Blue Mountains (near Colo Heights) to Tenterfield
[ Main Index ] [ Previous Day ] [ Next Day ] [ Photo Gallery ]
Our little side area turned out to be just fine and after a breakfast of cereal, we headed on. We were pretty lucky to have found the spot we did. There wasn’t a rest area for another 30 km.
We assessed our situation and it’s this. We burned up one of our 6 days to get to Cairns going east and west in the Blue Mountains. We now have to get 1600 km or so north in the next 5 days if we want to have 2 days in Cairns to try to snorkel on the Barrier Reef. That means we need to do 500+ km a day, plus make up for the half a day we know we’re going to spend in Brisbane looking around, e-mailing and uploading these logs (the things we do for you people…). So today must be a driving day, minimizing stopping as much as possible, eschewing the roadside attractions, tourist drives and such. We hate that :-).
The first 150 km or so was through the rest of the Blue Mountain National Park. The road ran along the top of the mountains, winding around, up and down. Much like the last part of the Great Ocean Road. Les commented that in our country we tend to run the roads through the valleys where it’s a bit easier, but for whatever reason, they didn’t do that here. Apart from the average speed we could maintain on it, it was a nice road. A little hair-raising in places but nice.
On the way out of the mountains we came across a big brick gateway that was the entrance to the St. Shanouda monastery (visitors welcome). It was an odd thing to see in the middle of the forest. And apparently just being completed based on the construction materials around. We went in to look. It did not seem to be particularly inhabited but there was a lot of new construction for the dorms or whatever they were. Don’t know who St. Shanouda was, or how big the order is, or what they think their calling is in the middle of the Blue Mountains, but we wished them well and sent them off to do God’s work.
We continued to Singleton where we hooked up with the New England Highway and headed into the Hunter Valley. The saleslady at Scenic World had told us the Hunter Valley was wine country but we think maybe we misheard her and she said mine country. Because we ran across a number of open strip mines, some of them pretty good sized. It looked like they were mining coal based on the contents of the trains we saw go by. And then, a nuclear power plant near Musswellbrook. The sign for Musswellbrook county (or shire or district or whatever they call it) said “Bursting with Energy” which is very clever don’t you think?
After Musswellbrook we headed into horse country. First Aberdeen the “Gateway to Horse Country”, then Scone, the “Heart of Horse Country” (they are 20km apart). For quite some time after we saw horses and horse farms, signs for riding competitions, races, etc. On our way into Aberdeen we were stopped for the third time in as many weeks by the police for a “random” blood alcohol test. We have been randomly selected each time we’ve come across one of these, so we must look a bit suspicious. This is not something that would be allowed in the states but a good idea I think, considering the number of accidents caused by drunk drivers. (We’ve passed each time in case you’re wondering.) It seems to be the only policing they do too. We have seen maybe 3 or 4 police cars on the road in close to 8000km of driving. And have never seen them stop anyone.
On we went to the town of Tamworth, Australia’s country music capital (we don’t know why it is but they claim it is). There we saw two interesting things that caused us to stop. One was the Truck Driver’s Memorial, an odd little area on the side of the road. A “highway” path leads to a gate of two large truck tires. Inside are stones with plaques listing the names of professional truck drivers who have been killed in accidents or who have died. It was actually kind of a nice thing, but still a bit odd.
The second interesting thing was the Big Golden Guitar. This is the third in the series of “Big” things (remember the Galah and the Lobster). Turns out it’s a replica of the Golden Guitar award that is given to country music singers in Australia and sits out in front of the Golden Guitar cafe, tourist center and wax museum.
We now reached the area of road that I think explains the highway’s name of “New England”. We of course were thinking of Vermont and New Hampshire. But after awhile, we realized they were talking about the Mother Country and we could see why. It looked like the back forty of an English country manor. Very green, lots of grass, many trees but not forest. Rolling hills and glens. It looked like a giant park or golf course. We kept expecting to see sand traps. It was like this for the rest of the day and when the late afternoon sun hit it, it got even prettier.
The only place we stopped was at the Moonbi overlook, where we saw a large lizard sunning himself on a rock, (and overlooked Moonbi as well). The first wildlife, besides birds we’d seen in awhile. In fact, we’ve pretty much stopped looking for wildlife and have started looking for wildlife signs, since they’ve become somewhat scarce too. Today we were warned to watch for kangaroos, koalas, and some sort of antlered deer-like creature that looked a bit like an elk but not quite. Actually, we did see a dead kangaroo on the side of the road today. First one in about 3 days.
So a very nice drive in the country, even if we couldn’t stop and look around. Along the way, we passed two of the top three winners of the “Tidy Town” contest for 2003. Can’t remember which ones they were, and we don’t know what area of the country it covers, but still an impressive achievement for the area.
We were trying to reach the town of Tenterfield, about 20km from the Queensland border and just under 300km from Brisbane. It was about 300km from Tamworth. We were a little leery about pushing the driving again after yesterday, but the caravan park situation had been steadily improving all day. Every town we passed through had at least one, so we were pretty confident. And when we got there, there were two to choose from. We picked the one a little off the highway that wasn’t a parking lot behind a gas station and settled in. So we get a shower tomorrow, which will be nice.
[ Main Index ] [ Previous Day ] [ Next Day ] [ Photo Gallery ] [ Top ]