Newsletter #15 - Heading south

After leaving Rathdowney we travelled over the mountain with 8km of steep winding road on the Mt Lindsay Highway into NSW, we had to move our clocks forward 1 hour as Qld does not have DST, very confusing when you are close to the border. A beautiful forest drive, tall trees with creepers and palm trees, very winding, at Urbanville we decided to go into Beans Creek Falls, as it was so dry not sure if there would be water or not, Pete walked in but no water in the falls, it was so hot I decided to walk part of way and go back. Pleasant drive through farmland and Hardwood plantations of tall skinny gums which had previously been trimmed of lower branches, all in nice rows, as we had taken a back road it was sealed but a bit rough, but often more interesting than the highways, also this trip we are trying to venture on roads we haven't previously travelled.

We came down into Tenterfield through a beautiful avenue of green trees, an interesting town with lots of historic buildings, beautiful parks with all types of English trees. We spent the night at the Showgrounds had HH under the welcome shade of trees on the creek with some caravanners, nice as it had been again a very hot day of travelling. Next morning we awoke to grey sky and a cooler day. We walked around the town checking out some of the lovely historic buildings, found a beautiful park in which to have our lunch. We headed out to Bald Rock NP, on the way Pete walked to check out Thunderbolts hideout, which was a bit of a disappointment and I looked at the Tank traps, posts put in to stop the tanks in case we were invaded during the 2nd WW, there were thousands of soldiers stationed around here. Into the NP, lots of kangaroos and beautiful Eastern Rosellas along the way, those birds are so swift, I have been trying to photograph them without success, they are so colourful.

Pete went for the shorter, steeper 1.25hr walk up and over the rock face, it is the biggest granite outcrop in the Southern Hemisphere, a very steep walk over the rock face but well worth it. I went to have a look later and could not believe the size of the outcrop, hard to get a photo as so many trees around and so huge, I decided I had to walk part of it, so did a bit but could not have done the whole face of the rock.

We next called into Boonoo Boonoo Falls NP passing waterholes, granite outcrops and woodlands along the way. We walked a nice bitumen track to view the 210m drop of water, this fell in stages into one rock pool after another, most interesting. Walked down to the rock pools, large deep pools and some smaller ones, a lovely spot. Driving back stopped for lunch beside the Platypus Hole again a large rock pool, with the aid of binoculars we could view some platypus across the other side. We came back into Tenterfield and checked out some more historic buildings, the Tenterfield Saddlers, (Peter Allen's Grandfather was one of the saddlers and he is mentioned in Peter's song), Stannum House 1888, with a huge Bunya Pine at the back, this house was used as a Military Hospital in 1942-44 and has been beautifully restored. A number of towns in the New England Ranges area have beautiful old buildings, so many of them are nicely kept and so attractive, it is good that we hold on to some of our heritage and don't pull it all down.

We next went south west as we wanted to revisit Torrington a little old town, main road is Bates Road as Joe Bates accidentally discovered tin here many years ago, there was something on at the hall, that is about all there is now in the town, a nice War Memorial and some homes. The old pub is now closed (about 9 years ago the pub, claimed to be the highest bar in NSW, was where we had our entertainment one night during one of the Kidney Safaris we did). We thought there was nothing else there so we continued on to Emmaville, a very neat old town with a population of 400, again nice historic buildings with a 1914 Tattersalls Hotel. We went through nice open farmland with sheep and cattle taking an old road round to Wellingrove a very small quaint old church and graveyard and War Memorial Hall with a good bank of solar panels and about 4 houses in the town.

We came across an elderly lady herding cows and calves up the road, beautiful cattle, about 5 dogs helping and her brother, who looked younger, he was in a vehicle she said "I'm exhausted, but I love 'em" lots of them as they spread for about 2kms or more, grazing along the roadside. Lovely grazing land, lots of poplars and other English trees with their lovely fresh new foliage, beautiful blossom bushes also, cold New England Ranges I guess is good for these trees.

Into Glen Innes next, this town would be beautiful in autumn, originally settled by the Scots, they have a Celtic festival annually, Balancing Rock at Stonehenge, Glencoe with an English style pub and cottages, all give it an English/Scottish feel. Our next stop was at Guyra on the New England Highway, at Mother Duck's Lagoon, at the back of the town a lovely grassed area overlooking the golf course and huge lagoon, what a great place, they ask that you only camp overnight, that suits us, just lovely. Nice sunset as we had our usual HH.

Trust this finds you all fit and well.

Love from Jan ‘n Pete