Author: Mrs A
Location: Cowra, Central West NSW
Sunday 10 December
Sunday morning began cool and dewy but soon warmed up to the early 30s. It didn’t feel uncomfortable though, parked up under a huge tree casting plenty of shade. A BBQ brunch commenced our day, with freshly baked bread and merlot and pork sausages we picked up in West Wyalong.
We had lots of jobs we wanted to tackle today, along with getting our sheets, towels and clothes washed. eBay was the first port of call, with a generator for sale and a 4WD Water Bra (never used or even taken out of its packaging!). I was chief photographer and advertisement writer while Mr A cleaned up the products to ensure they had no evidence of dust on them. Next was cleaning the caravan, washing and vacuuming floors, and Mr A did a good sort out of the storage areas. Our final task was to apply Velcro to our lock covers on the tool boxes to ensure they stay closed. A fiddly job!
A seven kilometre cycle concluded our afternoon – sticking to the least hilly pathways around town. Camp hosts Greg and Keira joined us for a drink after they finished work at 6pm, sharing their interesting journey from being heavy machinery operators in the mines out near Broken Hill to now tending lawns and helping out grey nomads here in Cowra – how life changes!
Monday 11 December
Today was earmarked for more fun activities. We started off out at the beautiful Japanese Gardens in Cowra. Spanning 5 hectares, the manicured gardens are a place of peace and serenity, benches and stunning views around every corner. As with most Japanese gardens, water played a key feature, with ponds filled with Koi carp and waterfalls abounding.
We strolled, admiring the views and marvelling at how comfortable the 33 degree day felt amongst all this green and water.
We decided to enjoy lunch in the café at the gardens (sadly not Japanese food – the only menu nod to the inspiration was a miso soup!).
Just a 20 minute drive away, we next headed to Canowindra. Mr A and I went our separate ways – he headed off to a coffee shop while I entered the Age of Fishes Museum. This museum was set up in the early 90s after a significant 360 million year old fish fossil bed was discovered near Canowindra. Going back to my geography roots, this natural history absolutely fascinates me, and it is incredible how this was stumbled upon.
The original find (Canowindra grossi – the only evidence of a fish of its kind in the world, unearthed by accident on a farm) was back in 1956, and a slab of rock has been displayed in Sydney for many years. In 1993 an archaeologist questioned whether anyone had looked for more in the same area. The answer was no, so he set off to investigate further. What he found was the biggest find of ancient fish fossils in the world – more than 100 fish of four species. Just incredible. The biggest find was fish with bone structure in their fins almost identical to human arms and wrists, and the ability to breathe through a nose as well as gills. The feeling is that these fish are extremely close to being the first creatures to start leaving the water and moving about on land – they are still looking for evidence of this, but no footsteps (or fin steps) found as yet.
After all this learning, we thought it should be time to go and try some local wine. We headed to a winery on our way back to Cowra, but sadly the cellar door was only open at the weekend. Such a shame. Hopefully the Orange wineries will be more welcoming over the next few days…yes, I know, another wine region in our future!
…And so to our final evening in Cowra. We again enjoyed the company of Keira and Glenn for a few beverages while our Weber cooked up our butterflied pork. We shared a few stories along the way, Mr A lamenting that I will never let him have a chain saw. Our close friends will know why…and so do Glenn and Kiera now.
I joked that Mr A would set our roast pork onto his iPad to rest if I didn’t keep an eye on him, and picked up a heat proof mat and a piece of foil so he could set the baking tray safely on the side. Our pork had been resting about 5 minutes when I realised Mr A had actually put it on his iPad and covered it with foil!!! Oh how we cried with laughter! Despite this, it tasted rather good with the roast sweet potato and steamed bock choi. I wonder whether Apple have ever registered a use case for the iPad as a resting tray for meat?
It’s amazing we are still alive….onwards….
The river is an ever changing environment with flood and drought adjusting the river’s path all the time. The tree roots from the towering red gums were like incredible sculptures along the rivers edge, their solid ground long gone.
We returned to camp and cleaned up our things, dried the boats and took Princess Tassie out for another walk. She feels very adventurous here and is absolutely fascinated by the river.
A home cooked meal completed the day, eaten outside in the warm evening – it stays light until way past 9pm these days. We had a chat with some friends, making plans for Christmas. As much as we are enjoying our travels, we are quite excited about catching up with our Sydney ‘family’ again. Being apart has made us appreciate them all the more.
Tomorrow we hit the road again, heading off to adventures new. I wonder what the next camp will bring…?
Let me explain in my defence, I had been wondering, in idle movements (of which there had been a few), if I could get my bike on the packraft, thereby opening up more route possibilities. I’m not convinced yet.
We were immediately immersed in the forest, towering river red gums dominated the landscape. Small flocks of parrots scattered as we rode through this magnificent scenery. We were heading into Yanga National Park to see a historic woolshed, and had a short bit of deserted tarmac to ride down on the way.
We explored the woolshed buildings which operated until 2005 and are now a museum. These buildings hosted a number of B&S balls in their time (bachelor and spinster parties), and employed numerous locals involved in shearing the 5,000 sheep here three weeks each year.
I was particularly intrigued by the explanation of how Balranold was at the heart of such an extensive river transport network reaching right across the southern part of Australia. Apparently 5,300km of navigable river was utilised when the water was up.
Now the rivers are so quiet, in four days camped by the Murray we saw three tinnies and a houseboat.
We arrived back at camp to find Miss Tasmania enjoying the sun and ready for another sniff around the campsite. She had a big walk this morning with Catherine again. It just makes me smile every day to see how willing she is to explore the bushier camps like this one.
I’m loving a book by a Dutch historian Rutger Brekman, who we had heard on a podcast and both really enjoyed. He has collected together a bunch of research on social experiments that were tried in the US, Canada and the UK to see what would happen if we just gave money to the poor (with no strings attached) rather than set up an elaborate system of welfare with all the costs that go with overseeing and managing that bureaucracy. It’s fascinating and counter intuitive in some ways. All of the initiatives paid for themselves because when given money, and left to their own devices, the “poor” didn’t just quit work and spend it on booze and gambling, as many on the political right would think, but instead mostly carried on working, but changed jobs to follow their passion, spent more time with their kids, and generally made better decisions about their lives. Their health improved, their children’s educational success increased, crime went down, these social experiments showed incredible ROI.
Now…we are in the middle of the Riverina, one of the great wine producing regions of Australia. But apparently “the locals” don’t bother with wine much. Interestingly though, out of the four tables having dinner in the restaurant tonight, three were drinking wine. So don’t they really want a choice of good wine? Or is it that someone can’t be bothered to offer it?
