Blogs from Gilgandra, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Yesterday was a maintenance and blog day. Then today, before we set off for Coonabarabran, I picked a few of the black olives to use in cooking (we don’t like eating them straight). The owner of the park gave me a paper with the instructions and recipe for bottling them, after first soaking out the bitterness for ten days, so I’ll have a go. On our journey, as we entered the town of Gilgandra, we kept seeing references to the “Coo-ee” town and had no idea how a town could lay claim to a call so we stopped to find out. At the Tourist Information Centre, we were directed to a display which showed the story. It seems that “coo-ee” is an Aboriginal call used to communicate in the bush that was taken up by Bushmen ... read more

We always like being in the country where the views are of sweeping plains and far horizons. We had some time in the interesting old town of Gulgong, the town that once graced our $10 note, along with it's famous son, poet Henry Lawson .. before both were replaced with other bards - Banjo Patterson and Dame Mary Gilmore Every June long weekend - which in fact will be next weekend - Gulgong celebrates The Henry Lawson Festival, with a parade down the main street and various Lawson works being performed. Of course, as is our way, we were too early for it all, (always just too early or just too late) although we did see Gulgong's windows dressed for the coming festivities. After discussing beef and wool prices with some of the locals, we then ... read more