I have been absent from blogging for a while now, mainly because it did not feel right joking about little country towns while they were fighting off bushfires. However, now I am in lockdown on my sofa and I can't go anywhere, it seems like a good time to look back on the last trip we went on, just before the fires took hold. 

Last October we set off along the Golden Highway through the Hunter Valley. It was lucky we left when we did as there were signs up along the road saying 'Road closed tomorrow for mine blasting'. We passed through the usual strange mix of vineyards and coal mines before stopping at Jerry's Plains for the night. Campers can stay for a donation and use the clean amenities, it is near a road but is a useful stop for us as it is only 2 hours from home. It is the done thing to spend some money in the town if a free or cheap camp is available but, in the case of Jerry's Plains, this was tricky as there was nothing there.

 The drought had  been going on for so long that everything was brown and even some of the gum trees seemed to be struggling but as we drove out of Jerry's Plains we quickly came to a series of extremely wealthy looking racing horse studs where, needless to say, the grass was lush and emerald green for miles and miles. There were some very sleek looking horses to be seen from the road but I guess they were keeping the Winx/Red Rum types well away from the grubby mitts of passers by. 

The landscape changed straight back to brown again once we left the horsey area and we rolled up at Gulgong Showground around midday, great place to stay, $12 a night unpowered with clean showers and toilets. Gulgong is an old mining town and was the home of Henry Lawson the renowned bush poet, when he was a boy. He and Gulgong featured on the first $10 note and the town seemed to have never quite got over it. There was a Ten Dollar Hotel, tourists could have their picture taken with their face on a ten dollar note, it went on and on. It was a splendid little town although not much appeared to be open on a Tuesday apart from the small supermarket with a cheese display that was offensive on many levels and an opera house where a group of children on a school trip were queuing to see A Tribute To Doris Day. Life in a country town!

 The next day we drove into Mudgee for a look around and found it to be a very smart town which looked to be thriving even in the drought. An excellent sculpture trail ran along the riverside walk, the businesses were all open without a charity shop in sight. We went for a walk around the Putta Bucca Wetlands, an old quarry and sewage treatment works which had been regenerated to become a haven for a huge variety of birds, beautiful. 

A friend had told us we must see Ophir if we were in the area so we set off the next day. Ophir was the site of the first payable gold discovered in Australia and some of the claims operated right up until the 1950s. The road was winding, steep and gravel in some places and had warnings saying 'Not Suitable For Caravans & Campers'. We, of course, decided to take the advice of some random old bloke lurking along the road who assured us it was fine. He turned out to be right as far as our little van was concerned but it would have been a different story with a bigger rig. 

 It was gorgeous, rocky hills surrounded by trees with a river running through and we were astonished to find a flushing toilet and free gas bbqs all beautifully maintained. We were the only people there until some hillbilly types with no teeth turned up. They scarpered when the ranger appeared to take our $10 but it left me feeling a bit vulnerable to be so far away from anyone without a quick escape route. 
We survived the night without being eaten by mountain men and went on the marked out 2km walk the following morning. It was well signposted and took us through a honeycomb of disused mines and caves, I was hoping it would be a birdy and wombatty walk but it turned out to be a bit snakey and insecty but excellent all the same. The hillbilly types had returned just before our walk so we were relieved to find everything still intact when we returned and we packed up and headed to Orange. There had been clouds gathering for a couple of days and the sky had become completely grey. It must be so disappointing to be longing for rain and see these clouds only to have them disappear again and there was certainly no rain forecast for the forseeable future. 
Orange was a big place with glorious federation houses with deep verandas all around with brick pillars.The trend seemed to be for English country gardens, challenging in Australia at the best of times but especially in the drought. Once we had seen the ghastly theatre and paid our respects to the first power pole(?) we walked around  Cook Park which was very beautiful but water was being shipped in to keep it alive. We camped in Macquarie Park State Forest which was a splendid spot but with loads of flies so we were thankful to have our bug tent with us to sit outside in. 
 Overnight it unexpectedly  bucketed down. There was a massive thunderstorm and torrential rain for hours, not enough to break the drought but welcome all the same. We started our journey back and stopped in the beautiful old miming town of Sofala. It is like a real wild west town but everything was closed due to a power cut caused by the storm, life is not easy in some of these places. 
We stopped off at Jerry's Plains again on the way back and our neighbouring campers told has they had been forced to drive there from Forster where a bushfire had started. We did not know at the time but this was the beginning of a terrible season of bushfires for New South Wales and Victoria.