We spent last night on a side street in Temora, very hot night. This morning we drove to the Temora Rural Museum. It started with a small building with exhibits of clothing from the 70's, domestic odds and ends, wringer washers, a coffee maker with glass globes one on top of the other, sewing machines, etc. Then we went out the back and into a huge exhibition area. They had Don Bradford's (he of cricket fame) cottage, a building full of small motors, another of farm equipment, a sheep shearing shed, blacksmith shop, a school house, pioneer cottage, old newspaper office with printing press. It just went on and on.
Temora is in the heart of wheat country. There are vast fields of wheat, miles of them, railhead with grain bins, scattered wheat stations. It is farm land. The museum was preparing for a big exhibition day on Saturday. The men had taken the tractors and harvesters out and cleaned them in preparation. Sat. they are going to harvest wheat with the old machines and put on all kinds of displays. We were sorry to miss it.
But we drove south to Junee. First stop was the Licorice and Chocolate Factory. We had a tour that explained how licorice was made. I don't generally like licorice, but a small piece covered in chocolate was pretty good. They also made chocolate covered nuts, cherries, and so on. They had just tried for the Guinness record for the biggest smash cake. And that is a hollow chocolate cake filled with candies (lollies). Theirs had been cakes in the shapes of locomotives and train cars.
Junee has the largest full circle railroad roundhouse in the southern hemisphere. Half of it is now a museum with vintage railroad cars and engines. One of the cars looked just like those Harry Potter. The other half is a working roundhouse, repairing Diesel engines.
On to Wagga Wagga, the largest city in the area. We just stopped at the info centre to use the wifi, then drove to Gundagai, where we stopped for the night. We're in a free camping area by a creek under eucalyptus trees where it's nice and cool. During dinner, cockatoos came by the dozens and are they noisy things, loud squawky birds. They've quieted down now.
Mar 9
Up early, in search of the Dog on the Tuckerbox statue. Found it off the highway a few Kms north of town. Tucker is slang for food, so the dog is sitting on some guys food box and there was a famous story written about it. Back in Gundagi we stopped to see the Marble Masterpiece. The same man who did the Dog statue worked in marble. He spent 28 years building a miniature cathedral to highlight the beauty of Australian marble. He used 20,958 pieces of marble to build it. The last few yeas he became blind in one eye, but was able to finish it and another miniature altar piece as well.
Down the road a bit we came into a town and saw a cricket match being played, so we stopped. They were junior players, maybe early teens. We were given a quick explanation of the game, just the bare bones, but it made it more enjoyable. The fella who explained it was a baseball player himself. Basketball is also big here, but not as big as rugby and Aussie rules football. Sports are really big here
South of there we joined the Snowy Mt Hwy that went through the mountains, past reservoirs made when several rivers were dammed in the Snowy Mt Scheme to supply water to large populations. The mountain were covered in eucalyptus forests and went on and on.
We were on our way to Yarrangobilly Caves, down more twisty mountain highway, until the turnoff to the caves, then it became one way and even more twisty. We took the tour into Jersey Cave, the first cave discovered in the area. It had some unique black and grey flowstones, thought to be caused by air pollutants that got into the cave. Pollutants like soot from bush fires. The black layers appear several times over the life of the cave. The guide had 30 years of cave experience and certainly knew his stuff, but in the Aussie way he called stalactites and stalagmite Yarrangobillys 'hangy downy and pointy uppy things'.
Here McDonald's is Maccas, Salvation Army is Salvos, breakfast is brekky, a certain eucalyptus is the stringy bark tree, and so on.
There was a thermal pool near the caves, so we hiked down a steep trail to have a dip. It turned out that it wasn't as thermal as we had hoped, about 80 degrees - cooler than the air. Also, the pool was about 8 feet deep and a breeding habitat for some kind of frog, so we sat in the kiddie pool for a while and hiked back up.
On through the mountains into great valleys, up on wide plateaus. There is a vastness to the country that reminded us of Alaska and the expanses of the Canadian Mountains.
We stopped in Bemboka for the night and asked about a free campsite we found in our Camps book. The fella told us he thought it cost $10 and to go to the pub to get more information. So up to the pub, no one inside, but a couple of men were sitting outside, so we asked them. Turned out one of them had the keys to the showers and would take us to the camp, but asked if we wanted a beer first. So we had some beers, Sam paid for the 3 of us. The guy was a heavy smoker and I asked if I could look at his pack of cigarettes. The brand name was very small, but the health warnings were very large and both sides had pictures of mouth cancer. That seemed a strong deterrent to us, but even the $20/pack price didn't seem to be enough for the gang at the pub.
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