Friday Fun Day - An Unexpected Day Out

If you had asked me on Thursday afternoon what we were doing on Friday I would have replied that we were having a day at home making Tomato Relish.  As you can gather, that isn't what eventuated.

On Thursday evening we learned that Blayney Shire Sculptures by the Bush was taking place.

The background is that for the last few years the has been a cycle race "B2B" - Blayney to Bathurst held each March.  In conjunction with the race the Blayney Shire has held a Hay Bale Sculpture competition along the route of the race.  We have gone for a drive the last two years to have a look and there are some clever people out there. This is from two years ago. However, this year they changed the format of the race to go from Bathurst to Bathurst and Blayney is no longer involved.  

Therefore, Blayney decided to expand the Hay Bale Sculpture competition to the whole shire and also add scarecrows and "Farm Art" sculptures.  Of course we had to go for a drive to check them out.  Anyway, it was a fairly bleak day, so a good day to be in the car.

Here is a bit of a sample.

We literally travelled all over the countryside to see these art works and had been told the winning hay bale sculpture was on the Errowanbang Road, out near Carcoar. 

It really was clever.  Most were made with round bales, but this was the perfect use of a square bale.  It was so clever.

Apart from finding all the sculptures we had a lovely drive around the district.  There is a true labyrinth  of  roads in the area and we have been on most of them, either just driving around or on rallies with the bike.  What we really enjoyed this time was to go along a few new to us roads.  One spot we visited was on the old highway, which has been bypassed for many years, so it was nice to go along there as well.  

Here is a bit of what we found.

Mick being angelic

This creek has the romantic name of "Dirt Hole Creek".

The old bridge crossing the creek is rather lovely.  The road now bypasses it.

This was not part of the competition, but we loved this sculpture in the grounds of the Spring Hill Public School.

It's always novel to have to wait for a train.  I know, we are just big kids.

We enjoyed a nice lunch in Millthorpe and had a wander up and down the street.  There were quite a few people out and about.

The railway station is a lovely building and trains have recently started to use the station again.  There are a few stations in the district that have been opened again, which is good to see.

On the outskirts of Millthorpe we say this wonderful creation at the entrance to a property.  Once again, not part of the competition, but very clever.  

As a result of turning off the main road to see it, we ventured down another new to us dirt road.

Eventually, we saw the wind turbines near Carcoar Dam.  We really did zig zag all over the Blayney Shire.

Finally, heading towards home on another dirt road we haven't been down  before. I love seeing a tunnel of gum trees.

So, rather than make tomato relish, we wandered around for over five hours. The tomato relish had to wait another day.