Today, Easter Sunday, we headed southwest to Cowra passing first through the small town of Canowindra, pronounced ‘Canoundra‘ – don’t ask me why.

Canowindra is famous for its Hot Air Balloon Festival – an International Balloon Challenge, which just happened to be taking place this week and culminating in a dazzling nighttime display known as the ‘Balloon Glow’ where balloon pilots fire their burners in time to music.

Unfortunately we couldn’t be there for the early morning or evening balloon launches and will have moved north before the Balloon Glow takes place at the weekend.

Still, and not to miss out, we did get to see some balloons… in a shop window!

The town has an unusual curved main street lined with many old buildings including the cafe that we visited and which happened to serve Bills Beans coffee – one of our favourites.

Gin and Chocolate

Towards the end of the main street was CoCo Harvest – a small Chocolate speciality shop selling wares from around the region. Delicious Relishes are also on display and available for those with less of a sweet tooth. Definitely on our recommended list.

Cowra

Continuing on to Cowra we passed through open countryside that in many places looked far more fertile than we had seen previously. This is a mixed farming region with cattle, sheep and annual crops including canola and wheat.

We were expecting Cowra to be a well established town, which it clearly was but not closed. Although this was Easter Sunday it was still a surprise to see all the shops and eateries shut on the main street. Our reason for the visit here, though, was to explore the Cowra Japanese Gardens, which we had heard much about. And we weren’t disappointed – far from it, it was amazing to see how a dry and rocky landscape could be transformed into something so beautiful.

We stopped first for lunch in the garden’s cafe before a browse through the well presented Japanese Cultural Centre. Then out into the sun to explore the 12.5-acres of immaculately manicured gardens. The planting is said to be representative of the entire Japanese landscape from sea to mountain with 124-species of plant and tree. It is a lovely place to easily while away a few hours and at the time of our visit Autumn’s colours were just starting to show. It would no doubt look quite dramatic in Spring with many of the garden’s trees producing pink and white blossom. It is an easy walk too for all ages but a golf buggy is available for those less able to climb some of the steeper paths.

Cross Country

Our route back to Orange took us through more farming country and away from the main highway. It gave us the opportunity to drive more leisurely and stop safely when we wanted to take a photograph. One such stopping point was unexpectedly next to a goat farm and our arrival near the farm gate brought an excited herd of goats rushing towards us hoping for a feed. We were sorry to disappoint them but we did get to take our intended photograph of the rolling fields.

Today we decided to give the car another test and drive out in to the country to take some photos of the dry landscape and to visit the township of Molong – a place I’m having trouble pronouncing. I keep saying ‘Moolong’ instead of ‘Mowlong’. I’m putting it down to all the cows in the fields.

As you drive out of Orange you very quickly leave all the imported tree varieties, noticeably Ash and Maple, and revert back to the native gum trees common throughout Australia. The biggest change, however, is the lush green grass that gives way to very dry grassland and sparse vegetation. The straw coloured grassland is only broken by the occasional yellow or purple weed by the roadside and the sporadic green shoots in fields lucky enough to be irrigated by bore water.

This is a region showing all the signs of a desperate lack of rain. This is cattle country.

It’s a comfortable drive on good roads, some of it new, with the hills and pointed poplar trees giving it a look very reminiscent of New Zealand’s South island. And then the trees thin out leaving just open grassland as you pass through the region’s cattle stations. Just dry grass and gum tress hanging on for the next break in the weather.

Molong was a stop and change point for the horses used to haul the 19th Century coaches run by Cobb and Co. used to link the cities, countryside towns and villages throughout Australia prior to the arrival, in the case of Molong, the railway in 1886. Previously a 5-day horse-drawn journey with a change of horses every 16Km, the train helped speed the delivery of mail, wool and cattle to Sydney allowing the town and its surrounding sheep and cattle stations to prosper.

Embroidering a Yarn

The old Coach House once owned by Cobb and Co. is home to the Yarn Market Screen, a 4-panel embroidered screen depicting Molong throughout the ages, and created to celebrate the bicentenary of 1988. It took two years and seven months to complete the stitching.

We were lucky to arrive at the Coach House just as a local guide arrived and she very kindly showed us around the interior of the building and explained its past and current history.

Animals on Bikes

We were also reminded of an amusing project created by members of the local community sculptured from scrap metal supplied by local farms. Known as Animals on Bikes it runs for 120Km from Molong to Dubbo and features sculptures of animals riding bicycles. The first of which is a Duck-billed Platypus riding a unicycle. We are curious enough to make this a diversion from our planned route when we leave Orange heading for Dubbo next week. We will especially be looking out for Elvis the Kookaburra! For those as curious as us checkout: www.animalsonbikes.com.au

A number of additional historic buildings still stand with their original decorated windows along the high street, though many are now used by local businesses.

Coffee, of course, was enjoyed while watching what little traffic there was pass by. So far removed from the manic roads and streets of Sydney, this is outback countryside New South Wales style.

Today we headed over to Bathurst to return the hire car now that we had our own car back again and about to give it a good run over the Easter holiday. And it was another beautiful warm and sunny day with all the colours of Autumn on display.

We had originally planned to drive around the Mount Panorama Race Circuit with our caravan in tow on the way to Orange but our late start and car issues last week prevented that so today we were going to make good and at least drive our own car around the track – except we couldn’t. And this time it wasn’t for any issue with the car – the circuit was closed in preparation for the Hi-tec Oils Bathurst 6-hr event. The circuit is only closed 5-times a year and we happened to pick one of them. So we had to be satisfied with a photograph… from a distance.

It was a very sad day for our family with the sudden and unexpected passing of one of my elderly relatives in the UK. It’s hard to hear news like this from so far away when there is little you can do to help comfort the family. God bless and Rest In Peace.

This morning we met with Troy from Tony Leahy’s JLR dealership in an attempt to reproduce the Limp Home Mode that stopped us in our tracks last week. We took the same route between Orange and Bathurst with the caravan in tow and returned with no issue shown. The current thought is the issue is temperature and transmission related. So for the moment we have our car back and over the next few days will drive with and without the caravan to see if the issue returns.

And now a little privacy please

Last month we ordered a custom privacy screen/shade wall for our caravan and today was the first day we got to put it up. Love the result and very pleased with the quality and service provided by Annexe Solutions. Even the sky matches today’s weather!!

For anyone interested the photo was taken at Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District, north west England. It is estimated to be have been constructed over 5,000-years ago.

We had an update from Land Rover in Orange this morning after they had a first look at our car and, no surprise, no fault found. We could have told them that – it only happens when towing the caravan. So now we have to pack up the caravan tomorrow and head over to the dealership and try towing with one of their technicians onboard.

Parkes calling NASA

Today, trying to make the most of a bad situation, we drove out of Orange and through the NSW outback countryside to Parkes – home of ‘The Dish’. The 64-metre diameter radio telescope was one of several observatories used to receive television pictures from the moon during the Apollo 11 moon landing on the 20th of July 1969. A decision by Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong and NASA Mission Control was made shortly after landing to bring the moonwalk forward, which meant Parkes was the radio antenna with the best view of the moon at that time and as a result contributed 2.5-hours of TV to the billions of people watching man first step on the moon.

Not to be outdone, Canberra – Tidbinbilla, part of the NASA Deep Space Network, also took part in the coverage along with Goldstone in California.

Much of the movie ‘The Dish’ starring Sam Neil was filmed at Parkes and although the usual artistic license was applied in many areas, much of the film portrayed real events including the 110KM winds that threatened to topple the enormous Parkes dish just as Armstrong and Aldrin were about to make their historic landing.

Where’s Elvis?

Parkes also has a more recent claim to fame – it is the Australian home of Elvis. Each year Parkes holds an Elvis Festival and the town fills with fans and lookalikes to celebrate the singer. There’s even an Elvis train that runs from Sydney to Parkes for the event.