Jindabyne – Mudgee

Jindabyne to Cowra

Leaving Jindabyne the weather had changed again as it can do in the mountains and we had a light spatter of rain on the windscreen and it stayed with us until after  we made our way through Canberra. Graeme was in full concentration mode as we negotiated the Canberra round-a-bouts and traffic. Despite the light rain we had an easy drive for the morning and I enjoyed watching the changing countryside. We live in such a beautiful country. From Canberra we detoured into the old township of Yass where we were treated with the vision of early rural country architecture, Yass is a result of strong agricultural commerce.

We thought we would stop for the night at Boorowa about 45 minutes north of Yass but our phone calls to the town’s caravan park manager failed. We decided that we would take the chance and drive to the park. When we arrived other campers told us to just find a site and set up. It sounded easy but it was the Saturday afternoon and it appeared that a couple of groups of RV users decided to make Boorowa their meeting place. The small park was well over booked with no manager in site 🙁 .

So we kicked onto Cowra and decided to take on our very first experience of ‘free camping’. There is a great rest area known in Camps Australia 9 as (476) Ramage Park on the Sydney side of town with BBQ’s and clean toilets. Experienced caravanners have mentioned that if we are free camping and no one else turns up by 3 pm that it is a good idea to move on. At the time when we stopped we were all alone. But within a short time we had two other RVs stopping for the night and we felt okay about our first time choice of free camping. Through the evening and again at sunrise we enjoyed the occasional sounds of the open country. Tractors, cows, birds, the smell of earth and a beautiful sunrise.

Cowra to Mudgee

Today was another easy drive through picturesque undulating rural country. We both enjoyed the scenery and lack of traffic as we travelled along quiet country back roads away from the main routes. Along the road we passed through the town of Canowindra, its main street has some great examples of how strong the local economy must have been in the early 1900s. We took a short break at a park as we left town and found a truly wonderful rose garden and the morning air was filled with the scent of the flowers.

Unfortunately because of the lack of rest areas and restricted road shoulders there were no photo opportunities to take a couple of images of what we were seeing as we drove.  We merged with the Mitchell Highway at the town of Molong and left it at Wellington where we turned off to cut across to Mudgee.

We had already booked into the Big 4 Park at Mudgee and we arrived by mid-afternoon giving us plenty of time to settle in and relax. Our original intention was to stop at Mudgee for two nights but after spending an interesting day checking out some of the local sites and the Town of Gulgong we extended our stop to three nights.

Gulgong is another heritage town which was featured on the old “paper” $10 note. Apparently the buildings have not changed a great deal since the late 1800’s. Beautiful old buildings. Henry Lawson went to school in this region and the town has a great museum dedicated to him. Sorry we were not aloud to take pics inside. You can also drop into the Pioneer Museum which houses a large variety of Australiana memorabilia. This place is huge. We also visited the old gold mine shaft at Red Hill and another place we visited was the renowned Stacks Down Under store which houses anything and everything you can imagine in the basement of a heritage building. It went on and on and on…….. But nothing stuck to our hands 🙂

 

 

 

When travelling in a Caravan you become quite the minimalists.

The Mudgee region is renowned for its vineyards and quality wine production.­­­­ There are so many vineyards to drop in on, but of course you need to be very careful not to overdo the wine sampling. One interesting place we stopped at was Aril Estate, South East of Mudgee, on the Castlereagh Highway (Sydney Road) They sell a variety of olives, pomegranate syrups, jams and honey. This place also had the most amazing pumpkins, but unfortunately were not for sale. Again it was great to support a local farmer. We bought some olives and an olive tapenade still to be devoured in our happy hour.

 

Another place we visited was Windamere Dam and the Cudgegong Waters Park which sits on the southern edge of the Windamere Dam. We were so lucky as the day was superb and the views even better. This place offers loads of space for BBQ’s and campers. Caravans are welcome but powered sites are limited. Graeme said that the fishing is a draw card in this area and the park says that in particular golden and silver perch, Murray cod and catfish are sure to be on the menu. Unfortunately no fish for us. 

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Happy Aussie Caravanning Lifestyle

Dixie and Graeme