Liverpool to Tumut

March 1, 2016

Gerry's cousin Mike worked on the Snowy River hydroelectric project many years ago.  He lived in the area for a number of years and has fond memories of the project.  An annual trip up there has been going on for a while and he asked if we would like to go on a road trip with him.  We thought it over for a second and said let's hit the road.

Patrick drove us to the school where he teaches and Mike met us there to start the drive.  It was a long drive and we stopped for lunch in the small village of Gunning, population 500.  They had a neat old main street with a number of shops still in operation.  Most of the land is used for sheep & wool production.

The only cafe was open and we stopped for lunch.  As is the custom here, you order at the counter, pay for your meal and they deliver it to your table when it's ready.  The dessert looked so good that Gerry and I split an apple crumb & a lemon bar.  They both were very good and we walked out of there full and content.

The building next to the cafe had a neat mural painted on the wall.  I couldn't get a straight on shot of the wall and had to settle for this one.

 This old building housed a pharmacy, news agency & an antique store.  It looked like it was one of the original buildings in the town.

 It was a right neighborly place with a small Veggie & Herb garden planted on the street.  Anyone who needed anything from the garden could take what they want.  I wonder how long something like this would last in a large city.

Our next stop was Tumut where we spent the night.  Mike knew the area quite well and we had a beer and dinner at the RSL club.  It is a Veterans club but welcomes everyone to the bar and restaurant.  Like many clubs it has a small gambling room where they have many games of chance.


The first butter factory in Tumut was on the site in Doepel Street, was opened in October 1906, and was built by well known local builder George Moore for the Upper Bellingen Co-operative Society Ltd. at a cost of 554 pounds.  The factory turned out butter until 1963 when it ceased operations.  It was used for a variety of purposes until 1991 when it was turned into a tourist information center.

 It was very dry in the countryside for many miles as you can see from the photo below.  It is mainly a sheep and dairy cow farm area.

 We were at a crossroad and needed to head to Tumbarumba and Wagga Wagga.  Most of the towns are aboriginal names and difficult to pronounce until you hear the names spoken a few times.

 After dinner we took a ride up to the local hydroelectric plant and dam.  We were too late to tour the dam but did manage to see a kangaroo feeding alongside of the road.  It was dusk and he was a distance from us so the photo is a little grainy.

We had traveled about 240 miles and Mike was beginning to get tired out so we went back to the motel.  Gerry and I were tired also and went to bed early.  

There weren't any super great places to tour but we enjoyed the drive and seeing all the small towns.  Tumut has a nice main street and a couple hotels, pubs and thriving businesses.

That was our day, how was yours?

Darling Harbor, Sydney

February 26-28  

It was Friday and time to fly back to Sydney after our short trip to the Great Ocean Drive.  We took our time and had a nice breakfast and took a short drive around Torquay once again.  Then it was on to Geelong to see what it looked like.  Gerry wanted to stop at a
"Spotlight" store to check it out and I guarded the car since I don't like to walk around stores unless I have something I want to buy.  She decided the Spotlight store was similar to a Kmart and craft stores combined.

Saturday was a quiet day at Vivian & Patricks house.  Gerry and Vivian went window shopping and checked out some of the beautiful homes in the area.  Patrick and I went to a Harley Davidson shop to buy a shirt for a friend.  The traffic on a Saturday was horrible and it took 45 minutes to drive there even though it was only a few miles.  Patrick said it was the first time he was in a bike shop so I took him to a biker bar for a beer which was another first.

Sunday we got up early and toured Parramatta where Patrick grew up.  Parramatta was where the original settlers moved to since it was good farmland and on a small river that lead to the Sydney harbor and then the ocean. 

Old Government House

This convict-built Georgian house and surrounds is a World Heritage site. It was the country residence for the first 10 governors of NSW. Today it houses the nation’s premier colonial furniture collection amongst parkland and other heritage sites.

Standing in 200 acres of parkland overlooking historic Parramatta, the convict-built Old Government House and garrison buildings were built in 1799-1816, the oldest surviving public building in Australia. For seven decades, it was the ‘country’ residence of ten early governors of the Colony, including Gov. Lachlan and Mrs Macquarie who, from 1810 to 1821 preferred the clean air and space of rural Parramatta to the unsanitary and crime ridden streets of Sydney Town.

Vivian & Patrick

Vivian liked the Old Government House so much that she built their house patterned after it.  They toured the place and wound up with a close approximation of the original house.

 We boarded the Rivercat ferry from Parramatta and took it to Darling Harbor dock area.  The ride down there was very nice with beautiful homes on the cliffs, tons on sailboats, power boats and people out having a good time.  The following pictures are just a few that we took on the ride down there.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Skyline

 We had lunch at a restaurant on the King St wharf and looked around the area for a while before departing back to Parramatta on the ferry.  By the time we got back to the house we were all worn out and took it easy the rest of the afternoon. 

That was our last few days, hope you enjoyed yours as much as we did ours.

 

Port Fairy to Torquay

February 25, 2016

The first three photos below are from the Great Ocean Road on our way to Port Fairy.  We took numerous photos along this stretch of road and loved the views.  It was a rainy and cloudy day so we didn't get crystal clear pictures, but there are thousands of them on the internet.

 Port Fairy was our last stop driving down the coast since we were running out of time.  We originally wanted to take 7 days and drive to Adelaide, but circumstances prevented us from making the full trip.

It was raining as we entered Port Fairy and couldn't get a real good picture of the welcome sign.  The town was a whaling station in the 1820s and it was named after a whaling ship named The Fairy.  Later it was changed to Belfast and then reverted back to Port Fairy.  They have a large fishing fleet there in the harbor and tourism is a major economic factor for the town of 2,600.

 The Goble Mill House embodies all that is attractive about the town. Sited on the banks of the Moyne River, with a jetty at the end of a path through a pretty garden, the former flour mill became a cheese-and-butter factory after World War I but was abandoned in 1939. It has now been restored as a comfortable bed-and-breakfast place and is one of 50 local properties listed by the National Trust, including churches, public buildings and whaler's cottages.

A number of small cottages are in the town and the one below is representative of them.  The walls are made out of stone.  This one looks like it has been standing a long time.

 The Port Fairy Railway Goods Shed, located in the Railway Reserve between Regent Street and Bank Street, Port Fairy, was constructed in 1890 during construction of the Warrnambool to Port Fairy railway. It is aligned at an angle reflecting the original line of the tracks. It complemented the Railway Station, demolished after the closure of the line in the 1970s when the entire railway infrastructure was also removed. The goods shed is an example of a standard 20ft wide Victorian Railways late nineteenth century design designated N20, built of heavy timber framing, clad with unpainted corrugated iron on the walls. The original corrugated iron roof and stormwater drainage system was been replaced in the 1960s by unpainted corrugated asbestos cement sheets and plumbing. Timber trims and details are painted. Six large timber sliding doors along each side of the building provided easy access for loading and unloading goods. The platforms are sheltered by substantial overhanging eaves. Apart from minor signalling some distance to the north, now on private land, and a storage shed located on the Port Fairy wharf, the Railway Goods Shed is only infrastructure remaining of the terminus of the Melbourne to Port Fairy line via Warrnambool and Koroit. In its day, the railway represented an important form of transport to and from Port Fairy, both for passengers and cargo. In the past, the shed was critical for the transport of local fish and wool. The building survives with an excellent degree of integrity and its condition is generally good but some localised parts of the fabric are in poor condition.

 When we got ready to leave Port Fairy in the morning I discovered we had a flat tire.  We managed to drive to a local tire sales/service business and have it repaired for $35 Australian which is about $24 American.  Wages in Australia are quite high for everyone and the cost of goods and services are very high also.

After breakfast we headed back to Torquay via an inland route.  We had a long drive to make in one day and the ocean road was too slow.

We came across a winery with free tasting and pulled in for some good wine.  The Basalt Cellar Door winery has been in business for just a few years and produces a small number of cases of wine.  We tried a few of them and none appealed to me, but Gerry liked one enough to buy a glass of wine while we were there.  We were traveling with carry on luggage and they weighed 7 kilos each which was the limit, so we couldn't bring any wine back to Sydney with us. 

 Gerry's father and my father both worked at Olin Mathieson in East Alton, IL where they produced Winchester ammunition for the military and private sales.  This sign along the road caught my eye as I drove along.

 We arrived back in Torquay and stayed at the same hotel we stopped in the first night along the Great Ocean Road.  We had a nice dinner at a brewery pub and called it a night.

 We did enjoy a nice sunset in Torquay.

Surfing school in Torquay

 We saw a few of these RVs along the road and they caught your eye whether you wanted to see them or not.  RVs (Caravans) are very popular in Australia and there are a number of RV parks.

 

Great Ocean Road - Port Campbell to Port Fairy - Day 3

February 24, 2016

We were up early so we could backtrack a few miles to view a few of the 12 Apostles along the coast since it was too late to stop last night.  The Alcove Cafe was our choice for a cup of coffee and breakfast this morning.  The "Flat White" coffee is the drink of our choice and it really hit the spot this morning.  They had a sign up that read "Size does matter, who ever orders a small cup of coffee" and that was very true today.  Coffee refills are not free here but the coffee is strong enough that one cup will do the job.

Flat White coffee

Alcove Cafe

  After breakfast we drove to the Information Center (Tourist Center) to pick up maps of the area.  The center had free wifi available and there were a few people sitting around on their laptops, ipads, etc using the service.  Very few restaurants, coffee houses, etc have free wifi available so these centers are a nice feature.

Port Campbell has a small beach and sheltered harbor along with a few restaurants and cafes.  We drove to a lookout and around the town to see what there was to see there.  Since it is a small place, there wasn't a lot there other than the harbor.

Port Campbell Harbor

Then it was time to backtrack a few miles to the 12 Apostles information center.  There wasn't much there other than a small cafe, souvenir shop and bathrooms.  I had checked on Google Earth the night before for the location of a particular Apostle formation called the Bakers Oven since it wasn't marked on any maps we had.

There was a dual purpose to this visit of the Bakers Oven since it was very beautiful and also a geocache.  I had to answer a number of questions about the size of the cache and also have a picture taken with the GPS and myself in view of the island. (Find 1486)  The small gravel road leading to the area wasn't marked and if you didn't know it was there you pass on by.

Bakers Oven

Bakers Oven

The London Bridge arch collapsed January 1990 while two people were standing on it.  They heard some cracking noise and the section to the left of the picture below collapsed.  They managed to get to the right side and waited 3 hours for a helicopter to arrive and rescue them.  Nothing exciting like that happened while we were there, but that was fine with us.

We saw a number of camper vans decorated like this on our trip.  I think there is a company that rents them since they looked like they were decorated by the same individual.

Bay of Martyrs stacks are at the end of the Apostles stacks near the town of Peterborough which is a small fishing village.  It was a rainy and foggy day when we were there, but there was a beauty to the area all the same.

Bay of Islands

The relentless sea at work

We saw the sign for the entrance to viewing "The Arch" and pulled into the parking lot.  There was a boardwalk leading to the Arch and it turned out to be a long walk down many steps.  It was an easy walk down, but an entirely different story walking back to the car.  We were both winded and thankful we hadn't walked even further down to the sea.  It was worth the walk to enjoy the view of the Arch. though.
 

The Arch

There are many dairy farms in the area as you go inland.  The dairy farms have large herds of milk cows and it looks like a lot of the milk is sent to the Allansford Cheese World.

Cheese World promotes the local dairy industry through offering tastings and sales of award winning cheddar cheeses produced across the road at the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory.

The business  promotes local gourmet products to the visitors who stop here on their way along the Great Ocean Road. Educational information on the local dairy industry both past and present is offered through a modern cheese making video filmed in the factory and a walk back in time through the local history museum.

The museum houses artifacts, photos and personal items belonging to early local dairy farming families. The factory was first established on this site in 1888 and has continued to grow to become a major contributor to the local economy.

In 2015, the factory collected three major national awards at the Dairy Industry Australia Association Dairy Product Competitions; the coveted Chair Hansen Cup and Trophy which recognizes the highest scoring cheddar cheese and the Tetra Pak Perpetual Trophy for the highest aggregate score for cheddar cheese.

 

We stopped for the free cheese tasting and liked a couple of them but were limited to what we could add by weight since we were flying back.  So we didn't buy any.  It was the end of the lunch hour and we managed to order a couple sandwiches (not very good) and two milkshakes.  (very good).  When was the last time your milkshake was served like this?

We continued on to Port Fairy to get a room for the night.  For a change of pace we got a cottage at a "Caravan Park" (RV Park) and settled in.  It was similar to park models at US RV parks and was nice enough.  Since it was midweek, we were able to get a unit.  We got settled into it and then drove around and scoped out the town. 

Gerry sitting on the porch

We drove downtown looking for a restaurant and wound up at a Chinese restaurant.  The food was pretty good, but not exactly like we are used to.

Oh, yes Gerry kept telling me to keep to the left and then found many signs to point out as we drove along.  It seems that many others have the same problem remembering to keep to the left.

  It was a long day and we saw a lot of beautiful scenery along the Great Ocean Road.  I wish we had more time and the opportunity to take our time and enjoy the sights even more.  

That was our day, how was yours?