Jan 2009

Got a good sleep since the weather cooled down. Heated up very quickly in the morning so had a quick walk around town and headed off in air-conditioned comfort. We continued on along the back roads as much as we could. The road was pretty quiet and really enjoyable. The ground was dry but very pretty. It was obviously drought affected as we saw a lot of soil erosion along the way (pretty much from Parkes onwards) but a local Landcare group in every region that was doing a lot of tree planting. And by the look of it, had been doing so for 10 or more years. It was good to see so many mature replanted trees. It was shocking though, how many farm houses we saw out on the top of a bare and barron hill with not a scrap of tree for shelter or shade. I don’t know how they do it. I’m sure it got to 40o today. I didn’t hear the exact forecast for any town we passed through by they were predicting 40o for several spots we’d been through over the last few days.

We arrived in Gulgong, pretty much in the middle of no where, but where Henry Lawson spent his formative years. There is quite a lot of Henry Lawson memorabilia around the town, including a museum dedicated to him and his time there. There is also a local history museum there occupying over 1 acre of rooms.

It looks like every old item the community had, had been donated at some time or other, including a house and a blacksmith’s shop! The most interesting thing we saw in the town, apart from the Museum, was the fact that Coles occupied the main block of the town, and the townsfolk made them keep the 6 original shop fronts fully intact, including all the floors behind and they had to install their shop without destroying the streetscape (as they appear to have done in every other town they and Woolies move to).

It was a pleasant change, and it was nice to shop there.
Merriwa hoping to stop there for the night, but it was still to hot, and we struggled to find a coffee at 4pm in the afternoon, so we moved on to Scone.

Gulgong's claim to fame is that its pictured on the back of the old original $10 note along with Henry Lawson, hence the name of the hotel, being the $10 Town Motel. Prior to that it was the original pub, but when the mining manager lost his funding from his english consortium to continue mining in the town, he entered the pub one night and blew himself up.

Took it easy today. The weather is starting to warm up, but at least we are getting cool nights to take it easy. We really took the back roads to Mudgee. We passed through Rylstone which was just gorgeous.

Passed several little towns that were either falling apart or were nothing memorable. Most were coal mining towns. We passed two horrible coal fired power stations. They were such a blot on the landscape.

Rylstone was cute. It was, like most towns in the region, an ex gold boom town so had the classic pub on every corner and it was really full of cute shops and cafes. It was a great stop. There is also a fabulous Lake nearby that’s called The Swamp. Its part of a national park so we couldn’t visit, but the pictures look fabulous.

We arrived at Mudgee late in the afternoon. We had a wander around the gorgeous gold boom town that was full of fabulous double storey buildings throughout the three main blocks and there were also several substantial buildings that really made this town feel big. It still seems like a very prosperous town though. There was only one to two empty shops. It was hot till about 10pm when the breeze finally came in and cooled us all down.

Got a late start after enjoying a very peaceful sleep by the river. Had a nice breakfast in town and wandered around the cute shopping precinct. It’s a really gorgeous little town.

Drove past this great house under construction that really caught out attention. It was a really funky iron house and we saw a huge bank of solar panels on a roof so we knew it would be good. There was no one around, so we peered in through all the windows. It was amazing. It faced north and had the most fabulous views across the valley. It had a central atrium entrance and a door to the left to the minor bedrooms and French doors out to the verandah area and then doors out to the living area.

There were large French doors all the way along the north side. There were really small opening high light windows to the south. They also had all the gutters overhanging white pipe that went underground and 50m or so away from the house down to 4 really large water tanks. It was amazing as there was no pump as it was gravity fed off the roof and into the tanks. Both openings were visible so you can watch the water flow off the roof and into the tanks. They were already more than half full. Not sure how long the house had been up, but it was at lockup stage and the kitchen was in. The tiling was also in in the bathroom. It was simple but large. There were also 18 smaller solar panels on the roof of the garage which were generating madly in the hot sun of the day. It was just the sort of house I’d like to build.

Made it to Cowra in time for lunch. Wayne & Sharon mentioned The Mill as a great place to go for lunch. Had the most amazing cheese platter and icy cold chardy for lunch. Managed to tear ourselves away to walk around the Japanese Gardens that seems to be Cowra’s main tourist attractions. On arriving at Cowra we did pop in the Tourist Office and enjoyed the most fabulous holographic tourist display on the Prisoner of War Camp and the renowned Cowra Breakout. It’s a must if you passing this way. Its so well done.

The Japanese Gardens were designed by Japan’s foremost prominent garden designer. He died in 2000 and there is a memorial at the entrance to him. He did come back a couple of years before he died to see the finished product. He did state that he thought these were the most important gardens he designed. They really were spectacular.

An Echidna wandering around the Japanese Gardens

On the way back into town, we stopped off at the World Peace Bell. It’s a replica of the one at the United Nations. Its made from coins from every country in the United Nations and melted into the most lovely peace bell. Cowra really has been through a lot. It’s a town of reconciliation and it’s a credit to the community to have pulled it all together.

Really enjoyed the very pleasant meandering through the gentle hills and into Bathurst. Found a parking bay around the Race Track to call home for the night.

Steve got picture uploads working again! YAY! Thanks Steve!

Well on Rocky and Habib’s suggestion, we decided to book a couple of tickets for the one remaining show at the Leagues Club. At $40 a ticket, we got one of the few remaining tickets, to what was to be the 4th sell out show of Mark Andrew – see http://www.markandrew.com.au for info. He started out quiet slowly. Did a bit of Dean Martin, Buddy Holly, Tom Jones and for us it was okay, but then he moved on to the shagadelic Austin Powers followed by John Travolta, and then he did almost half the show as Elvis.

Tom Jones

Apart from a couple of classics, most of his songs were his later 70s numbers, most of which I wasn’t familiar with, but it didn’t make a difference as he had the movements down pat, as well as an excellent voice rendition of Elvis. He then did the obligatory wiping the sweat from his brow, and then out came the assistant with a hand full of “Elvis” towels in which a crowd of females from 12 to 70 years of age, had started to gather at the foot of the stage and he wore one, sang a line, took it off and got a kiss from someone in the audience. It was so funny.

There were also a great number of disabled people in attendance. He apparently regularly visits disabled and senior citizens groups in Melbourne. There was one downs guy, who was obviously a huge fan, and he was dancing for the remainder of the show down in front of the stage. Mark, sorry, Elvis, invited him up onto the stage to join him for his last couple of songs. He copied every action he did so Mark ended up handing him the microphone. It was such a great laugh and he got a huge round of applause at the end when he finally left the stage. I’m not much of an Elvis fan, but having listened to at least 30-40 of his most popular songs at least a dozen times or more over the course of the 5 days, I have to say I really did get sick of listening to the songs, and enjoyed the event overall.

Mark is about to tour the country and is coming to Perth. So if you’re passing, you wont be disappointed. The show is really well lit, really well choreographed with both two dancers (who have about 12 costume changes alone) two backup singers, a keyboard player, two guitarists, a sax/flautist, trumpeter and trombonist. They mostly sounded like a 20 piece band. They were really powerful, a combination of great players and excellent mixing from the audio expert. It was a really professional show. Apart from being about 30kgs lighter than Elvis must have been in his later Vegas years, you’d swear you were in Vegas as it was such a professional show. Look out for it!

We got out of the show at 5pm and the town was deserted. It appeared the event ended mid afternoon. The stage was already being dismantled, the stalls were mostly packed up and left and the town looked like a ghost had hit it!

We decided we should be heading on to Tamworth as someone mentioned it started next weekend. Given we’d had such an interesting time at Elvis, we thought we’d check Tamworth out. We headed to Parkes’ next door neighbour. Forbes, on our way to Cowra as we’d heard some great things from Wayne and Sharon about it…

Got a late start to the morning and arrived in town to catch the tail end of the parade through town. Still ended up killing the battery on the camera with all the video clips and pics taken. It was really fun, only problem is they let them spread out too much and it caused a few problems at our end of the course. Here is just a glimpse of what we saw...

Some of the Brides of Elvis - really funny all in white wedding dresses complete with veils and thongs!

Sign reads: Elvis flying in from Vegas

Rocky, Habib (from Fat Pizza) and Elvis

We then ventured up to town and found a café and qued up for a table. We started eating when this huge storm came up and rained on the whole town.

We then returned to our van and did several laps around town to try and get a park by the park. We parked temporarily while waiting for someone to leave and jumped in a great spot under a tree. Enjoying the final few rounds of the Elvis singoff competition, we stayed and saw the winners of all categories. It was really interesting. There is some really good talent here in Parkes. Also bumped into the two lead characters from Fat Pizza, Rocky & Habib. They were really interesting, down to earth, and happy to chat. They said we should go to the Mark Andrew show at the Leagues Club as he’s the best Elvis impersonator in Australia. So we chatted and he said he was a huge Elvis fan and was here on holiday, but they should have asked him to MC something, and get some more high profile performers up here. He then came up with an idea of doing a Fat Pizza episode in Parkes next year! Should be a hoot.