Sweet Wayfaring

Ballimore has a grain silo and it IS a small town. It's late again this evening.  I will catch up sometime on the weekend with posting over at 100 towns.  It will be #91 I do.   With so many of the places thus far turning out to be towns it is just possible I will make 100 by the end of the year.

Remember how green the pastures around Oberon were on our recent trip.  Just a week later and a hour or two further up the road the landscape is so different.  It's not a drought.  We are in wheat country and the crop turns from green to golden at harvest time.   It's an exciting time to be our here.  I will show you more of the harvest later in the series.

Much to my surprise Wongarbon also turned out to be a town.  It's another small town of about 500 people beside the railway line.  It has a school, general store, community hall, some closed shops, grain silo, big old pepperina trees and  a jacaranda or two in flower. We also found this rather nice art gallery. The artist made his gallery by rescuing some old shops.  He said it was dirt floor with crumbling walls. When you see the state of some old buildings in these towns I have to admire his effort. I will post images of Wongarbon over at 100 towns tomorrow as  I am rather busy this evening.

Hooray it's a town. Geurie turned out to be a small town with shops, a hotel (not a Royal), swimming pool, homes and historic buildings.  It even has a daily railway service because it's on the Sydney Dubbo XPT line. A large grain silo looming large beside the railway line has my heart sinking a little however, I plan to visit 13 dots on the map this trip and what are the chances that lots of them turn out to be nothing more than grain silos beside the railway line? Visit Geurie over at 100 towns.

Oh dear Maryvale turned out to be another locality. There was apparently a railway branch line to go from Gulgong to Maryvale and construction was started but never completed so I am not sure what the railway line is that we can see in this photo.  But there sure is no town out there. I have added Maryvale as a locality over at 100 towns and upgraded the localities I mentioned the other day to towns.

We went hunting this weekend.  Hunting for new towns and hunting for some warm weather. Friday midday we packed up the van and headed west.  It was 15C and nothing would convince me it really was 35C out there over the hills. I packed my jumper and winter pyjamas just in case.  As we headed north west the temperature slowly climbed. 3-4 hours later we arrived at one of our favourite camping spots beside the river at Wellington.  Warm at last.

We end this tour by calling into the small town of Mount David which had a brief period of prosperity as a mining settlement from 1900 to the 1920s when the copper ore run out. Today it is still a small cluster houses and a church converted to a residence.  There is also some new building going one.  These old towns are becoming popular with tree changers and as weekenders for city folk who like to build on the cheap.  It would certainly be over capitalising to build a brick city style mansion in these places. See more of Mount David over at 100 Towns. Now regarding some of your questions. 1.  Why does the 100 towns project have to finish at the end of the year?  Because without a deadline nothing gets finished. 2.  Have I included localities in the count. No and there have been 37 of them thus far in addition to the 85 towns visited. On reflection, I think I have incorrectly assigned some towns as localities when they are in fact "relic towns"...

There was no sign of a town past or present at Isabella.  There was a cluster of farm houses, one with this nice garden plus some derelict farm buildings. I've added Isabella as a locality over at 100 towns.     I am getting a little worried.  I am only up to #84 and the 'Still to go' list is getting shorter. Even though there are 38 names on it I think most of them are localities.  Maybe we are not going to get to 100 towns after all.  Also we are running out of weeks left in the year to go find what's there.

We were off looking for  Isabella the next dot on my map.  Rather too late I call "turn here" then "stop"  I wanted a photo of the post boxes that caught my eye that were on the corner. Edith is also in this area (they must have had a thing about women's names). I 've added it as a locality over at 100 towns.  

We decided to go see what was at Porters Retreat even though it is outside my 100 towns grid because it was just down the road from Shooters Hill. It too turned out to be a locality.  I decide to show this shot because I really like the tussock grass that grows around this area ... what I don't know is whether it is the dreaded serrated tussock -- the one that makes councils put signs up along the road saying "Have you treated your serrated tussock?" Over the road the horses came up to the fence.  That's the nice thing about horses -- unlike cattle and sheep which scarper off at the mere sight of a human near the fence.

We were looking for a new town to tick off the list, though I as I expected it turned out to be a locality. Some sheds and farm houses and this little beauty in a paddock.  Up the road we found a cemetery so perhaps it was once bigger. I will add Shooters Hill as a locality over at 100 towns.

This is a beautiful part of the world -- glassy dams, tall timber forests and emerald green parklike acres dotted with sheep and tussock grass. We didn't go to Jenolan Caves on this trip but I posted quite a few shots of that lovely spot over at 100 Towns.

Today we went for a drive out Oberon way with a view to ticking of the remaining towns in that area. On the way you pass through Hampton, a little hamlet on the road to Jenolan Caves. The most prominant part of the town these days are the two wind turbines on the hill. We don't have a lot of them around these parts so they are really quite exciting.   For a glimpse of the rest go visit 100 Towns.

If you've been following this blog for a while you might remember the frosty walk I took in the town of Windyer last year.  Windyer is also in the general vicinity of Hill End and Sofala so a good chance for me to tick off this town. I have posted more photos of Windyer over at 100 towns .

This is the image that did it.  When I was trying to photograph the old hut across the paddock I found the camera view finder was so bad that I couldn't even be sure it was in centre of the frame. After a couple of shots with it being off to the side somewhere (what I could see was even less clear than this), It's off to the repair shop with this annoying camera, I declared. As I reported the other day the camera man rang to say there was nothing wrong with it.  I picked it up today.  We put my lens in and he had a look.  It's fine he said.  I had a look.  It's all blurry I said. It's must be the camera I say because I can see everything else OK.  I asked my hubby to take a look.  It's fine he said.  I  think I am going nuts and we leave the camera shop. Have a look with the other eye hubby suggests helpfully. I do so to humour him and I'm shocked to discover it's all clear. I close my right eye and the world is a blur. I didn't...

Wattle Flat is in the area we have been visiting on this trip and as I have not posted this town yet I thought this a good opportunity.  There are always old vehicles to be found in old towns and Wattle Flat is the kind of place that says "old town". Go visit 100 towns to see images of it.

I remember as a kid seeing flower domes like this in a shop window and thinking they were the most beautiful thing, I couldn't figure out why Mum was not similarly enthralled. I've been keeping my eye out for one. The cemetery at Turondale had lots of them, and not broken like others I have seen. At Turondale there was a few farm houses along the road, a church and the cemetery.  I have added it as a locality over at 100 towns.

The normally busy cafe at Sofala was nearly empty.  We struck up a conversation with a gnarled old local with a long beard who had popped by to drop off some stuff. A finely dressed old gentlemen came in an ordered a sandwich.  His story was a fascinating one of starting work as a lad in the shale oil mine at Glen Davis. Its such fun talking to strangers, like a lucky dip. This gate is at Sallys Flat which I have added as a locality at 100 Towns.

To our surprise we found we had reached Hargraves and were still on bitumen.  Pressing on to Hill End  we were even more surprised that it didn't run out the whole way.  It seems less of an adventure but must be nice for the people living at Hill End to not have to bump their way over 80-90kms of rough road to do the weekly shopping. We are in the area of New South Wales where gold rush began.  Hill End just reeks with old mining town history and charm.   Visit Hill End over at 100 towns.

There is a town of Hargraves with a church, a school and general store and quite a lot of houses. As the girls were doing their pony club thing down at the oval the men were having a chat at the general store. The photos in this part of the journey are a horrible colour because I had not noticed that a setting had changed and I can't see the playback without my glasses so went along blithely taking bad photos -- which I have rescued a much as possible with the software. I haven't been able to see through the viewfinder of my camera for months, it got slowly cloudier and cloudier.  We dropped it off to the camera store last week to be cleaned and the man rang to say there is nothing wrong with the camera and it wasn't dirty.  I will pick it up this week and find out if I am going nuts or have cataracts or something. Visit Hargraves over at 100 towns .  I have also posted Grattai as a locality (forgot to mention that yesterday.  You pass through it on the way ...

We're looking for Hargraves.  A couple of years ago we went on the 30 or 40 kms of bumpy road out from Hill End towards Mudgee, looking for Hargraves.  At the end of that journey we concluded it didn't exist because we reached a sign saying locality of Hargraves and as there was nothing remotely like a town turned back and bumped our way along back tracks getting rather lost on the way. However since then I did a little web research as was surprised to find reference to town with church, school and corner store. So we had to go look again. The driver decided to humour me and settle in for another bumpy ride.  We spotted this old building on the way.

After Cobbora we went off in search of two more dots in the map on a backroad between Dunedoo and Gulgong.   This photo is from the home that had a sign on its gate saying Old Spring Ridge Inn. I've added Laheys Creek and Spring Ridge as localities over at 100 Towns.

Cobbora which is just 15km on the main road west from Dunedoo was once the bigger town.  Today its all but gone while Dunedoo is ticking along nicely. It missed out on the railway back in 1910 and has been going downhill ever since. Have a look at what's left over at 100 Towns.

Well the laid out the streets but seemed to forget to populate them with houses, or more probably the houses that were there have long fallen down because the cemetery is quite large. I'll show you some more tomorrow.

This one reminded me of a grand old lady who hasn't noticed that the brim of her hat is sagging.

This weekend we went wayfaring in a concerted attempt to reach 100 towns before the end of the year. Birrawa is a small settlement flanking the road between Mudgee and Gulgong. There is a big grain silo there and some very sad old homes and buildings. I wan't sure if this was a community hall or a church. See more of Birrawa over at 100 towns.

At the other end of the Bylong Valley Way is Rylstone, a really lovely town. Many of the buildings are stone like this one making it particularly picturesque.  It is well equipped for passing tourists and weekend visitors who come to visit both the town and beautiful countryside. If you can't visit in person take a look over at 100 towns.