A Winter Drive

On a relatively cold winter's day, with a strong southerly keeping temperatures down to about 11 degrees, we decided to take a drive in the country around Armidale. This something we rarely do now that the kids have flown the nest, but it proved highly enjoyable. The route took us in a wide arc west, then south and then east of the city, and we probably covered 100 km (or about 65 miles) on country lanes. Much of the route was on sealed roads, but the area around Gostwyck east of Uralla had some unsealed (gravel) stretches.

At the start the weather was cloudy, but during the course of the trip it slowly evaporated to drape the countryside in sun - not the bright sun of summer, spring and autumn, but a kind of misty or watery sunshine reminiscent of Britain over much of the year. We drove first to Invergowrie which is located right on the Great Divide just west of town. This old sheep station was divided into rural residential alotments (perhaps 10 Ha in size) perhaps 30 years ago and it is home to professional people mostly working in Armidale. After that we drove through Mt Butler and the Arding lanes to Rocky River - the site of an old Gold Rush in the nineteenth century - before reaching the New England Highway at Uralla.

The return trip took us east to Gostwyck, the home of one of New England's big squatter families who settled the area from the mid 1830s onwards. The first pictures show the countryside around Gostwyck, the little church which was presumably funded by the wealthy pastoralists, and the famous shearing shed located on the neighbouring property called Deeargee (presumably reflecting the initials of the founder (DRG)). The road then turned northwards back to Armidale through Enmore and Mihi across expansive grassy plains with views to distant mountains bathed in the pale wintry sun. The final two views show some of the rather picturesque countryside involved, with its open and undulating grassland and views up to 30 or 40 km away in some places. Most of the countryside pictured is > 1000 m ASL, although some of the country around Armidale reaches up to 1600 m high.

AS