'Summer' in Armidale

Armidale has proved a rather disappointing summer hideaway. The weather has been mostly quite miserable, and we have spent far too many days huddled inside the van wearing jeans, long sleeves and a jumper, and listening to the rain pattering on the roof. Luckily we have been able to while away quite a bit of time working on the plans for our new house, and making some of the around 20 million decisions that are required - bricks, tiles, colours, taps, doors ........

The New England Tablelands around Armidale contain many national parks, and we have managed to do some good walking in between showers. The Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is home to spectacular gorges and waterfalls. Gara Gorge was the site of Australia's first commercial hydro-electric scheme, built in 1894. A 5.5 km loop walk took us past the remains of the dam and along the route of the flume that took the water to the point where it plunged down into the gorge to the power station. The 7 km walk at Dangar Falls winds around the rim of a spectacular gorge, with lookouts perched out over the gorge providing fantastic views.

Wollomombi Gorge has the highest waterfall and deepest gorge in New South Wales. The gorge has been carved out by 2 waterfalls, Wollomombi Falls and Chandler Falls, that are separated by a narrow splinter of rock. Several rather energetic walks around the gorge and across the top of both falls provided us with stunning views. As well as these three gorges we had also hoped to visit Cathedral Rock and New England National Park, but once the rain started we had to abandon these plans.

On one of the drier days we drove up to Glen Innes, about 100km north of Armidale and home to the Standing Stones, the national monument to Australia's Celtic pioneers. Comprising 40 granite monoliths, each averaging 17 tonnes. As well as 24 stones arranged in a circle, there are stones marking the cardinal points north, south, east and west and the summer and winter solstices. Officially opened in 1992, the stones are recognised by the Celtic Council of Australia as the national gathering point for Celtic descendants and clans. We also did a pleasant heritage walk around Glen Innes, then on the way home called in to Guyra, which claims to grow the best tomatoes in Australia. We bought some of the local produce and had very tasty fried tomatoes on toast for dinner.

Uralla is only about 20km south of Armidale, and we had a day out there before Christmas. Until a couple of years ago Uralla was the home of the oldest working iron foundry in Australia, unfortunately it is no longer in operation but tours are available on weekends, so we headed there one wet Saturday. The rather ramshackle building is pretty much as it was when the foundry was working, the gaps in the walls were probably welcome with a foundry fire roaring away inside, but made it a pretty chilly affair now the fire is gone. One of the foundry's main products was iron lace, seen on many historic buildings locally and also 'exported' down to Sydney. Many of the patterns remain, but with the foundry's closure the skills required to manufacture the lace are rapidly disappearing. It was a rather sad glimpse into yet another piece of Australia's industrial heritage that is being lost.