Monday 13th May, 2019

Wending our way home tonight we shopped for some basics at the Aldi store across the road.

We started the day by calling in at a pharmacy to have scripts filled and get small things. Then we went to visit the Winnie to pick up some more stuff. Our repairer is still waiting on call backs to complete the quotation. Which means the insurance assessor cannot get on with the assessment and approval of the quote. It seems worthwhile to settle in more where we are.

Our last goal with having the hire car was to visit the Chinese Memorial Garden. We went around and around using a map and Google Maps – the Garden was only 5 kms away, but we couldn’t find any signage and Google Maps was just wrong. Eventually we got there and it is well worth the trouble.

We went home for lunch and a rest. The car had to be returned at 4.00 p.m. and we allowed a little extra time to go to the Tourist Bureau to find out about buses to other towns and locations. If we have to stay here a few days longer we wanted to know if it was feasible to explore further afield without a car. There is no train service in Young and the bus services aren’t that great. The local community have set up their own transport system, something for us to consider. It isn’t cheap.

We visited the other town bakery/cafe and found it is quite nice with friendly owners. We encountered the couple running the cafe again when we were in the Aldi store.

We are in for very cold nights (-1 to 3) followed by sunny days with temperatures between 18 to 20, sunny and dry. Ideal for getting around on foot. We have an IGA and a Woolworths in town as well as the Aldi, but it is worthwhile to come to grips with Aldi as it is just across the road, and it is much easier to carry our shopping home from there than down in the town.

We enjoyed visiting the Winnie even though we still don’t know when it will be ready.

Sunday 12th May, 2019

Taking advantage of having a vehicle we drove 80 kms to visit the Temora Aviation Museum. It houses aircraft from WWII and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Where the museum is housed was a training facility for pilots for these wars. The unique thing about this Museum is that all of the aircraft are kept in flying condition. We are not sure how it is funded as admissions on non flying days would definitely not cover it. They employ the aircraft mechanics and some of the staff even though they also have many volunteers.

We watched a video first of all which explained the origins of the idea of having a flying museum from an idea by David Lowy, AM. a pilot and enthusiast.

We enjoyed driving through the farmland to and from Temora. The little town has many old and attractive buildings, along the lines of Young, but Young has suffered more from ‘modernisation’ that took place before towns realised they had to keep the historical features to attract tourists.

Matt went to a NDIS awards night last night for people with disabilities embracing employment opportunities, or something to that effect. He and his team didn’t win a prize, but the looked good. His supervisor sent me this photo.

Well done Matt. I wish they would dress him in ‘smart casual’ for this type of event, rather than white shirt and bow tie, etc. But, that’s just my taste.

We now have only two and a half weeks before the Denmark Festival of Voice. It seems likely that we will be here at least another couple of days, which makes it unlikely that we can make it. The next deadline for me is Mum’s appointment on the 11th June which is four weeks away, and should be easily doable.

Saturday 11th May, 2019

Today was grey, with a cold wind. We opted for an indoor activity, visiting the Young Folk Museum. Our tour started with a video of a historian talking about the town and it’s history as a gold mining town. It was sad to hear about the riots against the Chinese miners, but there has been an attempt at reconciliation. On Monday we plan to go to a memorial garden and there are exhibits in the museum honouring the Chinese people who came for the gold, but often stayed as they set up businesses and even married local women.

We also found out about the early white settlers to the region and the various mining and farming interests that keep the area a vibrant place to live.

The video talked about some of the lovely buildings in the town that escaped modernisation. When I walked back into the town it was interesting to see some of the details we had seen in the video, having already admired the buildings when we walked here on the first evening.

We came home for lunch and haven’t gone out again. We have books, the internet and TV to keep us occupied. It’s a small cabin, but we have more space than in the Winnie. When we go to the toilet we reach for the lever to open the top of the toilet as we do in the Winnie.

Friday 10th May, 2019

The irony of the title of yesterday’s blog post was that when we were being ‘rescued’ someone described us as ‘an elderly couple’. We don’t feel elderly, of course. Hence ‘Young again’. Plus, we are in the town of Young and didn’t intend to have a second night here.

Today we did some more sorting out of the insurance claim, etc. Some progress has been made, but we are not sure if the repairer was able to get a quote to the insurer today. They found that the fuel tank does not have a hole in it, and the repair will involve the fuel connections (or something like that). If they can make generic replacement of parts and not have to wait for parts from Italy, we should be able to get on the road in a reasonable time. Shipment of parts from Italy take four weeks. The insurer said that if we are happy then they are happy on that issue.

We still had the ute we borrowed yesterday, and now that we feel we will be until at least Tuesday, we decided to make ourselves comfortable in the cabin. We drove to where the Winnie is parked and packed up food, clothes, etc. We emptied the fridge and turned off the freezer section. I was worried that if we turned off the fridge we might end up with water at the bottom of the fridge. Having only one compresser working should mean that the batteries are not too challenged. Also, the Winnie is parked outside and should get good solar power after today. We have had a cloudy and wet day today, but fine weather is forecast.

We checked, and found that the accommodation allowance is less than we were told yesterday, though will still cover us for up to three weeks (we hope we don’t need it) and that we can also have access to a hire car up to $500. We are taking advantage of that and have a car for the next three days. A nifty little Corolla with very little ground clearance.

It was too cold and wet to go outside to take a better photo of the car.

On our way to pick it up we called in at a bakery cafe. It has a beautiful upstairs area.

There were a few nice areas with couches and armchairs, as in the featured photo at the top.

We arrived at about 3.00 p.m. and by 3.30 when we left lots of families with school kids had arrived. The kids were ording sausage rolls and chips to have with sugary drinks. Not one was overweight. We theorised that parents came into town to pick up their kids from the various schools and this was their Friday afternoon treat.

After we picked up our car we drove to Woolworths to get supplies. We were planning to shop before the incident with the Winnie and were able to get most things. We only have a tiny freezer in the cabin and had to leave frozen things off the list, getting everything else.

We are at home making ourselves comfortable. There are no armchairs in our cabin and we’ve brought the plastic outdoor chairs into the living room. Last night when we arrived back here I was terribly cold and found that air conditioning did not provide enough warmth. We are not used to an electric blanket on the bed, but because we don’t have much covering we put it on last night and that was when I finally felt warm again.

We do like the little cabin. We can cook and prepare our own food, and we have privacy.

We plan to do some exploring over the weekend, which is our motivation for renting the car.

Thursday 9th May, 2019

We had a good nights sleep and woke to a very cold and sunny morning. Our plan on setting out was to get fuel, have our tyres checked and head straight to Temora. We need to do some shopping, but thought we could do it in Temora. The attraction there is an aviation museum that had old planes that can actually fly, though they only take them out a few times a year.

After having the tyres checked, we drove out of the rear of the workshop, misjudged the driveway dip and scraped our fuel tank. The Winnie went about 100 metres before stopping. We had a fuel leak.

Almost immediately men arrived to offer advice and help. Someone went underneath and could see the tank pushed backwards. One of our helpers was able to offer help in the form of a tow truck and a place where it could be repaired. We called roadside assistance and they said to phone our insurers. We decided to wait until the Winnie had been taken to the workshop.

It was scary watching the Winnie being winched onto the truck, but all went well and we caught a lift to their workshop. They will have to send our aluminium tank out to be repaired as they can only weld steel. We are to phone tomorrow at midday to find out what is happening.

They offered a workshop vehicle for us to drive, we felt blessed even though I forgot about the clutch at first. When we drive the Winnie in manual we don’t have a clutch.

The caravan park where we stayed last night is small, with very friendly staff, so our first thought for the overnight was to go back there and take a cabin. No problems, and the cost is within our insurance budget at $100 per night (can be up to $150).

At this point we rang the insurer which will now liaise with the repairer to get a quote.

We had a rest, feeling a bit shaken up. We took some food with us from the van, but may go back tomorrow to get more, rather than buying everything. We have a useable small kitchen in the cabin for preparing food but have tracked down a nice hotel to have our evening meal. There are four pubs in town and I can see why a local person recommended this one, it has a nicely furnished dining room.

We went to the Visitors Centre where we looked at a gallery, then walked around the town to get a feel for what is has to offer, should we have to stay for another day or so.

Having watched it being winched onto the truck I couldn’t bear to watch it coming off. I thought everything would be a mess in the van after being on such an angle, but in fact all was as tidy as we had left it, a miracle indeed.

Our cabin and car.

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.

Tuesday May 7th, 2019

Today we travelled about 120 kms. We planned on going further, but spent too long in Bathurst. There was a nice cafe at the Visitor Centre and Stephen took a walk afterwards to a museum, whilst I processed some photos I took on a walk this morning. I made a little slideshow.

We had one more little stop along the way, then decided to stay here at Lyndhurst. They offer free camping at what they call a Primitive Camping Ground. There is a toilet, just a portaloo at the moment, but new ones under construction, a new BBQ area and rather nice playground. I had a go on the swing.

There is potable water, apparently lovely water from a spring, and a dump point, which doesn’t need a photo, of course. All they ask is for a donation and there is a little lock box near the entry.

We’ve been travelling on the Great Western Highway, but later today it changed to the Mid Western Highway.

As you can see from the featured photo, the Blue Mountains really are bluish. We got up rather late and dithered around for a while. I was checking on Google and realised that we could get to the Three Sisters lookout at Echo Point in Katoomba by train and bus. The train station is about 1.5 kms away, mostly uphill, but we can handle that at the beginning of the day, rejoicing that when we return, probably tired, it will be all down hill.

We left at about 11.00 a.m. and had time for a coffee before catching our train. The trains were running every hour for our line, we noticed when we were returning that the trains to Sydney are more frequent. We enjoyed being able to take in the views as we travelled on our comfortable train. Yesterday evening we had travelled much the same route in the Winnie, but having to concentrate on the road meant we couldn’t relax and take things in.

We took a normal public transport bus to Echo Point. It felt amazing that this place is so accessible, but the numbers of tourists mean that it is well worth while. After spending some time at the lookout we had lunch at a nearby foodhall. Rather overpriced, but we sat ourside enjoying the view.

After lunch we walked down a path, with many other, of course, to another look out point. I bought some fridge magnets, three, because I couldn’t make up my mind which one.

Getting back was just as easy as our trip out. We stopped for a cuppa at a cafe. Stephen managed to get a copy of the Weekend Australian to read.

Then, our walk downhill to our caravan park. Last night I did a load of washing, and did a second one tonight, bringing us up to date. We had a simple meal of eggs, tomoto, olives and jalapeno peppers with hash browns, followed by fruit and icecream.

We had an enjoyable session with Matt on Facetime, and I’ve spent ages processing the images from today. I’m only including a few of them tonight as it is getting late.