The Road Home

Driving out of Katoomba in a thick fog of course you give the undertaking to yourself that ' this is so beautiful I'm coming back'. Maybe, maybe not.First stop Govatt's Leap at Blackheath.


A view unchanged since it so impressed Charles Darwin in 1836

As we completed the decent out of the mountains we reached the historic staging post of Hartley's Shanrock Inn.
Then on to Carcoar a small but substantial town on the Bathurst Plains

We continued on the Great Western Road first completed all the way to Bathurst two years after Blaxland,Lawson and Wentwoth found the a way through the mountains in May 1813.
Arrived in Bathurst and just had to go to Mt.Panorama racing circuit. What else is there in this town?

To my amazement the track is open as it's a public road.The V8 Super Cars go around in two minutes. We took seven. They reach 300kph, we got to 60kph. they are mad. We are sane.

Then on to Cowra, turn left and the Olympic Highway.I had not been on that road since 1969 when Peter Newman and I, in a fit of adolescent irresponsibility,decided in the beer garden at The Nottinghill Pub ( Monash Uni watering hole) to drive to the Bathurst 500 car race for the weekend. Twenty-two hours of driving and exams on the Monday morning we completed the trip, arriving back in Melbourne at 7am Monday morning. We didn't excel in our exams. Couldn't help but think of Pete as I drove. He died three years ago.

Next was Young. One of those impressive inland towns built on the wealth of the land with grand public buildings and a rich history. Just outside the town are the Lambing Flat Chinese Tribute Garden. A memorial to the 1861 riots when a mob of about 3000 drove the 1500 Chinese out of Lambing Flat goldfields. The mob then attacked the police camp resulting in 280 army and navy reinforcements being rushed rom Sydney to resore order. They remained for over a year to reinstate the Chinese onto what became segregated diggings. Sadly Australia's racial attitudes go a long way back.

A night in Wagga and then on to our last stop a small town, Jindara, just outside Albury.William Ferguson, the Collector of Customs on the Victorian border settled  with his family not far from here in a town called Talgarno.The were removed from their land when the Hume Weir was built and the town permantly flooded .At Jindara a wonderful Pioneer Museum was established in 1967 by a cousin of ours, Catherine Clark and others. We went to se it.

This museum is a gem. It is the story of the pioneers depicted in a simple and unpretentious exhibition of their lives and all that they possessed.Nothing is locked behind glass with suspicious guards hovering over you. It is staffed by ageing National Trust  volunteers who are interested in both their work and their visitors.I recommend all I know to make the effort to see this wonderful place.

Then we drove to Melbourne and reality, but richer for what we'd seen and learned.