a cemetery with all the tomb stones staring at you.

It looked like it had all been built around the previous caravan park for the town. The toilet and shower block of the caravan park formed part of the fenced of area. They still had their manicured lawns and power poles and taps dotted around the site and the vacant area running down to the river. The was a sign up saying you could stay for free but only for 1 night. It was a nice little spot right on the river.

Arrived late afternoon at Chaffey Dam. We paid our voluntary entry fee of $2 into the box and then on further inspection Steve found too much algae to want to take kayak or dog into it. So we headed up to the next town that had a caravan park further up the dam and was hopefully in better condition. The next town along was called Woolomin. We were now only about 50kms from Tamworth. We arrived in the small little town with not much more than a corner store and headed towards the dam. It was dirt for an undisclosed length of road, so we decided to stay in the free camp just inside the town

I haven’t mentioned books for a while. I’ve been devouring some for a while. Finished Mary Drurack’s Heirs Forever which is about Eliza Shaw and her pioneering family of the Swan Valley in 1830 to the 1877 when she died. It was really interesting the lives they led, the expectations they had and the perceptions they developed from their English heritage.

From there I devoured in just over 24 hours, Andrew Gross’ The Blue Zone which is about a fabulous gold dealing family man who is arrested for money laundering for the Columbian drug barons and the strange turn of events for his family. Very compelling read.

Now just started A New History of Australia, by Frank Crowley which run from 1788 – 1972. I’m finding on visiting all this historical towns so deeply affected by early Australian settlement, its intriguing to read stories of families and how they wrote themselves into Australian history.

There being no TV or NextG reception we decided to call it a night – early for a change…

Our trip around NSW so far...