13 April 2011 - Cabonne Country Caravan Park, Molong, NSW

Our camp at Blaney

This morning dawned with glorious blue skies, fabulous rural views, a cacophony of bird cries and 4 degrees Celsius! I made sure Chris had the heater blasting at maximum temperature before I came out from the pile of bed covers. Thank goodness we were in a camp on power! 

Many of our fellow campers had obviously woken positively motivated by the sunshine and half the caravans in the camp were gone by eight thirty. We left after nine and set off on the minor road from Blaney through to Orange, via Millthorpe. The road passed through lovely farmland, mostly stocked by stud beef cattle.

Millthorpe

This small village of about 700 people, at 965 metres above sea level, has a rich agricultural history, a legacy of grand buildings, heritage architecture and a streetscape that has remained largely unchanged since the mid 1800’s. The entire village is classified by the National Trust and the village centre has cobbled, bluestone bordered streets.

We arrived soon after 9.30 am and walked the very quiet streets. We passed one man walking his four dogs, a woman returning from the store and saw a chef through the window of his restaurant designing his menu. Amazingly this very small place has eight restaurants and cafes (one of which has a “hatted” chef), a truffle shop, a lolly shop and a cooking school. Apparently and most fortunately for the business community, the village comes alive at weekends with locals, visitors and tourists alike. Wednesday mornings are obviously a quiet time.

Heritage listed building at Millthorpe

Another half hour took us through to Orange, or at least the outskirts where we spotted a home furnishings type shopping centre. We popped in to the Sam’s Warehouse and purchased a replacement for the thermometer, and in to Harvey Norman’s for a fan heater in anticipation of more cold nights.

Orange is situated a little higher on the central tablelands than Bathhurst and has a marginally higher population, but is essentially the same type of town, the centre of a rural community.

Further on in to the town, we called at the Information Centre and found that there were only two caravan parks in the town, those being the ones I had called yesterday looking for a powered site. We had decided that we would have to stay in camping grounds until we reached lower altitudes and warmer temperatures, and so rang ahead to the one we are in tonight at Molong about thirty kilometres north of Orange.

Orange traffic

We then parked the rig in a suitable spot and set off to discover Orange, or at least those highlighted spots on the map that we could reach on foot. Those included Robertson Park, the main street, Cook Park and the Art Gallery. Orange is named for a British Lord, not the colour of the autumn leaves that are just everywhere at this time of the year. The streets are lined with exotic trees which in a couple more weeks will be even more beautiful that they are now. The two parks we walked through and round were lovely, as was the main street. The Art Gallery was disappointing, only two of the three galleries were open to us, the third being occupied by some discussion group. The first exhibition was sculptures by a John Mead, technically clever using fibre glass and a host of other materials, but the results were pretentious and unappreciated by Chris and I. The second was a collection of fabrics, tie-dyed among other techniques, cobbled together with poor stitching and fashioned into either wall hangings or ethereal flowing dresses, all created by India Flinders. I appreciated the charm of garments, Chris was singularly unimpressed.

We then drove three kilometres up to the Botanic Gardens which cover an area of 17 hectares. We walked the perimeter of the gardens, pausing to fill my handbag with apples and pears lying neglected on the ground under the trees. Orange has been an important fruit growing area since the early 1900s. Seventy six apple varieties, twenty five crab-apples and some pears have been planted in a neat orchard, some demonstrating different styles of pruning. The fruit is being eaten by the birds or taken by the visitors who gather up the windfalls hoping the gardeners will not see them, and wondering if they really should be doing so.

The clouds were gathering and nightfall seemed closer even though it was only a little after three, so we headed off back to the Mitchell Highway, and so up to Molong.

The settlement of Molong started with a stockade in the mid 1820s and by 1835 was gazetted as a town. The main street runs at right angles to the Mitchell Highway and the camp is just past that junction. We walked around to the small supermarket to buy a couple of provisions soon after arriving and discovered the shopping centre is about the same size as Katikati. Everyone is very friendly and we have booked in for three nights.

Sun setting over our camp at Moolong

We thought we might stay two nights and do a day trip out to some historic goldmines tomorrow if the tariff wasn’t too much. Happily we were charged only $18 per night, with the third night free, which means we are effectively paying only $12 per night. Needless to say, we have decided to stay on, and will review our plans regarding the 4WD trip in the morning depending on how much rain is about. The forecast is for temperatures as low as those we experienced this morning, however the rain about might effect that.