Here, There and Everywhere - Cowra Open Gardens

This is a very belated post, as we visited these gardens in mid October.

The original plan was to have a couple of nights up there with the caravan and play the tourist, but that didn’t line up with what else we were up to, so a day trip it was.

We started with morning tea in Europa Park.  We drive past this park on the way into Cowra every time, but have never stopped before.

This plaque commemorates the migrants that passed through the town post World War Two.  It’s worth zooming in and having a read.

There was a grove on Chinese Elm trees planted in 1999 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ukrainian Women’s Association in Australia, founded in the Cowra Migrant camp in 1949.  It’s sad to consider that Ukraine is once again suffering.

We really must go back and play the tourist properly one day.  There is so much history relating to the middle of the 20th century, as there was an army camp, prisoner of war camp, which became infamous due to the breakout by Japanese prisoners, and then subsequently the formation of the migrant camp. Cowra now has a peace bell and beautiful Japanese Garden, which goes to show that true reconciliation is possible.  On an aside, the shed in our back yard when I was a kid was one of the offices at the Cowra camp.  Once they were no longer required they were sold off and you can spot them around the place where they had been relocated.

Back to the gardens…..

We visited their open gardens during COVID when the Bathurst Open Gardens didn’t proceed.  They were mainly country gardens that time.  This time they were mainly town gardens and there were no repeats from our last visit, which was nice.

Quite a few were fairly new gardens.

This one just showed off the front garden.  Great street appeal.

The next one was one of my favourites.  The block had lots of natural granite boulders and the garden had been created around them.  There were also lots of beautiful roses.  Only 100kms up the road from us, but their gardens were a lot further advanced than ours.  The fact that there were quilts dotted around the garden may have been part of the appeal.

We got chatting quilts, as you do, and the owner brought out two that she had recently completed for potential grandchildren.  The little girl quilt was such beautiful soft colours and the workmanship was so fine. Sorry about the poor lighting.

There was one country garden, and it was a beauty.

On our way back in town we noticed a couple of painted water reservoirs.

One garden was to the side and back of a duplex.  Great use made of the terraced yard.  She didn’t have a shed, but had a very organised area for her gardening tools.

We had our lunch at Hart House, a grand old building, now used as a BnB.  Lunch was catered by the CWA, so there had to be tea and scones.

The garden was pretty impressive too.

The final garden was fairly new, surrounding a recently renovated house.  The view overlooking town from that front verandah was stunning.

On the way home we took a detour via Canowindra.  It was a hot day so we had an icy cold milkshake.

I always like to visit their local quilt shop called “The Plague and I”.  As it was Sunday it was closed, but the window display was nice.  She has a lovely collection of old sewing machines.

I love her quirky sense of humour.

So that was our day at Cowra, and a very enjoyable one, too.  Hopefully we will get up to see their gardens another year and try to play the tourist at the same time.