Definitely Slim and Dusty

Bird of the Day:  Straw-necked Ibis, in terms of rarity in Canberra.  Eastern Rosella has been unusual on this trip but they are bog common at home.   For big flock, welcome back Sulphur-crested Cockatoo.

Plant of the Day:  Magnolia in Tamworth, largely free-riding on a magnificent set in Armidale the previous day.

Art of the day;  The Vietnam War Memorial in Muswelbrook as a public sculpture: they even said what their objectives were and explained how it fitted them.  Other contenders were  the Slim Dusty tribute  in Tamworth and the town sign for Murrurundi.

Typically Australian thing of the day:  Largely under-utilised highways, interrupted by very congested high streets in towns.

Maximum Temperature  20 Minimum temperature  0

Distance travelled  with camper  250  without camper 0

After a good nights sleep we found it, as expected, rather chilly when we woke.  No matter: coffee and showers and off to check out Tamworth before hitting the Highway.  Our first stop was a park with War Memorials  This one is taken as the blogged sample as it includes a model of the route of the Sandakan Death Marches, which it is commemorating.

There are a lot of well preserved buildings around Tamworth.  This is the newspaper office.

This one is now the Conservatorium of Music but, from both the Madonnas on the RHS of the building and its closeness to  Catholic Church, was once a convent.  Convents are another type of building that is often outstanding in town architecture and well preserved.

As I have commented elsewhere the most ornate large building in a town is often the Post Office.

The pavement along Peel Street - the main drag - has stars inset, listing the winners of the Country Music Awards given out each year.  Where we joined Peel St the awards were for some time in the late 1990s and as a result I couldn't find a 'star' in which I recognised - let alone liked the work of - all the winners.  So I didn't photograph an example.  I did however recognise Slim Dusty and Joy McKean (and quite like much of their work).. I am not sure how Tammy's assessment of their statues concluded, but the usual decoration of a vertical surface didn't happen.

So it was back to the car and off towards the Hunter Valley.  On the way out of town we encountered the Golden Guitar.  This was adjacent to the facility at which the Awards are given each year, and fronts, I think, the Visitors Centre.  The main thing - other than utter tackiness - I remember is the difficulty in getting out of the place with a camper.  The lot was a bit crowded so I went through the take-out section of a KFC (and nearly took out the service hatch).  Sorry about that Colonel!

As we only had about 250km to travel today we were able to stop off a few times at interesting sites.  The setting of the road was excellent with continual great views of the ranges and plains we traversed.  unfortunately there was never a turn-out where we needed one to get a good photo of the scenery.

Presumably the Country Music business is important to the town economy but it generally seems very prosperous.  As we drove out all the properties along the track seemed to be studs of one breed or another, with Santa Gertrudis getting a few mentions.  (I always think of them as dry country cattle and how the cattle enjoy getting shipped from Tamworth to the Territory is an interesting question.)

Our first stop was on sighting the First and Second Fleet Memorial Gardens at Wallabadah.  There is a good level of skill in presentation of the stories of the Fleets and the subsequent history of the colony, as well as the listing of the names of all the people on the boats.  (The latter makes the site rather like the Holy Grail of Australian genealogy!

The next stop was Murrurundi  where the bowling club was entered via memorial gates.  Another, more recent, shiny polished granite, Memorial was on the opposite side of the road outside the Memorial Hall.  I can see no reason why they built the second one!

This is the town well (from 1884) together with horse and dog troughs added in the 1920s following a bequest from George and Anna Bills from Sydney (George being described as a driving force in the SPCA).

I really liked the signs for the town: as a small place of which I had never heard it was very interesting,  The local Historical Society appears to be very active.

Our next big town was Scone, where the memorial was erected outside the memorial swimming baths.

The area around Scone was replete with horse studs and I recall listening tot a recent Bush Telegraph in which a horse breeder was saying how the evil activities of the gas and coal exploiters was threatening the water used by the studs and opining that if the area gained gas but lost the studs the local economy was going to be in deep poop.  Well said that horse-person.

Moving on down the highway we came to Aberdeen where a smallish cenotaph was outside the RSL, which featured Rolls of Honour on the wall.

Getting to Muswellbrook we came across a Vietnam War Memorial.which was very well designed and laid out.  I will confess that it was all I can really remember about the town!

The countryside around here was very much coal country with the highway weaving between large open cuts and the wheelheads of underground mines.  However as with the ranges earlier, it wasn't possible to pull off to take pictures.  This is possibly not an accident as I can see the mines not wanting their activities publicised.

As we got into Singleton I noticed some rather fine buildings so pulled off the highway and into the town.  As we started to walk down the main street I was taken with these two signs suggesting a little suspected form of Masonic activity.  (The image has been received with amusement by a friend who is the Grand Wizzid of a lodge far from the Hunter Valley.)

The next emporium was an op shop for "Kids off the Streets" which had inter alia a set of coffee mugs and sugar bowls at $5 for the lot.  As we had been using plastic cups, acquiring these would add considerably to the couthness of our early mornings.  (As an aside, the number of slumped-over youth in Singleton suggested a good reason this NGO was active in the area,)

A nice old pub.

Magnolia time!  As noted in the highlights this tree gets an award through glory reflected from the specimens lining the road into Armidale the previous day.

The folk at the RSL in Singleton were well aware of the location of the Memorial in that town!

The park in which the Memorial was located was also seen as a des-res by the local chapter of Fruit Bats.

The final building we checked out was a large religious institution which turned out to be a Catholic Church with associated Convent.  It was very unusual to find a War Memorial tablet (commemorating "the Catholic men of this Parish who fell in the Great War 1914 -18.").  

On a previous expedition I had enquired of a priest why there were so few memorials in Catholic Churches and he had suggested that the war was possibly seen as 'Protestant business' and also that the anti-war views of Daniel Mannix may have been seen as a hint not to make a fuss.

So we found our way out of Singleton and down the road towards Cessnock (or at least Nulkaba where the caravan park we were aiming for was located).  The welcome here was very good as they explained that one of the residents worked at a winery and was given the bottles opened for tasting but not consumed.  They share this with their guests and we scored a 90% full bottle of Merlot.    There will be more on this tomorrow.

A nice sunset to finish the day.  Although we didn't drive that far it seemed like a pretty strenuous day so we were keen to hit the pit!

After dark the fairy lights decorating some of the long term vans were very pleasant.

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