Country Music Capital of Australia

We decided to break up the long drive with a couple of days in Tamworth, famous for their Country Music Festival each January. We had intended to play a game of golf here, but on the first day the course was closed due to their championships being played, and it rained all the second day, so we'll have to check out the delights of the Tamworth Golf Club some other time.

Having been denied a game of golf, we decided to go on a walk instead. The Kamilaroi Trail starts at Oxley Lookout (pictured), and provides panoramic views over the town and distant hills. We have only done a couple of walks in the time we weren't travelling, and they were either flat or downhill the whole way, so the 6km of uphill and down dale really tested our legs. As is so often the case we were nearly the only people on the trail, although the sounds of civilisation drifting up from the town below meant we couldn't really fool ourselves we were having a true wilderness experience.

The inclement weather on our second day in Tamworth confined us to indoor experiences. Our first visit was to the Golden Guitar centre, with its huge replica of the Golden Guitar trophies handed out to the winners of the annual Country Music Awards. We're actually not terribly interested in country music, so after taking the photo here decided to pass on the Gallery of Stars Wax Museum, particularly as we hadn't even heard of half the headline stars they were boasting of in the advertising. Maybe we should have gone to our next stop first - the Walk a Country Mile Interpretive Exhibit. This gave the history of country music in Australia, including lots of snippets of songs and displays of memorabilia. We found it surprisingly interesting, particularly when needing to fill a cold, wet day.

Our last stop was the Tamworth Regional Craft Centre, showcasing local efforts such as wood turning, knitted items, handmade toys and other old fashioned country arts and crafts. We came away with a jar of chutney (Wendy's always a sucker for homemade chutneys and relishes) and a cloth bag to keep all our plastic bags tidy, although we were nearly tempted by the clock which had all the numbers heaped up at the bottom of the face, and emblazoned with the words 'Who cares, I'm retired'!

The Dish

The radio telescope just north of Parkes in central NSW was built in the early 1960's. It was made famous by the 2000 movie 'The Dish', which tells the story of the telescope's involvement in transmitting the pictures of the Apollo 11 moon landing to the world. We made a small detour on our journey north to check out the visitor centre and take a few photos.

Not being tech-heads, we found the visitor centre a little difficult. Although they had obviously tried hard to tell the story of the work that the telescope does in plain English, our heads were spinning by all the quasars, quarks, neutral hydrogen surveys and baseline interferometry arrays. We soothed our brains with a couple of 'Milky Way' shakes in the coffee shop, and got some amusement from the rest of the menu's offerings, including 'Moonistrone Soup'. We also had some fun with the pair of parabolic reflectors that enabled you to hear the whisper of someone at the other dish 100 metres away.

Probably the most unexpected thing we learnt from the visit was when we checked the timetable to see what the dish was working on at the time, which turned out to be a project for the Italian Space Agency. Who knew Italy had a space agency!

Driving the Long Paddock

The Long Paddock tourist route follows the Cobb Highway from Moama (just over the Murray River from Echuca) to Wilcannia, in NSW's far north west. We followed it for 200km as far as Hay, before turning east towards the coast. Although this is only about a third of the full route, it includes the majority of the information panels and sculptures on the route.

The Long Paddock refers to the stock routes used by early drovers to bring their cattle and sheep from Queensland and remote NSW to markets in Adelaide and Melbourne. These routes followed streams and inland rivers to keep the stock watered during their long journey. Settlements, pubs and townships sprung up along the route, some of which died once rail and trucks came into their own, and some of which expanded to form today's inland towns.

The sculptures we've pictured here pay tribute to the drover and his horse and the Cobb and Co coaches that provided transport between the new townships, as well as to the legend of the headless horseman that haunted Black Swamp. The real story behind this legend apparently involves a local butcher who would dress up as the feared ghost and ride amongst the drovers' campsite to throw fear into their hearts and panic amongst the stock. In the resulting pandemonium he would expertly cut out a couple of prime head who would be herded off to a secluded place and slaughtered to supplement his shop's supply!

The full story of the Long Paddock can be found at www.thelongpaddock.com.au.

The other photo below is of a decorated ute, commemorating the 'Deniliquin Ute Muster', an annual event celebrating the great Aussie utility vehicle.

Senior's Sandbelt Week

Since turning 55 last year, John has been playing in some of the seniors golf tournaments. The last week has been 'sandbelt week' in Melbourne, when the senior guys get to play at some of the premier courses in town - Royal Melbourne, Yarra Yarra, Kingston Heath and Victoria. John was keen to play, so instead of heading North once golf week finished in Mildura we came back along the Murray River to Echuca, which is only 3 hours north of Melbourne. Wendy stayed with the van while John headed down to Melbourne to try his luck.

In Melbourne John stayed with an old friend from squash, and they had quite a blokes time of it, including going to a footy game at the MCG, and catching up with several other old mates. The golf wasn't as successful as perhaps John might have wished, but while not doing well enough to get a mention in dispatches he didn't disgrace himself. You can see the results for each tournament by clicking on the appropriate course above.

Meanwhile, Wendy mooched around in Echuca, playing a couple of games of golf, but mainly hiding in the caravan away from the interminable rain. It seems like the drought has well and truly broken in south east Australia, at times it felt like if the caravan survived getting blown away it would float off into the Murray River. However, survive it did, and we will now be heading away from the end of the southern winter and up north to (hopefully) some sun and warmth. We feel like the last few weeks of golf have just been a prelude to the second half of our big Around Australia trip, and the next adventure is about to properly begin.

Mildura Golf Week

Mildura is in the far north west of Victoria, and their Golf Week tournament has been going for over 60 years. It has shrunk back over the years, but is still a lot of fun, with multiple mixed and pairs events, with the centrepiece being a 3 day stroke event for all players, except for A grade men (like John) who play a 4 day stroke event. We've played in the tournament off and on for the past 20 years, and have got to know lots of other people who also play there regularly. One of the big attractions is that local wineries sponsor nearest the pin on all par 3 holes on all days, and usually we get a good haul of wine bottles, but this year neither of us were on target and we only ended up with 2 bottles for the week.

We didn't do well in any of the pairs events, but Wendy started well in the stroke event and won a handbag on the first day. Unfortunately that was the highlight of the week, and we both played progressively worse. But the weather was generally pleasant each day (although very chilly overnight - down to virtually freezing on some nights) and it didn't rain at all. All in all, we had a good time and played lots of golf and caught up with a few old friends.

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Our first stop on the new phase of our journey was Swan Hill, a town on the Murray River with a great golf course. We arrived lateish in the afternoon, and took a bit longer than we used to to get set up - we had to make sure we hadn't forgotten the routine. Once the water hose was connected Wendy tried to refill our water bottles, but was surprised to find that no water was coming out of the kitchen tap. We fiddled and poked, but to no avail, we couldn't get more than a dribble coming through, despite the strong water pressure from the park tap.

We looked at each with dread, in fear that we would need to replace the entire undervan plumbing system. A couple of days before we set off, we had used some water tank cleaning tablets to flush out the water tank and plumbing system of the van. This had been quite a lengthy process, involving filling the water tank and flushing it through several times. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that a couple of days later the plumbing was no longer working.

By this stage it was not long before 5:00, so we rushed into the caravan shop in town to ask for help. We were almost their first customers, they were still building the office, and they said they would come out and have a look at it. Shortly afterwards a man in overalls arrived at our van and went through the same process we had - checking water was coming out of the park tap and getting through the hose alright, checking the pipe fitting the hose connected to, and turning the inside tap on and off in a vain attempt to make something happen. 'Hmm' he said 'that's odd' which wasn't really news to us. Eventually as it was getting dark it was agreed that he would have a talk to 'his mate the plumber' and come out again the following afternoon. Meanwhile we had to use a bucket to fetch hot water so we could wash the dinner dishes. The next morning we were up bright and early as we had booked to play golf at 9:15. We'd had breakfast and were just washing the dishes (using a bucket of water again) when the caravan man suddenly appeared, saying he'd spoken to his plumber mate who had suggested checking the filter on the end of the tap. 'There's a filter on the end of the tap?' we asked in surprise. Sure enough, the end of the tap screwed off to reveal a filter clogged up with gunk from the cleaning agent. A quick wipe out and hey presto, the tap gushed forth water. Who'd have guessed? Let's hope all our vanning issues are resolved so simply, and we thought the $30 charged very well spent.

We had a nice game of golf and went to bed that night anticipating the same the following day. However we were woken around 4:30 by rain drumming on the roof of the van. The downpour had reduced to constant drizzle by morning, and it stayed that way all day. The temperature managed to climb to a miserable 11 degrees, and that dizzy high probably only lasted for 10 minutes. We spent the entire day huddled inside the van with our little fan heater blasting out full bore, reading the paper and faffing about on the internet. Not the most exciting day of our trip, and hopefully the only one like it.