December 2022

Warrumbungle National Park . Mudgee . Wallaby Rocks . Hartley . Lithgow . Blue Mountains . Sydney

Perentie Wandering December 2022

Day 311, Thursday the 1st December, 2022.

The Warrumbungles National Park is absolutely gorgeous, and so close to home, we will be sure to visit often. We woke to yet another beautiful day, today we drove into Coonabarabran to top up the food and do some washing, other than that we just chilled at the camp ground. Our neighbours at the campground were two couples travelling together. They are lovely people and we shared their camp fire each night. Russel and Karen, Bill and Lynette from a little Island called Coochiemudlo, just south of Morten Island in Queensland and the last two nights, Max joined our camp fire, he comes from Narrabeen in NSW. He is only 21, but loves the adventure and did all of the walks in the park in one day, I think he said he walked 36 km.

Russel, Karen, Bill, Lynette and Bob around the campfire

The kangaroos were very friendly, they would get very close

At one stage the Alpha male came up and just pushed them away from each other when he had enough

The moon was quite bright, so the night sky photo’s were quite light

Day 312, Friday the 2nd December, 2022

We are going to do the Breadknife and Grand High View Walk today, it is moderate to steep with lots of steep steps and 12.5km long return. The walk was very challenging, and I struggled with the steepness and number of steps for the last 4 kilometres, but it was definitely worth it, the view from the top was breath-taking. You felt like you were on top of the world.

Catching glimpses of the domes and pinnacles along the way

We saw a number of little dragons like this one along the way, the butterfly shows how small he actually was

We stopped for lunch and some selfies from the Grand High View lookout

This Currawong was very friendly and posed for a number of photo’s after he ate a little piece of chicken that fell from my sandwich

Not sure what is happening here, but he just sat like this for about 5 minutes.

Goats everywhere, they would sit on the path in front of you till you came too close then run into the bush

Day 313, Saturday the 3rd of December to Day 315, Monday the 5th December, 2022

Another beautiful day and we left the Warrumbungles National Park. We passed through a lovely little town called Gulgong. Gulgong is a 19th-century gold rush town, which is currently famous for its clays, and both the town and its surroundings are a haven for potters, artists, tapestry workers, artisans and craftspeople. Clay festivals are held in Gulgong every two years attracting ceramicists from all over the world.

Gorgeous little town which has kept its history

We stayed at the Mudgee Showground for the next 3 nights.

Mudgee was also a lovely town steeped in history, as well as now being the third largest wine growing area in New South Wales. There are over 40 vineyards in the valley and most have cellar doors. The cherry picking is also great here.

Day 316, Tuesday the 6th December to Day 317, Wednesday the 7th December, 2022

Today we picked some cherries at the Roth Family Cherry Farm. We had great fun picking and eating cherries. There are few things more satisfying than picking a fresh plump cherry from a tree, putting it in your mouth and savouring. The cherries were delicious and we picked about 7 kilos.

We picked the Wallaby Rocks Bridge camp ground from Wikicamps and it was gorgeous. It was a free camp ground with no facilities, but it was on a the beautiful River Let. It was so perfect we stayed two nights.

We camped right on the bank of the river

Day 318, Thursday the 8th December, 2022

We left our lovely little camp ground and headed for Lithgow.

Lithgow has played a significant role in Australia’s industrial history. A centre for coal mining and steel production.

We had lunch at the Lithgow Tin Shed. Slow cooked brisket pie with garlic mash, crispy leek and mushy peas – delicious.

Lithgow is also the site for the Lithgow Small Arms Factory, as well as the Lithgow Small Arms Museum.

The Lithgow Small Arms Factory, is an Australian small arms manufacturing factory located. It was created by the Australian in 1912 to ease reliance on the British for the supply of defence materials. An uproar was caused when the tender for the factory was won by an American company over 3 British companies.

The factory initially manufactured Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) III rifles (and Pattern 1907 bayonets) for the Australian military during WWI. During WWII, production expanded to include Vickers machine guns, Bren Guns and, post war, branched out into sporting goods (including civilian firearms and golf clubs), tools, sewing machines, (from the mid-1950s) the F1 submachine gun, L1A1 SLR, KAL1, general purpose infantry rifle prototypes and similar products.

The Lithgow Small Arms Factory was known to produce their single shot models 1A and 1B as well as their Model 12 repeater under the Slazenger brand during the 1960s. The factory was first “corporatised” as Australian Defence Industries by the Hawke Government, then later sold in 2006. ADI Lithgow is now owned by Thales Australia and continues to manufacture the F88 Austeyr rifle and F89 Minimi currently used by the Australian military.

We visited the museum and had a personal tour of the machine museum by Brian, one of the volunteers who does most of the restoration work. The museum has an extensive collection of the firearms built in the factory, the machinery used to make the firearms as well as an extensive collection of handguns from the private collection of Don Hayes, who has the largest collection in Australia.

A rifle made at the factory for each year of production from 1913 to 1941

The machine museum, with machinery donated from the factory

Some of the handguns from the private collection

We spent the night at the Hartley Reserve camp ground. It was quite overgrown, very hard to get into, could not be done without a 4WD, but it was very pretty and best of all I got to photograph another Gang Gang Cockatoo.

Day 319, Friday the 9th December, 2022

We continued our journey and took in the beauty and diversity of the NSW Blue Mountains.

We stopped along the way at the Jannei Artisan Goat Cheese farm in Lidsdale. We watched some very happy goats and tried some excellent goat cheese as well as taking home a fair bit of it.

Day 320, Saturday the 10th December, 2022

We drove to Pierces Pass and walked to Walls Lookout. It was a beautiful walk, filled with lots of wildflowers and a stunning view of the cliffs at the end. There was even a rope set up for mountain climbers from one cliff to the next.

Some very brave mountain climbers taking advantage of the rope

Day 322, Monday the 12th December, 2022 to Day 344, Tuesday the 3rd of January, 2023

During this time we were in Sydney, we stayed at the Richmond RSL Club camp area for 9 nights, we did a trip down to Albury Wodonga to pick up some truck parts and Bob used this time to service the truck.

From the 20th December, 2022 to the 3rd of January, 2023, we stayed in Hannah and Jacob’s apartment house and cat sitting whilst they were in Japan on holidays.

The intention to go to Sydney was to spend Christmas with the family, unfortunately both Bob and I caught Covid on the 21st of December which meant that we could not participate in Christmas festivities. It was very disappointing, as we had been looking forward to spending Christmas with the family, but it was not to be.

We had also been invited to spend New Year’s Eve with friends in Gloucester, but that was also not possible due to Covid.

The only positive about this situation was that at least we were in a comfortable apartment whilst we were sick and not in the truck.

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