…a grasshopper stepped on an elephant’s toe.
The elephant said, with tears in his eyes,
“Pick on someone your own size!”
Way up North where the bananas grow…
All posts by Alex
Oh F**k
We left Forster today heading for a bush camp near Wedding Bells State Forest. Unfortunately we missed the turn off, but no problem, we could take the second turn off, Finlay Road and get there .
We missed the clear warning from Monty Python – as we turned off we saw the llama and forgot:
Llama’s are larger than frogs
Llamas are dangerous, so if you see one where people are swimming, you shout
Look out there are Llamas
Driving further up the road, we twisted and turned but the road became too narrow to turn around, and then we came up against a half fallen down tree!
By a bit of forwarding and backwarding, we managed to just squeeze through. Then the road forked at the grey pin in the map above. I got out and ran ahead to find the right road, but 50 metres further, both had trees across them. I half-expected to be confronted by a laughing man in Lincoln Green. We managed to unhitch the van to turn it around and had to do this obstacle again – and now it was dark and raining! Some locals drove up to see what we were about. They told us that the road had been blocked for about 20 years, and we felt like goats.
Again, with a bit of forward and back, we managed to get under again, and at this point decided we had had enough fun for the night and went and found a very nice caravan park at Mooney Beach.
Japanese Gardens, Cowra
During World War 2, there was a prisoner of war camp at Cowra held a large number of Japanese soldiers captured during the Pacific campaign. On 5 August 1944, they attempted to break out by charging sentries and a machine gun post with hand made weapons. My mother-in-law was a little girl in Cowra at the time and remembers the sound of the machine gun and her parents concern. After the war, the 
Japanese and Australian governments built a Japanese Garden to commemorate those who died.
From the dedications around the various gardens and trees, this is a regular place of pilgrimage for Japanese tourists. It is certainly the only cafe in rural Australia offering a Bento Box on the menu, but I was not that brave.
The hill behind Cowra is very steep so allows for some magnificent water rapids, leading down to still ponds. Unfortunately, a pelican, probably from Wyangala Waters, 20 km away, had scared all the fish away that day.
The delight of the gardens is how every feature is hidden so only comes into view around a bend or over a rise.
And where better to position your painted Rhino?
Back on the road again – and TOGETHER!
As I write now, for the first time we have the entire family (ACAD – Alex, Carmel, Ashleigh and Dog) all together for a night in the caravan in Forster. It may be six weeks into the trip before we all made it together, but we got there.
Earlier this week Carmel and I were in Wyangala Waters when Ashleigh finally agreed to join us. So we drove back to Sydney, which was good as we managed to get rid of the bits we were not using and add bits we had left behind. Best of all, we all got in the car together and headed north.
Forster has the advantage of being north (and a minimum of 10º tonight, rather than -8º in Tumut) and a new direction. From here we will drift up the coast and visit Toowoomba (Carmel’s family), Longreach (old Qantas planes) and then Mt Isa.
A visit to Junee
We stopped off at Junee on our way north. The key purpose of the stop over was to collect fresh water as we had used both our tanks at Rutherglen – too much washing of clothes and hair. These are now deferred to caravan park stays.
However, Junee has some attractions. There was a soccer gala day happening at the oval – I longed to pull on my boots again! We visited the Chocolate and Licorice factory for – um – educational purposes. Best of all, they do tastings! Even I could detect the chocolate notes in these samples.
I spotted an old Landcruiser that has a tale to tell. We looked at landcruisers when preparing for the trip, but the price was a bit rich. Our Nissan Patrol is doing a great job, so no regrets so far.
After leaving Junee, we reached Young for lunch. We were outside the cherry season, but I think now we have a van, we should return for it. Carmel used to live here and we visited the home her parent’s built.
