Exploring White Cliffs

Just recently, Dot and I took a short holiday - less than two weeks long. We travelled to Canberra first, vising family members there for a couple of days. After that, Rebecca joined us on a long 11 hour trip to the far west of New South Wales to explore a region largely unknown to us. We stayed in a few different places for 9 nights before taking another long drive back to Canberra where we stayed another day before returning home. The entire journey covered no less than 4,500 km (2,800 miles). This is a little more than the distance between Seattle (in the USA's Pacific Northwest) to Miami in Florida. By the way, the distance between London and Moscow is only a trifling 2,900 km.

This and a few subsequent blog posts display some the experiences (all pleasant) that we had during our trip. The first day saw us driving north-westwards from Canberra through a long line of small towns and increasingly sparsely populated areas to White Cliffs near Broken Hill. None of us had visited such places as Harden, Stockinbingal, Temora, Ardlethan, Barellan, Griffith, Goolgowie, Hillston, Mossgiel, Ivanhoe, and Wilcannia. I've listed these places so that you can trace our route on a map. Most of those listed only had a few hundred residents and some hundreds of kilometers were on gravel (unsealed) roads. As you can imagine, we had little opportunity to alight from Bec's car and look around these places. One place, Barellan, did however capture our attention. It is where Evonne Goolagong grew up. Don't know her? Well, she's one of Australia's ... and the world's ... top tennis players, winning 14 Grand Slam tournament titles back in the 1970s and 80s. She received a British OBE in 1972 and an Australian OAM in 1982. Barellan has a park named after her and it has a model of her signature wooden Dunlop racquet, but 20 times its original size!

This picture shows a typical dirt road in the Australian outback. Although not sealed, the road was level and easy to drive along. 

Note the countryside is as flat as a tack and also has few trees. However, the grass was fairly green after recent heavy rainfalls.

Apologies for the dead insect on the windscreen! We collected heaps of those in our travels.

We reached White Cliffs in the later afternoon and checked in to our motel. This one was highly original because it's an underground motel with bedrooms and other facilities hewn out of rock as the following pictures show.

Corridors like this one were also under ground.

However, this design had several advantages. In summer, when outside temperatures frequently exceed 40 C, the rooms are quite cool. In winter, when it can be much colder outside, the rooms then feel quite warm.

Here's a view of Dot and Emily enjoying a great meal in the underground dining room!

The reason for staying in White Cliffs will appear clear with many of the following pictures. The town's 'raison d'etre' is simple. The surrounding environment has large quantities of valuable opals. And the mines themselves provide an interesting environment to wander through. In addition, visitors are allowed to fossick through mining debris to find and take away attractive pieces of opal. Alas, we didn't have time to do that.

Before we look around the mining environment, I might mention that we could climb on to the top of the motel to have views of both sunsets and sunrises. Have a look at the lovely colours they provide.

OK. Let's have a look around the town and its mine sites. The first picture below caught our attention because it show's Uncle Dick's mineral claim. Well, Dot's now deceased brother also had that name!

Perhaps it's therefore appropriate to show the local cemetery which we visited.

The next two images show typical views of the opal diggings with lots of surplus, and rather white, rock piled up on the surface

We were amused to see toilets scattered around the diggings, each with a curious name. Here we have everybody's toilet, nobody's toilet, and somebody's toilet!

We took the opportunity to visit the town's 'White House'. I was rather hoping to see Donald Trump, but it turned out to be an elaborate miner's house owned by one of the area's leading opal miners. We were allowed in to see the house's features and elaborate decorations.

Next, the owner asked us to get in our cars and follow him to his mine. We received helmets and instructions or information  about equipment.

Then we proceeded into the mine, as shown here. Parts were occasionally lit by shafts up to the surface. Then there's a picture of Dot listening to comments about how opals are found and mined. Finally, there's a picture of the machinery used to claw rock from the mine.

Finally, there's picture of me after the mine visit standing from of a sign welcoming us to White Cliffs appropriately standing on on a pile of white tailings from various mines. We thought about finding time to fossick through such piles of rubble to see if we could find some shards of opal, but we couldn't find the time. Instead, I paid a few dollars for a small glass container containing quite a few little pretty pieces of opal. It is standing on my desk as I type this post.

All told, it was a great experience and highly recommended.

AS

 

SpringSprung20

 I love this time of year. After several cool and sometimes dreary winter months, things are warming up fast and nature is taking heed of the opportunity to renew itself. As I write this, we're heading to a maximum of 26 C today - the average Armidale temperature for mid-summer.

Yesterday, I ambled around our garden and took pictures of all the plants and shrubs in flower. And I was amazed by the range on offer! The only thing I don't like about this time of year is being dive-bombed by magpies seeking to defend their territory. I choose my walking routes carefully to avoid them!

So, have a look at the flowers in out garden:

I'm lucky that Dot is enthusiastic about tending to all the bushes, shrubs, bulbs and other plants we have. She does a wonderful job.

AS

Gorgeous Country

Please excuse my pun! This is about a trip today to see one of Australia's greatest gorges - Wollomombi Gorge and waterfall. It's a lovely spot, but one I have not visited in a long time. It was also an opportunity to have a longish walk and view the landscape from many different perspectives. The stroll involved a lot of downhill and uphill sections, whose difficulty rose because of the lovely hot weather we are having right now. Today reached 26 C (79 F) despite it still being early Spring. That arose from gentle winds and cloudless skies. I might add that forecasters are now seeing a stormy and wet summer here, which gave today's walk a greater imperative.

This is what I saw on my walk to the top of the Wollomombi falls and on to overlook the impressive Chandler Falls - albeit with little water cascading down after several weeks of fairly dry weather. The top of the gorge is c. 907 m (nearly 3,000 feet) and the Wollomombi falls overall have a drop of about  200 m (660 feet) with the last vertical drop being about 100 m (330 feet).

So here are views of the gorge, although today there was little water dropping to the bottom.

I have now reached the point on the trail where it crosses the Wollomombi river just before it reaches the final 100 m drop into the deep gorge. As you can see the river is sloping downwards, but without much water in it. By the way, you can see that the river some yellow deposit in it

And here I'm looking down into the nearby Chandler River Gorge which also has negligible water flow.

Walking back to car park I spied some great rock formations.

I couldn't resist taking a selfie. Getting home I realised that I was walking topless because of the heat and my shirt was rather soggy! Oh well, there wasn't anyone to see me. Although there were heaps of people in the national park today, I only saw 4 other people on my entire one-hour long walk. So I don't think I embarrassed anyone.

Towards the end of the walk, I crossed several small creeks like this one, none of which any water flow at all.

Anyway, I enjoyed myself and proved I could still bush-walk safely through hilly terrain.

AS

Rare Visitors

 Just recently a new species of bird has encroached on our garden and local neighbourhood. The bird is the yellow-tailed black cockatoo and I cannot remember seeing it in our district previously. However, our field guide to the birds of Australia has a map showing that it occurs locally. 

Maybe the recent drought, or the extensive bush-fires at the end of last year, have driven the species to seek out new and safer areas. During their search, they discovered Armidale and its kind residents who have bird-feeders (we have no less than three, each filled daily when we are here.

Until recently, my many long walks often encountered small groups of maybe 6 to 8 such cockatoos, but until this week our garden was deprived of their presence. Yesterday a pair discovered us and this morning we found 4 in the garden. I quickly took some photos, some shown below. They're very large birds compared to our other local species - perhaps 50% larger in size than the other species we keep feeding.

 

Alas, as I tried to capture them on film, they kept far away - almost hidden in the shade. Oh well! They gave Dot and me some fine as we tried to capture their movements.

AS

A Monumental Trip

 With little to do at home today I decided to go on a long drive. My destinations were the villages of Ben Lomond and Llangothlin. I did a quick Google search for the distances to these locations, which would help me work out my exact itinerary. According to Google the total return distance is nearly 33,200 km. That's a long way! I can drive about 800 km OK within one days, so I had to plan for a 41 day journey!

Just joking! Those places are in Australia's New England Region, which has many towns and villages named after UK locations. Armidale was founded by Commissioner McDonald and named after the clan seat of the McDonalds - Armadale - on the Isle of Skye. Northwards on the New England Highway are Llangothlin, Glencoe, Glen Innes and Dundee. Glen Innes bills itself as Australia's Celtic capital. And Ben Lomond village is named after the mountain on the eastern side of Loch Lomond. The original is 974 m high (3196 feet), but ours is higher (1400 m; 4593 feet). This is the 'mountain' adjacent to the village of the same name. 

Alas, however, both settlements are tiny and decaying Ben Lomond settlement is home to just 152 people, most of whom live on adjacent farms or small-holdings. Llangothlin is even more sparsely settled, with just 129 residents, most of whom again  are on rural properties rather than in town. It is slightly lower than Ben Lomond village, with a height of 1289 m (4229 feet - and higher than UK's Ben Nevis.

Here are some views of the two places:

This is the most impressive building in the 'town'. It is a memorial hall to local soldiers killed in the first world war.

As you can see, the main street is almost empty. In fact, I didn't see a single shop or service station!

Here's a little timber house - typical of the district.

The rural fire service has this more modern building, but since there are no fires around right now it is in lock-down.

And here's a view across to Ben Lomond.

Believe it or not, one used to be able to catch a train from her to either Sydney or Brisbane. However, the line closed north of Armidale maybe 30 years ago and this, like others locally is empty. One possible avenue to open it up is the removal of rails - which are still in place - and convert the line to a rail-trail bike track something like 60 km long connecting Ben Lomond to Armidale. I'd ride this great  high altitude scenic route.

This picture show some of the great pastures and views in the high country as I drove eastwards to connect with the New England Highway.

And, after a while I arrived in Wales ... well, not really

This is a view of some of the village's high density housing ... just joking again!

At least this barely surviving place has a service station (petrol) and shop, but the notable shortage of traffic in these COVID-19 days meant that this facility was closed!

Half way between here and Guyra - the main little town in district - one comes across a massive collection of glasshouses. Have a look at these picture, one taken afar and the other closer. You are looking at part of the biggest tomato farm in the southern hemisphere. This and the other nearby location covers no less than 60 hectares (c. 150 acres) and produces tomatoes hydroponically servicing the entire eastern seaboard of Australia. It is owned by a large corporation (Costa Brothers) and will ultimately employ as many as 750 people.

This development is energising the whole district, but alas will unlikely salvage the two settlements dealt with here.

So, my trip only took me about 120 km and lasted about 2.5 hours after I spent some time walking around taking photos.

AS

Solar Powered Cycling

 I went for a long bike ride yesterday and part of it went along Armidale's bike path that runs alongside Dumaresq Creek from the town centre to the University of New England. Imagine my surprise when I saw that our local council had installed solar powered lighting along much of the route. I suppose that some riders use the path at night, although I myself have never ridden after dark. I suspect, however, that I'll now give it a try.

I apologise if you thought this message was about the use of solar power to propel bikes in real-time!

Here are some pictures of the path, its surrounds, and the light-poles with their solar panels. By the way, yesterday, when the pictures were taken, was Wattle day ... the first day of Spring. And the weather played along nicely - not a cloud in the sky and a maximum of 18 C (nearly 65 F).  However, the many deciduous trees have yet to spout their leaves.

AS