Rylstone, N.S.W.

Rylstone is a tiny town in the mid-west of New South Wales, over the Blue Mountains from Sydney and near Mudgee or Orange or Bathurst or Lithgow. Our dear friends James and Joanne whom we’re staying with have made us feel at home, giving us a bed inside and allowing us to park the van in their yard. Having a few days here, we’ve been able to get to know the town, the area and the locals. Today I even had a couple of hours on the local community radio station 2KRR after meeting presenter Dave in the pub. Something I never thought I’d be doing when embarking on this trip.

 

The studio of 2KRR FM, where I took over the airwaves for two hours on a Thursday afternoon.

The daily ritual of heading down the road to the pub at 5pm has been a great way to become familiar with the town and its people. There’s Marty who always has the same stool at the bar, Chris who’s renovating his house, Rob the builder, Andrew the barman whose wife is expecting, Sam who works for the Parks and Wildlife, Bob the plumber, and Dave the retired school teacher. People who live here have the same problems as anyone else – issues with local council regulations, not enough rain, too few customers to run their business, high petrol and grocery prices, youth unemployment and dam pesky cockatoos. What makes these little townships special is the friendly rapport from the locals – the firm handshake, the inquisitive opening question, and the ensuing conversation entailing your current situation and future plans. You become an instant friend.

 

On the Cudgegong River in Dunn's Swamp.

There are many sights worth seeing around Rylestone, many of them perhaps only known to a local. We were taken to Dunn’s Swamp, a flooded river (the Cudgegong) created when the local cement works built a weir in 1929 to provide fresh water to the factory. James’ boat took us upstream to see some spectacular rock formations and wonderful waterbird life. We then had a swim and a picnic in this idyllic surrounding. Then there was Sofala and Hill End, former gold mining towns from the 1850s. Hill End is now a designated heritage site with some fascinating buildings and history. Back then its population was 8,000; it’s now about 160. It was here in 1872 that Bernhardt Otto Holtermann discovered a rock that weighed 290 kgs of which 93 kgs was gold – the largest specimen of gold ever found in history. The main industry became concrete in the 20^th Century following the discovery of large deposits of lime, and the history of the last hundred years is dominated by displays of industrial machinery and advancements in  technology.

 

Hill End - like stepping back in time to the 1870s.

The Kandos Cement Factory ambulance from a hundred years ago, beautifully restored.

While in Rylstone, we witness rain. We have not seen rain for many months, certainly not in the three weeks of our trip so far. This was strange because the entire east coast of Australia has been experiencing many weeks of rain, even a cyclone (called “Debbie”) in far-north Queensland. We should be travelling through the affected area in a month’s time – we’ll see how far we can get. The Rylstone rain sounds and smells lovely to us, which may seem strange to anyone who has had too much in recent weeks.

Dubbo, N.S.W.

We continued our journey east and took advantage of a special offer to stay in a Dubbo caravan park for three nights at only $20 a night. The offer was received by email from one of the caravan park chains and was only valid for 24 hours. It’s very rare to be able to accept an offer like this because you’re never in that right place at the right time. Such is the advantage of being flexible in your travel plans.

The main street of Mudgee.

In the main street of Narromine, the home town of cricket great Glenn McGrath.

We have fond memories of Dubbo, having stayed here in 1991 when the kids were kids and the four of us were travelling up the east coast of Australia in a hired motorhome. Unlike back then, we didn’t visit the Western Plains Zoo this time, but explored more of this town of 40,000 people. The Old Gaol is now restored as a tourist attraction and had some very clever audio-visual displays, although the treatment of prisoners back in the late 1800s was quite macabre. The wide, leafy streets of the city seem to be typical of these rural towns, and it was delightful to wander under wide shop verandas and large shady trees. We took the opportunity to meet up with Anne’s aunt and uncle and some cousins, and they gave us some good insights into living in this part of Australia.

 

In the main street of Nyngan, to commemorate the evacuation by the Air Force during the 1990 floods.

Being at the intersection of the Mitchell, Newell and Golden highways, Dubbo caters for many passing tourists as they travel in all directions, but its major industries are agricultural. There is also a major hospital and the Charles Sturt University. It’s on the Macquarie River, which runs into the Darling, which runs into the Murray. After three days we moved on to Mudgee and then Rylstone in the western foothills of the Blue Mountains, which has the Cudgegong River running through it before it flows into the Macquarie, and then the Darling, and the Murray. This huge river system seems to cover so much of Australia!

Rylstone is the home of James and Joanne, whom we met on our 2009 Turkey tour and have remained friends ever since. We parked the van in their yard but stayed in their house for four nights. With a population of about 600, it seems that we’ve met the entire town after a couple of days, because James and Jo have lived here for many years. It’s a hugely friendly town and we have a few days to relax and explore the area.

Bourke, N.S.W.

.The next “place to see that we’ve never seen before” was Bourke, in northern-central N.S.W. Although not on the way to Sydney where we have an appointment with Mike and Denise on Saturday week, Bourke is only a couple of hours off the Mitchell Highway, so we took the opportunity.

While driving along these flat, straight but very good bitumen roads, the scenery was unchanging and so very Australian. Having been around this world a couple of times or maybe more, we are definitely at home among the gumtrees. It’s the Australian eucalypt that makes our bush so unique. As it grows, its typical shape is all but symmetrical as branches seem to defy any kind of organised pattern. The leaves at the extremities glisten in the harsh sunshine, swaying around in the invisible breeze as if greeting us with a friendly wave. On the ground is the fallout from the tree’s inherent untidiness, as large flabs of bark and discarded branches lay at the tree’s feet, looking so tinder dry that it may spontaneously combust in the sun. Sometimes a torrential downpour has washed away the topsoil to expose the tree’s roots, a mass of twisted sinuous tentacles like something from “the Alien”, extending outwards beyond the tree line. We see kangaroo, emu, goat, eagles, hawks, goanna, lizard. We love the Aussie bush.

 

Driving through the Australian bush.

Bourke is a fascinating place. Unlike Broken Hill, or Cobar where we stayed on the way, this is not a mining town. The lifeblood of Bourke is the mighty Darling River. Although early European explorers couldn’t envisage any form of settlement out here, Bourke came about in the early 1800s as an important stop on the Darling River in the days when the rivers where the economic highways. Paddle steamers and barges plied the waterways carrying wool and commerce. It’s hard to imagine that this is the same river that we saw merge with the Murray River near Mildura a thousand kilometres away.  It’s also hard to imagine that the Murray/Darling/Murrumbidgee system drains a seventh of the Australian continent from as far north as Far North Queensland. It therefore doesn’t have to rain locally for the river level to rise.
 

The mighty Darling River.

The Darling’s water was brown and murky, but out here in these parched lands I doubt if anyone would complain. We sailed a short portion of the river in a paddleboat, and the birdlife was extraordinary. We then went through the “Back o’ Bourke” Exhibition Centre that told the story of the area in some very clever displays. Highly recommended, and air-conditioned too. We then paid our respects to Fred Hollows who is buried at the Bourke Cemetery. Even though he was a Kiwi, he did much of his remarkable eye surgery work on indigenous locals around Bourke and reportedly loved the area.
 

RIP Professor Fred Hollows.

We visited the studios of CUZ FM, a local Indigenous community radio station. It was very pleasing to hear that they broadcast programs in the several cultural languages from around the area. Even some announcers have studied recordings of their ancestors speaking to be able to pass on the learning to their listeners. They recognise the importance of their role in not letting these ancient languages disappear, and is a great example of community radio at work.

Broken Hill, N.S.W.

Broken Hill welcomes you with a tall shaft headframe on every road into town, just to let you know that you’re entering a mining town. A high central ridge dominates the city centre, and we later learn that this is predominately made of spoil from a century of mining, and that beneath this ridge is the lode of silver, lead and zinc that was responsible for establishing Broken Hill in the first place. This lode is the largest of its kind ever found on earth, and the seven blokes who discovered it and started the first mine in the 1880s are revered as heroes today. They were the founders of BHP.

What’s strange to me is that this large town of nearly 20,000 population is nowhere near a water source, and all its water is piped from a hundred kilometres away at Lake Menindie. The lack of such a valuable resource is evident in the sandy terrain and sparse gardens, and we’re told that it hasn’t rained here since last October. Yet, there is also evidence that when it does rain, it floods because there are no underground drains in the streets. Therefore, the streets have a camber on them that slope into high-walled gutters, and there are culverts at the end of every street to collect the runoff and direct it to wetlands.

The Miner's Memorial, at left, on top of the massive slag pile in the middle of Broken Hill.

There seems to be a pub on every corner, but its 20-odd pubs now is nothing on the 70-odd pubs in its heyday when the population was over 30,000. One such pub, The Palace Hotel, was where “Priscilla” was filmed in 1994. Some of Broken Hill’s famous residents (now no longer with us) include actor Chips Rafferty, singer June Bronhill (who changed her last name to commemorate her birthplace) and artist Pro Hart. We visited Pro’s gallery and grave, and he is obviously a popular figure in the town’s history. There are many art galleries and there are many pieces (Pro’s and others) adorning parks and gardens in the city centre. There’s even a set of desert stone sculptures just on the outskirts, and while viewing them we witnessed a sunset that will be etched in the memory for a long time. It was like red clouds boiling in the sky.

Sunset in the Australian outback.

If Broken Hill is in the middle of nowhere, then Silverton must be in another dimension. Just 20 kilometers away, it is truly in the desert and only consists of a few sporadic homesteads and a pub. Famous for being the filming location for “Mad Max 2” in 1981, they milk this as much as possible, and there’s even a guy who has turned his house into a museum in Silverton dedicated solely to the movie. We went out to the Mundi Mundi lookout, where the tanker rollover was filmed for Mad Max 2 and where the locals say it’s so flat you can see the curvature of the earth. Both take a little imagination to appreciate.

Silverton.

We’ve loved Broken Hill. It’s friendly and charming, unique and steeped in an interesting history. We stayed longer than we intended, but now it’s time to move on.

To Mildura on to Broken Hill

Alighting from the ferry that transported us and our car and caravan across a few hundred kilometres of Bass Strait, we found ourselves driving through inner-city Melbourne at 6:30 in the morning. There’s something surreal about watching your surroundings come into light as the day begins. The journey northwards commenced immediately, and the first night was spent in the back yard of wonderful friends Andrew and Pip in Gisborne. It was a perfect start to such a long trip – homely, welcoming, comfortable and relaxing.

One of Pip and Andrew's beautiful puppies.

We had decided that the ideal distance for a leisurely day’s drive with the caravan was about 300 kilometres, which made the following day’s goal to reach the small rural town of Sea Lake in northern Victoria. Just before Sea Lake, however, is an even smaller town called Berriwillock. What’s significant about this place is that my Mum was raised here as a little girl in the 1920s, along with her many brothers and sisters. As well as the pub, a few very large grain silos and the homes of 30 residents, Berriwillock has Mill’s General Store. I remember Mum telling us stories about Mr Mills’ store, as it was a vital part of life in such a small town. But today it is sad to see “Closed” and “For Sale” signs in the window. Just outside were an elderly couple doing some gardening in the hot midday sun, so I approached them to enquire. They’d bought the business from Mr Mills a few years ago after coming out from England seeking a new life in the sun, but had struggled to make a living from it. The story made us grateful but sad to think that our superannuation was successfully working for us but the future for this couple was not looking so rosy. A scenario typical of small Australian rural towns.

Mills' General Store, Berriwillock (now closed)

After already doing 300 kms, we decided to push on another 200 kms to Mildura, and stay for two nights to justify the 500 km day. The land had become flat and featureless to the horizon, covered with low-lying shrubs and the occasional eucalypt tree standing only as tall as a person. The parched countryside, devoid of any cattle or sheep, looked like a moonscape for us Tasmanians from a hilly home of green grazing pasture. Arriving in Mildura at 6pm and with the temperature in the mid-30s, the sight of the caravan park’s swimming pool was most welcoming.

Mildura, on the Murray.

We had recently travelled the road to Mildura, but the road continuing north to Broken Hill was new for us, and we were venturing into some serious outback countryside. We’d never been to the birthplace of BHP before, and it is proving to be such a fascinating place that we’ve extended our stay from three days to five.

Launceston

I think I have a travel bug. It's called "wanderlust", which is defined as "a strong desire or impulse to travel and explore the world".  Well, I do love to travel, whether it’s by foot, bicycle, car or plane, to the next town or another country. And it's all about the journey, not the destination. Robert Louis Stevenson once said “I travel not to go anywhere, but just to go.” The trip we're about to embark on will take us north through Victoria, N.S.W. and Queensland, but will have no destination except to eventually return home. As these blog posts here describe, we've seen a little bit of the world, but we haven't actually seen all that much of Australia. So to remedy that, the plan has been to retire when the time was right, get ourselves a half-decent caravan, and explore this great land that's girt by sea. So far things have gone according to plan - time to see the plan through

We are now both retired, so the notion of "time" has taken on a whole new meaning. We can now take our time to explore this big wide land. Time is an ever-present constant in life, but the problem is there are only 24 hours in a day. I saw a shop sign the other day that said “Open 24 Hours”, but I thought to myself that I don’t have that much time. Albert Einstein (now there was a clever guy) once said “the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once”. So, it's time to do some exploring ...