Where’s Wally?

Remember when I posted about my goals for this month that we hoped things may be a bit quieter on the home front in May?  Oops!  Not happening. We’ve headed off on a rather impromptu trip with the van. So much for not expecting to be using our caravan this month.

You see, we received a phone call late on Thursday afternoon letting us know that our friends are travelling from Queensland to Western Australia and will be passing through Nyngan on Saturday night.  Beauty, we’ll just duck up and we can all go out to dinner.  It’s only 350kms up the road.  No worries. A quick phone call to book Joey into the kennels, let the neighbours know we will be heading off and all is arranged. Let’s face it, we used to meet up with our friends half way, at Goondiwindi on the Queensland border, to go out to tea about once a year in times past.

Friday was a bit hectic, what with dropping Joey off, going to the Show and then our lawn bowls lesson as well packing the van.

Saturday saw our second frost for the year, so we had a chilly start to the day.

As we travelled along, we enjoyed seeing all the autumn colours.  

We generally travel to Nyngan via Orange, Molong, Wellington, Dubbo, Narromine, Trangie, Nyngan.  This time we tried a different route for the first time.

We turned off at Molong and travelled through Cumnock to the little town of Yeoval.

Along the route there are heaps of quirky sculptures of animals on bikes. Too hard to get a decent photo of most of them.

Some interesting old buildings were also spied along the way.

We called in at a little park in Yeoval to have our morning tea.  There is very little happening in the town. I noticed a shop that was open and had a sign for free range eggs for sale.  We needed eggs, and hadn’t had time to get any, so I wandered over to see if he had any in stock. It was a funny little shop, selling bric a brac, craft and a bit of food.  The man asked if we could wait for five minutes and he would pop home and get some eggs.  That was fine, we weren’t in a hurry.  He drove off and shortly later delivered the eggs to our van.  He was very apologetic that the eggs were one and two days old, as he hadn’t collected them on that day as yet.  How good is that for service.  We had some for breakfast and they were lovely.

I would like to have a bit more of a look around Yeoval.  It is mainly famous for being the childhood home of the poet Banjo Patterson, hence the animals on bikes, being a link to the poem “Mulga Bill’s Bicycle”.  There is a museum, but we had no time to have a look.  

The cutest building was the Red Cross op shop, which trades on a Tuesday.

My dad spent his early years in Yeoval, living on a property out of town and travelling to school by horse and sulky.

From Yeoval, we travelled to Tomingley and then to Narromine to resume our normal route.  We started to see some large paddocks prepared for next year’s wheat harvest.

We had lunch by the river at Trangie.

It was mid afternoon when we reached Nyngan. Nyngan is one of our favourite little country towns.

Once we got ourselves set up at the free camp right in the middle of town, it was time to go for a walk.

The camping area has been upgraded since our last visit with picnic tables and a new amenities block.

We had to check out the Big Bogan.

The railway station is a beautiful building.

This building in the Main Street, just stood out, looking so nice and fresh.

In the early evening we went for another walk, this time to the Bowling Club for Chinese dinner.  As we crossed the railway bridge, the sunset was gorgeous.

The Town hall was looking lovely in the twilight.

Dinner was delicious.  We then adjourned to the main bar, as the weekly raffles were being held.  Of course we had to buy some tickets and of course we didn’t win anything.  We were in a great position.  The boys looked in one direction to watch the footy and we girls watched the Coronation of King Charles III on the television above the bar.

Walking back to camp, the Town Hall looked even better in the night time.

This morning, we followed our friends as far as Cobar.  After we both fueled up, they continued west and we started to head south towards Hillston.  It is 254kms and there is no fuel along the way.  

There was a really chilly wind blowing.  It was a side wind on the way to Cobar.  Once we turned south we had a head wind all the way, which slowed us down a bit, not that we were in any hurry.

This is a really isolated stretch of road.  Most of the time the scenery looked a lot like this.

However, we don’t find it boring.  There are subtle changes in the landscape.  The varieties of trees vary.  There are cypress pines, bimble box, sheoaks, myall, wilga, some mallee (pictured above) and several others that I cannot identify.

We drove this way in 2019 and there was a lot of land being cleared at the time and we wondered what they were doing it for.  Well, this is what most of that area looks like now.  Lots of regrowth and the remnants of the trees that had been cleared.  There doesn’t appear to have been anything else done.  What was the point?  I don’t get it.  I’m not a greeny, but this seemed so silly.

There are very few places to pull over along this road, but there was one good rest area at what was an old mining settlement of Gulgunnia.  

The cute statue is to reflect the various pioneers of the area.

This is one of the weirdest composting loos I’ve seen, but it was actually very clean, with paper and not at all smelly.

Mount Hope is the only settlement between Cobar and. Hillston, consisting of a pub and one house.  I didn’t get a photo.  We have camped here in the past.

We knew we were getting closer to civilisation as we started to see some crops.

Hillston lies on the Lachlan River and there is a large irrigation system supporting the growing of many crops.  Almonds, cherries and citrus orchards are prevelant.

We are currently camped in the excellent caravan park.  The weather is freezing cold, so we haven’t had a look around as yet.  That is for tomorrow, and being Monday, some things may be open.

We have enjoyed our travels so far and look forward to the next few days as we slowly wend our way home.