Sweet Wayfaring

For no other reason than I liked the texture of them. They were near the ford.

An attempt to rescue something artistic from the discarded reflections.

At this point I have to tip my hat to Julie who always manages such wonderful reflections . The water at the ford was like a mirror but I was disappointed with my images ... so here's an interesting tree root instead.

A this point I should be showing you are photo of Hargraves but there was a small problem ... there was nothing there ... not even a hint of the old mining town that once was. Just a sign saying "Locality of Hargraves". This is a ford we crossed on the way back home still using back roads. I must also confess that about this point my map is not accurate. We didn't have a map with us and got somewhat lost and just followed our nose hoping that at some point we would get back out on the Mudgee road. I'm not sure what roads we drove along.

Over the road from the church, a cottage with a paling fence around the garden, so typical of Hill End.

Hill End is another old gold mining town. We visited there last year and I showed photos of this church. This time I was on the other side and noticed the old bell tower.

Another shot taken at Turon River. I was entranced by the big boulders and silvery seed heads.

On the road between Sofala and Hill End we stopped by the Turon River. It was a delightful spot. (And the photo looks much better full size on my desktop)

We had lunch as Cafe Sofala, a satisfyingly wonky building, chock-a-block with old stuff. A pleasant place to dine.

James Jordan says "If the sky is doing something interesting, find a place to take a picture." So I did. We're still in Sofala.

Sofala is an old gold town, with quite a lot of old buildings giving it a real charm as a tourist town. But take a look at the building at the bottom right. Last time I was there it looked like the photo below!

This old church at Wattle Flat is not used any more. Perhaps the fact that nearly every buttress is in the same state as this could have some bearing on the matter. Wattle Flat, the name sounds like the type of place Henry Lawson would write about.

What a difference rain makes. Last time we were out this way the paddocks were dry and browning off in extreme heat. But with good rains they were turning green again, and we've had heaps more rain since then.

Whew, that last trip was a marathon journey! Thank you all for staying the course, it was great to read your comments and have some good discussions on the way. You'll be pleased to know this is just a day trip and in fact covers some of the same ground as last year but with the change of seasons and good rains it's a different world out there now. We are on our way to see what is at Hargraves near Hill End. Despite several trips into the old gold fields west of the mountains we seemed to have always missed Hargraves so the plan was to get there by some back roads that we haven't travelled before ... I've done a map for you and changed the blog banner to match. On every back road you are sure to find an abandoned house of two, so here is the first of them. I found this one quite poignant because the sunlight was falling on pressed metal wall cladding and made me realise, perhaps more than others, that a proud housewife and family once lived in that little home.

Aw shucks .. I had to do just one more fence before wrapping up this tour. Today we are swapping back to Blue Mountains Journal for a few days before returning for another very short trip.

Hill End is all about fences. I took lots of photos but in the end settled on this one which is not typical ... it's not a paling fence and it's standing up straight for a start. Check out Julie's Hither and Thither for a sample of some of the other fences on show at Hill End.

We settled on the rather unpromising looking place over the road from the Royal. Pleasant to warm up by the fire. In light of some of the questions about the closed shop the other day I thought I would add some commentary here about country towns. While we were sitting by the fire I overhead a conversation about where the local people shopped ... Mudgee or Bathurst. These regional cities are each 60-70kms away in opposite directions so they could take their pick but apparently the Mudgee trip involves dirt road. Now not so long ago, country people stuck exclusively to their own town. All the facilities they required were within the town but that is no longer the case, the banks moved out, the goverment facilities moved out, the hospital closes, the grocery shop is no longer viable because people travel to the big towns to do their business and shop there, the kids have to go elsewhere for jobs, the churches empty and slowly but surely the fabric of a town shuts down. Some, like Hi...

Hey this is another Royal Hotel to add to my collection .

We set off in search of a warming cup of coffee. Nup this shop won't do ... closed.

It was getting late and the rain was getting icy. The kangaroos had moved in to graze on the grass opposite the church. Got me thinking about afternoon tea for myself.