Day 66 Gilgandra to Cowra

Here we are in Cowra, well and truly in our own backyard, for our last night before we get home.

We left Gilgandra this morning expecting to travel down to Cowra via Dubbo, Parkes and Forbes.  I turned on the GPS because I was not sure of the route down from Forbes through Goologong to Cowra.  When we got to Dubbo, the GPS took us around the backblocks of the town onto the Mitchell Highway.  This was not the way we wanted to go.  We wanted to continue on the Newell Highway.  However, after a fruitless search through the said backblocks, we recognised the inevitable and started following the directions given to us by Karen, the GPS. Karen is the name given by the manufacturer to the female english voice that the GPS uses and has nothing whatsoever to do with our much appreciated and much loved daughter-in-law.

So we found ourselves heading for Wellington along the Michell Highway on our way to Cowra which would take us through Molong and Canowindra.  (For my overseas readers, Canowindra is pronounced in Australian english as Can-oun-dra.)  I am so glad we did.  The road was very good without much traffic and, apart from the odd caravan whose tow vehicle driver insisted on travelling at no more than 85 kph, we made good time.

We stopped for morning tea in Wellington.  We had driven through this town before, but this was the first time we had stopped.  I am so glad we did.  It is quite an attractive little place with some old houses and shop fronts still showing their wrought iron lace balustrades along their first floor vehandahs.  It also possesses a beautifully designed and maintained public park that included an old fashioned fountain. We enjoyed a piping hot coffee and delicious doughnut at Sang's Hot Bread Shop while looking at the fountain. Well done Sang.

We then continued on through this southern part of Central New South Wales with its gentle hills, rich grazing lands and great blankets of yellow canola and green pasture and cereal crops speading up the hillsides as far as we could see.

We got to Cowra in plenty of time for lunch.  We followed our usual practice of going for a stroll through the main street.  Bev found a quilting shop and I continued on, enjoying the street photographs and explanations of Cowra buildings from times gone by.  I found myself outside the Shire Council offices with its Peace Bell.  So, I did what most people do when they find it, I went up and gave it a good ring.  After this, I found my way back to the quilting shop and enjoyed a well-earned rest on the seat outside the shop.  This seat was labelled the patient husbands seat.  Clearly, I am not the first husband to spend what seems like many hours cooling my heals outside patchwork shops.

Tonight is Pizza Night so I am about to go out and buy one and that will be about it for this trip.  We will leave at about 8.30 in the morning.  We will stop off at Yass to visit our friends the Murphys and should be home about midday.

And so I bring this blog to an end.  I hope you have enjoyed it.  I will probably round it off with a short statistical appendix which I will do after we get home.  If you are interested, keep an eye out.