After choosing a route with at least a little bit of tarmac, I spent Night 51 in a quirky, friendly little town, Rankins Springs, with the amazing Wally's Junk Art Gallery. Let the slideshow roll!
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I spent nights 39-50 back in the Cocoparra National Park. I'd determined that it would be a quiet place to be alone, with just enough wifi connection to let me take part in an online meditation retreat that I wanted to participate in via Zoom. The retreat was made more wonderful by the isolation and the beauty of this simple place: low hills above the river flats red soil, with acacia, cypress pine and ironbark trees plus a certain amount of elusive wildlife. After I left Griffith I took a step back in time. the woman in the NSWNP office told me that I'd be able to find emergency supplies for a long stay at Cocoparra in Yenda (population c1500), so I made a point of checking it out. I found a small grocery and post office, pharmacy and butcher. The town was very, very quiet; apart from outside the pub I could hear no noise at all. Yet it is clearly a town that is proud of its past. I really enjoyed putting this slide show together. I approached Griffith with advice from DB to check out the Big Barrel (failed in this), a longish shopping list, and some relief that I'd broken my tooth close to the the largest regional centre. Griffith is a great country centre: large enough to have everything one wants, and small enough to find everything easily. I only had to stand on the verandah of the Visitor Information Centre to see a dentist's phone number. A very kind young woman inspected my mouth first thing the following morning (Saturday) and declared that the tooth must come out on Monday lunchtime. Thus things fell into place, such that I was able to do the necessary shopping, explore some surrounding countryside, book somewhere sensible to rest for a few days post-extraction, and reserve a spot on an interesting workshop at the end of the week. Griffith really is a very nice place to get help up in, and I was glad of this chance to get to know it better than I did on our visit in 2020. Specifically: Night 32: Willow Park rest area in Griffith, quiet and convenient, with informal football practice to watch, Night 33: Lake Wyangan free camping, which is just outside the city limit a great place, but that weekend so windy that I only stayed one night, Night 34: Woolshed Flat campground, further out of town (still less than one hour) in the Cocoparra National Park and extremely restful, a lovely spot (see upcoming entry). Nights 35-7: Griffith Village Caravan Park, shared between travellers and people working in the area, it was an ideal spot to do nothing. Night 38: back in Willow Park so that I could attend a two-day workshop on indigenous weaving lead by Aunty Gail Manderson in association with the exhibition 'Political Women' at the Griffith Regional Gallery. Because I was in the area I head of Altina Wildlife Park. It is a private park that prioritises breeding endangered breeds, not a zoo for visitors to wander around all day. All visits must be booked by phone ("Don't call us, we'll call you.") and once in groups are closely supervised. I needed to manage the booking process and this meant that I spent night 30 at Darlington Point, in the Riverside Caravan and Tourist Park. And how happy I was that I did; it is a charming place with a character cafē, a small free swimming pool (I used it twice) and river swimming. The highlight of the zoo was that I was able to cross the item See a live Meerkat off my bucket list; I saw a mother with three kittens, but there were other moments as well, especially as the other people in my group of four came from the Charles Sturt University Animal Nutrition Program. I paused, once the tour was finished to eat some rice before driving towards Griffith intending to spend the night in a rest area near Hanwood. As I bit into a few grains of rice I heard a very loud noise and one of my front teeth became extremely sensitive. Unsure what I was going to do about my tooth, I spent night 31 near Hanwood in the middle of a Steggles chicken farming area, the farms I passed, numbering from Farm 13 to Farm 64. |
AuthorIn mid 2018 I started recording each night I sleep in Bertha: sometimes just for myself, sometimes to share with friends and other travellers. Archives
February 2024
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