In concluding our " 2021 Clockwise Tour" we state our original plans were altered due to COVID, mice and weather. Regardless, we wouldn't have changed anything on our trip. We toured through Sofala and Gunnedah in the third week, June 2021, however due to commitments of being home along with the Tour de France and the Olympics, we now post this in mid August.
Sofala hasn't changed since the gold mining days of the 1850s, and bringing back great memories for us from our original visit in 2018 on our initial caravan trip experiencing a peaceful camp nearby with 18 kangaroos, a temperature of minus 5c, and brilliant thick frosts.
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| The Rustic Café with the rusty roof. |
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| Patrons and beer readily spill out onto the road. |
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| Child minding for a donation directly across the road from the pub. A great innovation keeping kids outdoors and away from their devices. |
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| A great motto for all retired personnel. |
In 2002, ABC TV program titled " A loo with a view" featured Dunedoo as typical of so many regional towns suffering from population decreases as young ones leave town. A proposal was put forward to build "The Big Dunny" featured as a three story high building with five star dunnies, visitors centre and radio station.
The proposal was not flush with success; and was dropped due to embarrassment to the locals and possible low additional numbers of tourists.
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| The environmentally friendly Dunedoo current dunny is a work of art highlighting the old days; along with the dunny doo being self composting. |
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| Dunedoo is the local Aboriginal word for black swan. |
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| Going back a few years when everything was black and white. |
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| Tooheys New is the current drink, superseding Tooheys Old. |
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| Dunedoo silos undergoing a repaint. |
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| The racehorse Winx with jockey Hugh Bowman won 33 successive turf races leading to Winx being rated World's best filly or mare in 2016, and in 2018 was co-ranked top horse in the world Hugh Bowman is a local lad. |
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| We spoke to the artists in residence who mentioned that the apparent graffiti is their virtual grid pattern, expanded from an A4 drawing to the full 19m height. |
Tambar Springs claims to have the first memorial to World War 1 servicemen along with the highest per capita in the Commonwealth of men into the army during both world wars.
It is also the location of a discovery of a diprotodon opatum, the largest known marsupial, similar to a giant wombat
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| Up to 3.8m head to tail and 1.7m high. |
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| Possibly the earliest memorial to servicemen in Australia. |
Moving further north to Gunnedah, we found that the Vietnam War is remembered on the water tanks featuring murals copied from photographs taken during the time.
We took a drive in the country to the beautiful towns of Manilla and Barraba. Manilla for a typical pub lunch waited upon by an enterprising 12 year old girl, followed by a magnificent afternoon tea at the Barraba Playhouse Hotel, including a tour through the newly renovated Hotel and Playhouse theatre.
The final stage of our four months away was on the property of a great school friend and her husband, along with another great school mate. We were all amazed how none of us have aged or matured since school.
Our first encounter with Apostlebirds was out west near Broken Hill in 2005, where we noted there was always 12 in each flock we encountered, thinking that they were named after the 12 Apostles, which incidentally is why they were named by early explorers. Flocks can vary, however, with numbers up to 30.
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| The famous photograph taken in 1967 of Australian troops about to be airlifted, with a Gunnedah local, Peter Capp kneeling in the foreground. |
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| Remembering The Battle of Long Tan; the highest casualty rate for Australians during the Vietnam War. |
On a lighter note, the silos feature the Australian classic Dorothea McKellar poem, My Country.
Dorothea's family had property nearby, with her fond memories of the area no doubt helping in the writing of the Australian classic.
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| This is the first time we have the writing on the wall. |
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| Gunnedah's population swells from 10,000 to 100,000 over the three days of Australia's largest Primary Industries Field events, held annually in August. |
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| Gunnedah's wide brown land, and far horizons looking in an easterly direction from Porcupine Lookout. |
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| Lake Keepit or Keepit Dam. What an apt name for a dam!! At the time of publication, the dam is at 95.7%; contrasting starkly to just 0.4% in 2018 |
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| A tug towing a glider prior to releasing at about 2,000 feet. |
We took a drive in the country to the beautiful towns of Manilla and Barraba. Manilla for a typical pub lunch waited upon by an enterprising 12 year old girl, followed by a magnificent afternoon tea at the Barraba Playhouse Hotel, including a tour through the newly renovated Hotel and Playhouse theatre.
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| There is no excuse for lateness in Manilla. |
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| Manilla on a peaceful Saturday afternoon. |
Barraba Silo Art features the Water Diviner, depicting the constant search for water in the Australian bush.
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| Barraba silo art |
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| It looks like Prince Harry has been in town! |
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| Bustling Barraba on a weekend afternoon. Well worth the visit. |
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| He followed like a bloodhound on their track, Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home. |
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| Flies can be seen on the back, and a B on the ear. |
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| There is no more elegant way to go shopping than in a 1924 Bentley. |
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| The iconic Flying B bonnet mascot. |
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| Five star rating but not regarding safety. No seat belts, no air bags, no roll bar. |
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| A superb mudguard/ running board/ mudguard. |
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| How a dashboard should look!! |
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| Keep calm and go off-road in style. |
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| Taking corrugations in its stride. |
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| Classic grille |
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| A heavy downpour just hours after cotton harvesting created lakes in some paddocks. |
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| Two hundred 2.5 tonne bales awaiting collection for markets. |
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| Bugs Bunny once said to "Wait a cotton-picking minute!" Here we wait for more than a minute once the cotton picking is done for the ground to dry out. . |
Our first encounter with Apostlebirds was out west near Broken Hill in 2005, where we noted there was always 12 in each flock we encountered, thinking that they were named after the 12 Apostles, which incidentally is why they were named by early explorers. Flocks can vary, however, with numbers up to 30.
We also note that when they all landed simultaneously, they would immediately face plant with their beaks into the ground to find whatever they could in case of having to take flight immediately.
This looked as if they were landing and bowing to pray.
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| Highly gregarious birds, this one is looking for its mates. |
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| Apostle birds are communal birds, helping each other make their bowl nests from mud reinforced with plants and fibres. |
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| The sun sets on our Gunnedah experience, and hence signaling the end of our clockwise tour. |
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| The final few days of our four months away was at Muswellbrook Showground in order to catch up with washing, cleaning and preparing the van for the next trip to who knows where. |
In summary our trip was altered somewhat from our original plans by the mice plague and COVID:
- Total Days: 91days; or 25.21% of 2021
- Distance travelled: 5,470kms
- Average distance travelled each day: 60.1kms
- Nights in showgrounds or caravan parks: 111
- Nights in National Parks or off-grid camps: 17. (This was well down due to utilizing power for the electric blanket in so many sub zero camps. We are getting soft!)
- Distance travelled on Tandem pushbike: 396kms
- Nights in motels: 3. (During Murray to Mountains rail trail bike ride)
- Temperature range: -5 to 25c.
To conclude this trip around out state of New South Wales and touching into Victoria, since our last highlight was in the Gunnedah area, which also was a favorite of Dorothea McKellar where she is so much celebrated for her family home of 40 years, a statue of Dorothea, and her words on 29m high silos, we felt no better way to finish with the words of Dorothea.
MY COUNTRY By Dorothea McKellar.
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness,
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Those wonderful words summarise so much of what we have seen in this amazing country.
Until our next trip away from COVID lockdown.
Make the best use of your lockdown and please see it as a new way to view the world!!
God bless, Cheers,
Don and Carrol
