The featured photo was taken at a lookout on the road today. We woke up to rain in the night at it continued into the morning. When I went outside, although the rain had been very heavy the ground wasn’t soggy. We were at the top of a slight slope and I expect the water was draining well. This is only the third time we have had rain on this trip.

We filled up with water on the basis that we didn’t know if we would free camp or go to a caravan park for the night. It turns out that we took a long time in Cowra this morning and our travel energy took us to Young, where we had a choice of a caravan park or the local showgrounds. Wikicamps comments suggested the caravan park as the top choice. It was quite lovely to arrive, very tired, to friendly hosts and a good, level pitch. I got straight into some washing, as you would expect.

What kept us in Cowra was a very special place, a Japanese Garden. During WWII Japanese people were interred in Cowra. When some staged a breakout, many of the people were killed. The garden was conceived as a memorial and also to repair relations between Japan and the town. When the organisers needed $2 million dollars to continue, Japanese organisations contributed $1.6 million.

The day was partly cloudy, which meant we didn’t always have bright sunshine to explore the garden, but fortunately the rain had finished. We had a hot drink at the cafe before starting out, then shared fish, chips and salad for lunch. I bought some special food to feed to the fish and ducks in the garden.

There are five full time gardeners working in the grounds, plus staff in the cafe and gift shop. The people visiting tended to be families and elderly folk like us.