Carcoar Dam

Carcoar Dam is located just off the Mid-Western Highway in NSW, 10 km from Blayney and about halfway between Bathurst and Cowra.  Blayney has good shopping and very useful hardware stores.  We've been here for just over a week.  There is quite a large camping area so there's no need to feel crowded.  On Friday the population increased significantly  and by today we were back to about 8 camps here.

We have a fantastic spot close enough to the dam to fill our water tanks.  There are fish in the dam, apparently it's the best place to catch redfin in NSW - we haven't had any luck though.  We think fishing is a great way to waste a few hours while looking as if we're doing something useful.

We've had great weather - cold nights with some frosts and warm sunny days.  The cows on the other side of the water have been calving all week so we have beed serenaded by the sounds of cows and calves calling each other.

We've had some nice drives around the area through the historic towns of Carcoar, Neville and Newbridge.

Cherry Blossoms at Cowra

It's springtime and in Cowra NSW that means it's time for the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Cowra has a very special relationship with Japan and Japanese Culture. In World War II there was a POW Camp in Cowra where 2,223 Japanese and 2,000 Italian POWs and internees were held.  There were also a number of Indonesians, Chinese and Koreans imprisoned there.  On 5th August 1944 there was a breakout of 359 Japanese prisoners.  231 Japanese soldiers died, with 108 wounded. 3 Australian soldiers also died (2 during the breakout and one later in the day).  In 1977 the Japanese Garden was established in the Peace Precinct.

This beautiful garden is an ongoing work in progress and is the site of a Japanese Culture Centre.  It's also the site of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in late September each year.  The gardens are a very popular tourist attraction and we have been there several times.

It's very easy to spend an hour or more just wandering around the gardens which are designed to represent all areas of Japan.  At this time of year they are enhanced by the cherry blossom trees in full bloom.

The Festival also has Japanese Cultural events during the day with origami and calligraphy available for the adventurous.  There were special displays of martial arts, taiko drums and tea ceremonies on one of the days (unfortunately not the day we were there).

After spending the morning walking around the Gardens, we drove the short distance to the War Cemetery.  There are 2 War Cemeteries in Cowra, the Australian War Cemetery and the Japanese War Cemetery.

We have always found a war cemetery to be a very reverent place.  A visit to one really brings home the futility of war and the waste of young lives.  This one was no exception.  This is the only Japanese War Cemetery anywhere in the world and the remains of all Japanese, military and civilian, who died in Australia during World War II, including airmen shot down or crashed over Northern Australia are interred there.  Australian soldiers who died in the area (there was a major infantry base in Cowra) are buried in the small Australian War Cemetery.  Both Cemeteries are maintained by Commonwealth War Graves.

The BOG Muster, a Week in Rydal

After our quick trip to Maroochydore for the caravan service we ventured south to join the Bushtracker Owners Group at their annual Muster.  This year it has been held at Rydal in the Upper Hunter Valley, about 15 kms from Lithgow.

Our travels southward were uneventful with overnight camps in beautiful locations.  It's magpie season so we were on the lookout for dive-bombing magpies when we were outside.  Some were very territorial so we ventured out armed with a hat and stick for protection. The first night we spent at Federation Park, just south of Toowoomba on the alternate route from Toowoomba to Warwick.

Then we travelled along the New England Highway through rolling hills to Guyra, about 50 kms north of Armidale.  At the top of the range, Guyra can be very cold in the winter.  We camped at Mother of Ducks Lagoon which is a picturesque waterbird sanctuary.  We saw many nesting waterhens, swans and cranes.  There are also long necked turtles in the lagoon but we didn't see any.

Day 3 saw us driving through the coal mining areas of the Upper Hunter Valley with the Blue Mountains in the background.  About 4pm we pulled into the Rydal Showground where the BOG Muster was in full swing with almost 50 caravans in attendance.  We set up camp and were warmly welcomed into the "Bushtracker Family".

Over the next week we learned a lot about our new caravan and picked up many hints from the seasoned travellers.  We also took the opportunity to try out all of our new "toys" and put up the awning and annexe for the first time.  It was a great opportunity for the experienced caravanners to cast an eye over our handiwork and offer suggestions.  The committee had organised plenty for us to do and we were certainly kept busy with social activities which included a dance, games night, trivia night, camp oven cook-off and a dinner as well as the daily "happy hour' around the campfire.  


On Friday we toured the Mount Piper Power Station with its 250m high chimney and huge cooling towers and saw electricity generation first hand.

Rydal in September is beautiful as the "Daffodils in Rydal" festival is underway.  There are many patches of bright yellow blooms and several gardens are open for tourists to enjoy.  

We were treated to the music of the Lithgow Pipe Band as they practised in the showground before marching through the town on Saturday afternoon.  The community spirit in this small town (population about 70) is amazing and we were all invited to a sausage sizzle on the final night of both the Daffodil Festival and our Muster.  The weather has been kind to us with cold nights and clear sunny days with only one day of rain.  We were grateful for the very effective heater in our caravan as the temperature plummeted when the sun went down.  The sunny mornings meant that we had plenty of power as the solar cells charged up the batteries during the day.

Any shopping was done in nearby Lithgow where the magnolia street trees were in full bloom.  Lithgow was the home town of champion sprinter Marjorie Jackson - The Lithgow Flash - and there is a statue of her in the town.

At the Muster's end, we packed up, said goodbye to our new friends and hit the road again.  The 2013 Muster will be in Alice Springs and we are planning to be there. After leaving Rydal we travelled about 80km to Carcoar Dam.  We have set up our camp overlooking the dam with waterhens and cows for entertainment.  There is a wind farm on the top of the nearby hills.  Looking out of our window is like looking at a beautiful rural landscape painting.

The view from our front door is certainly worth looking at.

The "Shakedown Trip" or "A Learning Experience"

We picked up our new caravan from Bushtracker and armed with our delivery instructions we set off on our new adventure.  The past few weeks have been a great learning experience for us both as we have learned some of the basics of caravan travel and living.  We have called our last few weeks the "Shakedown Trip".  This is the trip to give the caravan its first road test and get it back to Bushtracker to have the first service.  It's really enabled us to get to know our van, although there are still some bits we haven't tried out.

We drove out of the Bushtracker factory at Kunda Park and headed for the Coochin Creek campground in a nearby state park.  This is in a beautiful bush setting.  Although there aren't many caravan sites, we managed to find a place to park overnight and moved to a "proper" site the next morning when a number of vans pulled out.  We were still pretty busy buying "stuff" we would need during the day.  The evenings were relaxing with beautiful sunsets and entertaining bush turkeys.

After 3 days at Coochin Creek we headed inland and south.  The CB radio comes in very handy and we talk to truckies when they want to pass us.  It was good to get off the motorway and onto some quieter roads as Robert was getting used to towing 3 tonne of van behind our car.  We have found the Camp6 book useful as a guide to camping and rest stops, I think it's the traveller's bible.  We have also been able to find our own spots away from the crowds.  We spent a night at Cecil Plains in the cotton farming area.  Cotton "balls" were all along the sides of the road there must be some very comfortable birds nests in the area, all lined with fluffy warm cotton fibres.

From Cecil Plains we made our way towards NSW and crossed the Dumaresq River at Texas (Texas Australia that is).  We made our way towards Narrabri for the next night.

On the way we stopped for milkshakes at Bingara which has some very quaint art deco buildings.  The Roxy Cinema still has its original ticket office out front and Peter's Milkbar next door is one of the most authentic Greek style milkbars in Australia (it was featured in the Museums Australia journal).  The milkshakes are pretty good too.  

We camped overnight just north of Narrabri and were treated to beautiful scenery with the sun shining on the golden wattles which were in full flower.

The next morning we drove through the Pilliga Nature Reserve with more wattles on both sides of the road, through Coonabarabran and along a secondary road to Mendooran.  We realised we were getting low on fuel, we had really burned fuel on our way to Narrabri on the steep windy road with a strong headwind.  Not to worry, we'll fill up at Mendooran.  The theory was good and we made it to the town with plenty in the tank.  The practice was lacking though.  Mendooran was having a "scheduled power outage" and the 2 places that sell fuel there were "offline".  One was closed and the other, the general store, was operating from a generator and his pumps were closed.  Luckily for us we only had to wait about 45 minutes before the power was back on and we could fill up.  Lesson of the day - fill up the tank when it's half full!  Mendooran boasts a tennis club with a mural depicting the story of tennis in the area.  Mendooran has some Australian top ranked players in its history.

Our destination in a few days is Sydney where our winter clothes are in storage.  The nights are getting quite cold and we're grateful for the diesel heater in the van, especially at 6am when temperatures are below zero and we need to get up to turn on the heater so it's warm when we get out of bed later.  Another cold night near Mudgee, then it's through the Blue Mountains towards Sydney.  We're very happy that our storage shed is just off the M4 and Great Western Highway so we don't have to negotiate any nasty traffic.

We spend a few days parked in Girraween unpacking the storeroom and trying to fit out belongings into the caravan.  We thought we had culled pretty well last October but the local op shop and charity bins did very well out of us again.  Now we really are down to the essentials, but at least we now have plenty of warm clothes and a doona for the cold frosty nights.  We are also able to catch up with family (we are parked right next door).  Then it's off to Canberra to show off our new home to family there.  This is our first experience of a caravan park.  EPIC is at the Canberra show grounds and has large drive through sites - just what we need.  We are able to hook up to electricity for the first time and charge everything up.  We haven't had any problems with the 4 solar panels and batteries as we've had nice sunny days to keep the batteries charged up - another experience for us has been learning to live within our resources - water, gas and power - no problems yet.  Here we also have our first "dinner party" cooking a roast dinner for 6, and finding space to eat it!  It's good to know we have the family's seal of approval (for both the food and the living quarters).

After some very chilly weather in Canberra we're pleased to be heading north towards Queensland and warmer weather.  We've got about 5 days to get back to Maroochydore for the caravan to be serviced and to have some finishing touches completed.  We've also arranged to have the Landcruiser serviced by the dealer while we're in the area.

We drive through Cowra where we had hoped to see some cherry blossoms but we're a bit early for them.  Then it's on to Forbes where we camped in a very picturesque spot next to the Lachlan River.  After breakfast we drive past golden canola and to Parkes and stop off for coffee at the Parkes Radio Telescope.  This is a 65m dish and was the subject of the movie "The Dish" starring Sam Neill.  We've seen it before and it is still very impressive.  It's used 85% of the time for research and 15% of the time for maintenance.  The dish "floats" on it's mechanism and is only locked down in high winds.

From Parkes it's onwards and upwards through Dubbo and Coonabarabran where we can see the magnificent Warrumbungles in the distance,  back through the Pilliga Nature Reserve to Narrabri.  This time we camp at a nice spot in the Pilliga which has wattles, "egg and bacon" bush, croweas and scented boronias in flower all around us.  Although we are close to the road the trucks don't worry us as they thunder past along the Newell Highway.  The next morning we continue north through Moree and cross into Queensland at Goondawindi then along the Gore Highway to Millmerran, another popular camping spot.

We have booked into the Forest Glen Caravan Park which is close to Bushtracker for a few nights, but we have one more night before we get there so we stay at Woodford near Caboolture on the D'Aguilar Highway.  The caravan is at Aussie Traveller (the awning manufacturer) for the day so we  spend the day in Redcliffe north of Brisbane.  

Redcliffe is Brisbane's equivalent to Sydney's Manly.  We had a very pleasant day walking around the Humpybong Creek and along the Redcliffe Pier.  We also spent some time in the Museum where there was a special exhibition relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games and local olympians and paralympians.  We saw a very good short movie about Redcliffe's history too.  Well worth a visit.

Our second caravan park was at Forest Glen, and it's totally different to the one at EPIC.  This is a resort with many facilities.  We managed to park in our allotted site which was a bit tight for our large rig.  We were able to arrange to stay in a more accessible site when we returned with the van the next night.  Another lesson - we NEED a BIG site for both the van and the car.

Thursday we delivered the caravan to Bushtracker to have it's nuts and bolts tightened and delivered our car to Sound In Motion in Nambour to have the tyre pressure monitoring system and rear facing camera set up.  While we're in the area we call into the Ginger Factory at Yandina to stock up on crystallised ginger and ginger beer.  Bushtracker fixed all the things we had on our list for them to look at.  No doubt there will be more as the kilometres mount up.  Friday Robert took the car off to Toyota for it's service and Cherryl tackled the washing while we had access to large washing machines in the caravan park.  We haven't used the washing machine in the caravan yet.

This morning we loaded up and hit the road again.  This time heading south past the Somerset Dam to Toowoomba.  Our destination is Rydal (near Lithgow NSW) where the Bushtracker Owners Group are having their 2012 Muster.  We are taking it slower this time and plan to arrive about Wednesday or Thursday.

We've decided that we prefer not to stay in caravan parks and will avoid them if possible.