8 March, 2011 - Coach Stop Caravan Park, Maitland, NSW

We woke to a gloriously fine day after a good sleep despite the railway noise. The rail actually runs the other side of the highway between us and the town. Freight trains carrying coal travel all day and all night. Yesterday evening after we had closed up for the night, we heard a tremendous explosion. I poked my head out and everyone within view was calmly carrying on their evening business. Several times this occurred. This morning I engaged one of our fellow campers in conversation and discovered that the crashing was simply the trains hitching on to wagons.

We christened our $9.95 toaster this morning and it did not burn the toast or blow up. Our iron and kettle were of the same brand and the same price; isn’t that amazing!

After stuffing around with the very antiquated washing machine and finally pegging out the washing, Chris and I walked into town,. The town can be accessed by a bridge over the road and railway from the camp; this is one plus for its location.

Our first impressions of (West) Maitland had not been good, that it was a has-been town full of has-beens. How wrong could we have been! The main street, High Street, was the coach line into town back in the mid-1800s. There are some fine buildings, some are in poor repair or need of renovation. The street runs about two kilometres, part of which has been made into a pedestrian mall. The retail shops are excellent and as good as you will find anywhere. The people are just lovely, and helpful. Chris had his hair cut at the local barbers; the business had been established in about 1930. He is now looking very tidy, more than I can say for myself.

And we made two very exciting purchases; a collapsible clothesline for me and a LED rechargeable mosquito killer for Chris!

We called at the library and were directed to the local history section. Once we had explained our quest, the woman there was just fantastic. She pulled books and lists and other references off the shelves for our perusal, and directed us to a big work table we could spread all over. It just happened that it was the morning for storytelling and puppet shows at the library for the pre-school kids, and so we worked behind the puppet theatre while a sixty something male librarian sang and entertained, in excellent Wiggle’s fashion, a large group of wee ones.

Alas we did not turn up much except a rough idea of where James’s café offering refreshments for those attending the theatre, may have been.

I also gleaned statistics for population and floods, all of which may help me build a picture of how life was for them here, a life they spurned to move on to New Zealand.

                                                  

On our return to the camp, a coal train came through passing underneath the foot bridge. Chris and I do not entirely agree about the number of wagons, however we will agree to the fact that there were 60 to 80, each carrying 120 tonnes. That is a whole lot of coal!

Counting the wagons from above.

After lunch, we drove back into town to call at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery. There were a couple of exhibitions on, neither of which inspired either of us. Unfortunately they were in the middle of changing the exhibitions in two other galleries, so we were somewhat short changed in our art experience.

For something entirely different, we then drove to Bunnings and walked up and down the many aisles until we had gathered together all the sundry purchases sought, one of which being a very small screwdriver so Chris can move the 12 volt plug tucked under the seat which causes my computer power to fluctuate. Thank goodness he is capable of dealing with all these little things!

We drove further north to find a hairdresser at the Rutherford shopping centre so that I too might be shorn, however the shopping centre there offers little more than the three big supermarkets: Woolworths, Coles and Aldi.

As a consolation, we drove out to the Walke Water Works, which is more or less between Maitland and Rutherford. The dam was built in the late 1860s for the capture of drinking water for Newcastle and all the area around here, at the incredible cost of one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. That is a huge amount of money these days; it was a whole lot more then.

Years later the water workings were put in mothballs, and then resurrected just after the Second World War, and then decomissioned once more. Today there is a delightful lake surrounded by park and picnic areas, and the shell of the beautiful brick building. We walked around Lake Walke, about three kilometres, then returned to camp feeling that we had had our day’s quota of walking.

I caught up with Kit and Kyla on Skype tonight and also learned that Jess’s first day back at work and the boys’ first day in childcare had gone well. Knowing this, I will sleep well. For all the fact that we are many thousands of miles from our children and grandchildren, we do still think about them and worry when we think necessary. It is hard to detach oneself; I understand this will always be so, no matter how old our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren become.

We have finished with Maitland for now, as we have with Tamworth. The remainder of the research can be done by internet where the available information is growing day by day.