Sweet Wayfaring

Whoo hoo it's a town! You can imagine my horror when Lady Tom Tom squarked "you have reached your destination" and there was nothing, just trees and a sign post to places we had been.  Despondently we decided to trundle down the road towards the water's edge.  Great was my delight when a few kilometres later I saw this clutch of houses nestled below the dam wall.  And Mark you were right there was once an older town drowned beneath the waters but a new one was established ... whew. Go visit 100 towns to see the Village of Wyangala Dam . Now for a later problem, when I was tidying up the 100 towns blog last night I discovered I had done the town of Rylstone twice!  But no, I have not missed my target.  On the way from Wyangala to Cowra we went through Darby's Falls which I was surprised to find was another town.  So instead of it being a bonus town it saved my bacon! I've slotted  Darby's Falls  in position #76 to replace the duplicat...

In the distance you can see the lake formed by Wyangala Dam. This dam on the Lachlan River was built between 1929 and 1935 and is used for irrigation, flood mitigation and water supply for the large town of Cowra 20 kilometres west of here. This area was greatly affected during the drought.  I remember television reports of the State Premier visiting the dried up dam which reached as low as 4%.  Today it is 90% full and once again a water playground and fishing spot for the locals. Fingers crossed, I think there is a town down near the water's edge. My last chance to get to 100 before the year ends.

Such a pretty name Garland but nothing to make it a town.  The country is straw yellow with all the grass in seed. It was a chilly 10C with the mountains shrouded in fog when we left home on Boxing Day.  The day after out here it was a very pleasant 20-25C.  So nice given that most other times we have driven through this area in the summer time is has been over 40C. I've added Garland as a l ocality over at 100 towns.

We are off to a great start.  Lyndhurst is not only a town its a right Royal town. Pop over to 100 towns to see more of Lyndhurst and I have also added this shot to the Royal Collection which I have been updating and revamping during the break.

Come west with me my friends to help me reach 100 towns -- we are heading out to Blayney to camp then travelling to some dots on the maps we have not yet visited in the hopes of finding two of them are towns. These restored beauties we saw on the road are like the car Mum and Dad had when we were kids, bought sometime in the 1950s.  The sturdy little car towed 5 kids and Dad's home made caravan from Queensland to Victoria with the hundreds of miles of big wide wheat and sheep country of New South Wales in between.  Oh how we hated western New South Wales, the very land I love today.

Merry Christmas to all my blogging friends.  I hope you a have a great day.

Christmas is coming to Pyramul tonight and I've run out of towns!!  I will make a last effort to go west and get two more towns before the New Year. The eye op went really well yesterday I have gone from being all but totally blind in one eye to having clear vision.  It's still a bit too sensitive to test out as a 'camera eye' but I am sure it will work very fine.  Now I am over that fuss/stress of the eye there is much to do for Christmas so I am going to take a blog break. I hope you are all having a lovely time preparing for this most special of seasons. I've will add Pyramul over at 100 towns and tidy up the loose ends over there during the break.

As the crow flies 10kms from Newnes is another old shale oil town Glen Davis.  It is however 100 kms by road.  It is quite a remote tiny remnant of a town nestled in glorious country of the Capertee Valley.  There are a few houses and a small boutique hotel.  It would be a great place to stay for the weekend. If you don't want to afford the hotel tarrif, nearby there is a free camping ground - a bit of dirt patch but it has facilities. There are shale oil ruins here too but in private land.  I haven't managed to get out there for one of their Saturday tours yet. During the Christmas break I will add Glen Davis to 100 towns, and Glen Alice as a locality because there is just a community hall there. P.S.  I am having my cataract operation tomorrow.

Newnes is a relic town with plenty of relics.  Those who follow my Blue Mountains blog might remember a  tour of the shale oil ruins that I showed a couple of years ago.  Of the town that used to be the old hotel is all that is left. It is in the beautiful Wolgan Valley overlooked by the cliffs of the Blue Mountains which also now hides a six star resort.   You can enjoy it for $2000 a night or camp for free down the road. Either way I am sure you will enjoy it. I will post Newnes as town number #96 at 100 towns sometime soon.

Shadforth has often intrigued me because of the glimpse of these old dwellings as you drive along the road.  Having stopped by to photograph them I see there are three near identical ones in a row. Has me wondering if in fact they are modern replicas.  Either way, I like them. Shadforth is a town, it has streets and a reasonable number of houses among orchards but no other town infrastructure that I could see. I've added Shadforth as a town and Dunkeld as a locality over at 100 towns, just a house or two at Dunkeld.

Lucknow has its mining history on proud display with two poppet heads speaking of the towns mining past. Apparently there is a near intact gold stamper battery in one of the sheds that is open to the public. We must stop a while and go look at it one day. The other treasure in this town is an huge second hand shop full of loads of wonderful junk. I will add Lucknow over at 100 towns.

Arthurville turned out to be this grain silo in a field nestled in a broad field of wheat. This is the last town on this trip, time to head home.  In the next few posts I will show you some more places I have picked up on the road between Orange and Bathurst.  We are up to #93 and racing towards the finish line.

The blond fields had me thinking of the Bible verse "The fields are white unto harvest but the labourers are few." The fields were certainly white unto harvest but apparently the labourers were plenty.  The people next to us at the caravan park were contract harvesters and said they could only find four days of work in the district because the crop was nearly in so would be heading north again. I have added Finger Post as a locality over at 100 towns.  I think it was the sign post at a junction in the road.

I will end this trip with a few shots of the wheat harvest.  Throughout the weekend we often found ourselves behind harvesters lumbering their way from paddock to paddock. We went out along the road to Yeoval looking for Walmer. We knew it was not a town but wondered what might be there.  It turned out to be yet another grain silo. I've added Walmer as a locality over at 100 towns.

It's a town.  Well this photo might not convince you of this but it is an old gold mining town that went into steep decline since the 1920s when the mine closed so 100 years later there is not much left. There is a photo of the war memorial over at 100 towns.

I didn't expect to find anything as Spicers Creek ... towns don't usually have names like that.  My expectations were fulfilled, a couple of houses, a little church high on a hill and a partially constructed railway underpass -- more evidence of the railway track that never happened. I will post as a locality over at 100 towns on the weekend.

We saw the very nice little school at the intersection of the road but could not see a town.  Madam Tom Tom said we were at our destination Goolma but hubby insisted that there had to be a town, I was not convinced.  We set off down the road and he was right.  First a church, then another, an old general store a little further along, then a hotel and this old shop. I was thinking now that would make a nice little gallery (like the one we saw earlier in the trip) so decided to peep through the windows to see how much the artist would be in for to get it in order. By the way Goolma was another town on that railway line to Maryvale that was abandoned part way through the project. I will add further images of Goolma over at 100 towns soon.  Still very busy at the moment.

Gollan is a classic locality with a church and a community hall set in open fields. There are two things of note here. The Silky Oak tree in flower.  There are lots of them dotted around the countryside looking great at this time of year with their golden flowers.  The other that this is a Baptist Church, usually the churches out in the countryside are Anglican or Roman Catholic. I will post Gollan as a locality over at 100 Towns.

Muronbong turned out to be as I expected, a lonely grain silo beside the road.  But Madam Tom Tom insisted the town was further up the road so we went along with her.  But when she declared we had 'reached our destination' there was nothing of note other than the grain harvesting going on across the field. I will add Muronbong as a locality over at 100 towns tomorrow when I hope to do my catch  up.