Blogs from New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 5

Arrived in Junee Sunday and so lovely to see Diddles and Amanda are in their lovely new country house on the outskirts of Junee. It has taken a LONG time to get built as it is a specialist build with all beams dowelled together with no nails etc. So nice and well deserved after waiting sooo long! Very picturesque spot overlooking the town of Junee. Diddles took John for a tour of the abattoirs in Junee and John was very impressed with the automated system that Diddles designed for them and they process 5,600 head of sheep per day, Diddles is a very clever fellow! We left Junee Monday 23rd and headed to Wang, stopping over in Holbrook for lunch at their famous bakery. Weather is getting cooler and needing long pants and windcheaters even though ... read more

Bilder från Sydney ... read more

Our run of beautiful weather has come to an end. Today it is not just overcast, it is raining. On the plus side it is getting us psychologically prepared for our return to Melbourne’s wet and cold weather. Today we started heading south in earnest clocking up 451 kilometres in the truck. We even managed to drive the truck out of the car park without incident and without Bernie making me ride on the running board to weigh the car down more on the side he was worried about touching the height guide/barrier. I’m not sure he was ever serious about that, but last night he was telling me that I might have to ride the running board to get the car out of the car park!!? We set out from Terrigal through Gosford and then ... read more

This morning it was cloudy, yes, cloudy! Although there did seem to be a patch of sunshine hovering over the motel. The big worry was, looking south in the direction we were about to set off in, it was positively gloomy. Oh dear, our good run of weather might be over? We set out on Bulahdelah Way and soon merged onto the Pacific Highway. Hmmn, as anticipated, it wasn’t long before a light drizzle misted the windscreen. So light that Bernie had to activate the wipers to clear it because it hadn’t set the sensor off. Two or three intermittent wipes later the drizzle (heavy mist?) was done and the weather just continued to improve as we drove towards Newcastle. Lucky, eh? Before we reached Newcastle we took the turn-off for Maitland where we made our ... read more

Before heading south this morning we called in at the Port Macquarie Museum. The museum is currently celebrating Port Macquarie’s bicentenary with its 20 Decades, 21 Stories Bicentenary Exhibition Trail. The trail starts with information about the Birpai People, the traditional owners of the area around Port Macquarie. The exhibitions continue with stories about the establishment of a penal settlement in the 1820s and free settlement in the 1840s. It progresses through the 19th century providing information about education, trade and transport, experiments with growing sugar, the timber industry and federation. In the lead up to federation, Sir Edmund Barton, Australia’s first Prime Minister, was the elected representative for the Hastings-Macleay District. Progressing into the 20th century the exhibits deal with WWI, commerce and banking, the advent of touris... read more