Sweet Wayfaring

I end this trip with a rather lovely corner of the sculpture garden.  The tree ferns remind me of our lovely Blue Mountains. At that's it for a while until I find somewhere else to go ... maybe I will find somewhere this weekend.  But if not, I am currently posting some majestic trees over at Blue Mountains Journal.

Canberra puts on a huge spring display at Floriade. We were a week early for that so settled for this lovely row of blossom by the lake. [Sorry about the reposts. I wanted to fix the resolution of the image]

Instead of a Fred Williams painting here is a little bit of art made by nature and a lawn mower. In the grounds of the gallery.

The big highlight for us was a visit to the Fred Williams exhibition at the National Gallery but as photography is not allowed in the gallery I can't show photos of that.

The centre of Canberra, known as Civic, never seems busy but on Monday morning it was very empty, just a few lonely black coated figures out in the cold.

This church interested me because the colour of the stone was unusual to me. Sadly this is the last of the shots from the small towns.  My driver was being unusually grumpy and uncooperative. I thought it best for us to head to Canberra without delay so he could get a rest.

I thought this building was worth another shot.

The next part of the plan was to divert from the highway so some of the small towns on the way.  I was delighted by this wonderful abandoned building on the outskirts of Gunning.  This is one of the most interesting I have ever taken with all the assorted building materials from earth to timber to tin against the backdrop of blossom.

We went to Canberra for a day last weekend.  I decided to make the most of the trip by going to some new places. Our first port of call was Mt Annan botanic gardens on the outskirts of Sydney.  It showcases native plants so I was quite excited at the prospect of exploring and perhaps identifying some of the plants that confuse me.  But this wasn't to be ... my husband is not as enchanted with identifying flowers as me. So we settled for coffee over the road from this stunning display of paper daisies.

And we end this trip with another sign of spring, the willows beginning to shoot new leaves.

As this was a late winter drive spring was just beginning to unfold.  The streets of Mudgee were lined with trees in blossom.

These little parrots are frequently seen out in the west, sometimes in quite big flocks . At the time I posted that original photo Letty helped identify then as Red Rumped Parrots.  In this photo you can just see the red under his wings.

We camped for the night by the Macquarie River in Wellington, a pleasant spot where we have stayed before.

There is a Banjo Paterson park in Yeoval. This famous Australia bush poet apparently spent some of his childhood in the town.  Given that the park was dedicated to Banjo I thought this giant sculpture (which wasn't there last time we visited here) would be of him but it turns out to be the abstract head of Henry Moore, by Drago Marin Cherina, a philanthropic placement by the Waterhouse family.

It seems that art is a big thing around here. In the local park at Yeoval there is this exhibit letting people know of the Utes in Paddock art display at Ootha a couple of hours away.  I might go find it one day.

In the local art gallery are paintings of some more of the sculptures.  We whizzed past the pink elephant on the road into the town before we figured there was something strange going on.

It turns out that this year they have taken their cycling theme a little further with an animals on bikes sculpture competition.  So on farms all around the town there a whimsical sculptures. I've shown you this shearing shed before without the cycling kangaroo.

As we approached Yeoval I remembered there is something distinctly different about this town ... there are bicycles in the trees!  It seems to be a wheely good tourist idea.

This is my abandoned shot taken for this trip.  We are on the road out of Molong heading towards Yeoval and Cumnock which are both Royal Hotel towns which I have shown before. Speaking of Royals I have just added into the gallery a new contribution from Red Nomad OZ   who seems to have covered every inch of this country in amazing travels.  The new Royal is from Mt Hope somewhere between Hilston and Cobar. I would like to drive that route sometime. On this trip my husband asked why we were detouring via these towns, "You didn't like Yeoval last time," he said. I responded, "Well you never know there might be something different to see."

Over the road from the old building I saw a shed with quite a lot of people eating at benches outside. There had to be something good over there.  It turned out to be a gelato ingredients factory. Yum.

Coming into Molong I saw this lovely old building with an ivy covered fence.

We are on our way out of Cudal where I took my fence shot for this trip.

Having posted a frame at the previous junk shop I thought it would be fun to find one here.  This one makes me smile.