Puddledock Exploration

 I'm getting tired of hanging around town permanently and need to get out into the countryside and see interesting rolling landscapes. Today was no exception, but aided greatly by the fact that my car is a lot warmer than my house and the weather, though sunny, was also frigid. A gay was blowing and the frontal system that's just gone through swept up cold air from Antarctic regions. The 3 pm temperature, supposedly the day's maximum, was 9 C, but -2C after factoring in wind-chill.

Today, I decided to drive the nearby Puddledock Road, a route rarely if ever travelled by me. It is deeply rural and accesses only farms. No shops or other services appear on the roughly 25 km journey after leaving the New England Highway just north of Armidale. The route zig-zags north-east climbing much of the way. I am typing this message in my study at an altitude of c. 1012 m (3,320 feet). The highest point I reached today on my drive was 1,344 m (or 4,409 feet) so with me standing there my head was just a bit higher than UK's Ben Nevis, which reaches 4,413 feet. By the way, I once climbed that peak from Fort William when I was about 22 years old. It took about 3 hours up.

The following pictures accurately report what I saw on my way uphill! I love the New England countryside with its rolling hills and valleys, extensive high country plains, green paddocks, forested slopes, rock formations, frequently engaging cloudscapes and so on. It often looks rather 'English'.

One frequently sees piles of rocks occurring naturally - much of the countryside is underlain by igneous rocks and one pile south of Glen Innes is called Stonehenge!

Here are more rocks, but this time in a green paddock.

This picture looks south-west towards Mount Duval - covered in forests. It is 1,393 m high (4,570 feet). 

The patch of water I spied turned out to be impounded by Puddledock Dam, which I gather once supplied water to Armidale.

A flatter piece of ground was occupied by a farm surrounded by nice green pastures.

Dense Eucalyptus forest.

Lovely rolling pastures dotted with trees and with a farm dam in the foreground. Our countryside has hundreds of such man-made dams. The gravel road I was travelling on snakes to the left. I never passed another vehicle during the 30+ minutes it took me to drive up Puddledock Road and its extension - Springmount Road.

I loved this view southwards. Mount Duval can just been seen in the mid-right, but the horizon in the middle must be close to 50 km away and Armidale is hidden by the slopes to the left.

More greenish pastures below. For a change, I found myself driving through a herd of cattle and I was intrigued to see how the mother protected her calf from my not particularly aggressive driving.

Does this landscape look rather European?

Well, the picture below marks the end of my drive northwards and I am standing at precisely 1,344 m. It focuses on the road-house at Black Mountain and the road in front of it is the New England Highway connecting Sydney and Brisbane via the inland. It had hardly any traffic today.

I joined the highway for the trip home, but suddenly had a bright idea. After just 100 m I turned left off the highway to see Thunderbolt's Cave. I must have driven 3-4 km down a dirt track when I saw this sign, parked my car and went for a walk down a steepish rocky path.

And this is what I found: a rock shelter that must have been a hiding place for Thunderbolt. He was quite an accomplished thief who held up stage-coaches other properties and robbed their occupants. He was ultimately shot by a policeman and buried in Uralla, a small town c.22 km south of Armidale on the New England Highway.

The spot was very lonely - even today - and heavily forested

I very much enjoyed my drive, albeit alone because Dot wished to stay at home. That's the way things go in this COVID-19 ridden age.

Friends and relatives please come and visit Armidale when you can and enjoy our high amenity environment.

AS