24 November 2014 - Carcoar Dam, Blayney Shire, New South Wales

I failed to confess yesterday of a caravanning sin. Yesterday when we arrived at Wilks Park in Wagga Wagga, my husband must have spent ten minutes or more driving around and around the rather extensive area looking for the perfect level spot. We all do it and all look quite stupid as we do so. Finally, in exasperation, I suggested a spot which he said was a “driveway” and I countered that it was only so because it was the most convenient place to exit from a certain part of the park. So, after my insistence, we settled on an excellent spot, well-worn from the passing of wheels, but not blocking anyone in or out, or so we thought. Once we were set up, legs down, all the bits and pieces in the caravan unsecured and coffee made, Chris noticed that the skinny end of a fifth wheeler very close to our dining window; too close if the tow vehicle was a great big truck. I had seen it but thought that anyone brave enough to tow such a monstrosity would be quite able to manoeuvre into a hitch position. Chris was not too sure. The owner was not there but we kept an eye out for him.

He arrived in due course and probably muttered rude words under his breathe, or perhaps more loudly to his wife who looked rather downtrodden. Chris went out and asked him if he wanted us to move or would we be okay? Mr Grumps assured us we were alright and that he would be hitching on once they returned from dinner out and they would be off early in the morning. They were back from their dinner by about 6.30 pm, still with plenty of daylight, and after much messing about (I could have done better myself) finally hitched on. We should have moved because there was no love in his eyes when I went out to discard the rubbish. Amazingly, when Chris went out near midnight, he found they were already gone. Chris said it was all my fault, and I said that it was not at all, although I did say that in future I would share the responsibility of positioning the caravan as well. So such is my confession of our inconsiderate action, and if Mr Grumpy does read this, I am sorry, for what it is worth.

For ourselves, we were on the road by about 9 am, back onto the bumpy Olympic Highway, up through yet more farmland, much of it in the process of harvesting. I was fascinated by the rows of semi-harvested grain reminding me of my old candlewick dressing gown, the gold furrows of grain seeds pushed into high rows leaving a bald path between. Chris reckoned the golden grain looked fit to burst and so it did, in the brilliant sunshine we enjoyed today.

Junee is only just over forty kilometres north of Wagga Wagga, with a population of 4,000, an extra 1,850 out and about in the greater shire and sits at an elevation of 320 metres ASL, arrived at rather insidiously because at no point of our journey today or yesterday did we have the sensation of climbing to too much above sea level. Here we were still in the Riverina district so called because of the influence of the Murrumbidgee River, although Junee lies thirty five kilometres north of that well-known water course.

Junee is, or rather was, first and foremost a railway town, which belies the impression I had while carrying its name in my head during our years of travel here. I envisaged an outback town a little like Longreach in Queensland, but I assure you, I was very wrong. Today the town in this vibrant agricultural district shone and glittered in the bright sunshine, the many rose gardens up and down the street, a wealth of colour. There is some evidence that the town is no longer at its best, but it still serves the inhabitants well and they in turn are proud of it.

Roses and the Junee railway station

Railway construction commenced in New South Wales during the early 1850s and passed by here in 1878. From here the lines branched out this way and that, and here at this important rail depot were the station, various sidings, an engine shed and a hand operated turntable. The station still stands today and is as grand as any we have seen from yesteryear.

Junee also gained fame for its clothing factory opened in 1943. During the Second World War it produced colossal quantities of fleecy nightgowns for the women’s services from Australian wool and from cotton yarn knitted in Sydney and finished in Junee. Approximately 20,000 dozen of these garments were made each year and were known throughout Australia as “Junee Nights”.

Beyond Junee is yet another rail feature, the Bethungra railway spiral, and while it is small compared to New Zealand’s Raurimu Rail Spiral, it is unique here in Australia.

More roses and the Pub in Junee

The Bethungra Range which lies about thirty five kilometres north of Junee was at first crossed by rail by means of maintaining a special purpose locomotive at Bethangra to double bank trains up the one in forty grade track over the range. In 1941, construction began on a new “upline” to Sydney, which included a quite complex full 360-degree spiral track of a one in sixty-six grade, compensated for curvature, immediately north of Bethingra. This deviation today is regarded as a rare feat of railway engineering in Australia and is the only full 360-degree spiral in the Southern Hemisphere, which also means that perhaps the Raurimu is not as wondrous after all. The first train up the spiral ran in July 1946.

Fifty two kilometres on, we arrived at Cootamundra, another place whose name has tickled my fancy for some time. This rural town is somewhat larger than Junee with a population of 7,334 and substantial commercial streets, although they were relatively quiet today with it being Sunday. We sought a flat place to park and turn the fridge on while we walked about, and found ourselves on the edge of a lovely tree lined park, where a cricket match was underway.

Given that Cootamundra is the great Don Bradman’s place of birth, this seemed only appropriate and even more so after we had walked up and down through the CBD, to find ourselves a bench in the shade and watch the match. Chris assured me that the teams were very good for amateurs and pointed out several aspects of the game adding to my education of The Game. I have decided that cricket should be taught and played by all primary age children so long as they do not have to fill roles outside being batters and fielders. No child would hate the game and of course many would develop a great passion for it. Had I been taught cricket, I might have been less disparaging and evasive about team sports as I grew up. Alas, there were never enough children in my primary schools to make up a couple of teams even if one included the beginners right through to the eleven year olds, so I was saved the effort.

We had talked about walking about Young, given that it too is a substantial place with quite a history. It is this place, once known as Lambing Flats, where the riots of the same name, involving Chinese miners, took place, giving rise to Australia’s White Australia policy, one of the first laws after Federation, a fact that is now viewed with less pride than it once was. But instead we simply topped up with fuel and carried on through. No brownie points here!

I should mention that Young has rebranded itself the Cherry Capital of Australia, along with several other places, and roadside stalls all the way from Wombat to the south of Young through to the “Capital” itself offer cherries at prices far below those we bought in the Adelaide Hills a couple of years ago.

Cowra too is a substantial rural town, one we had passed through after returning to Australia last February, although cutting through from Canberra rather than from the more southerly direction. Here we parked near the McDonalds for an ice-cream, badly in need of a sugar fix to keep the eyes propped open. Instead we were waylaid by a truck driver waiting for someone to come with a replacement tyre for his Double-B rig. He was interested in the fact our caravan was for sale and we spent some time trying to convince him that this was just the van for him and his wife. We left him with our telephone number; who knows what might become of this lead.

After consuming our calorie laden treats, we hit the road again, but now on the Mid-Western Highway and travelled on toward Bathurst, or rather toward Blayney, and turned off soon after Carcoar to this wonderful camping spot listed in our Camps Six bible. 

The Carcoar Dam was built in 1970 for irrigation purposes but apparently provides water these days to a gold mine, according to an interesting character who has set up a semi-permanent home here in the camp, although I have to report that I have been unable to verify that any such mine exists these days in the area. The area submerged by the dam when full is 390 hectares, the maximum depth forty one metres and the catchment area 228 square kilometres. The dam wall is fifty two kilometres high and the actual dam 268 metres wide, although it seemed much longer as we walked across it this afternoon.

Our camp at Carcoar

We found a whole lot of others had arrived before us but there was one small level spot for us. We parked up, remaining hitched and wandered about, watching the day trippers with their speedboats on the lake and chatting with fellow campers, some of whom have been here for weeks and weeks, all for free!

We walked back up the road above the camp where there was an information area all about the wind turbines spinning rather obviously on the hill beyond the lake. Here we learned the true details of the wind farm consisting of one more turbine than I had counted on our arrival; there are in fact fifteen turbines here, all constructed and put into operation in 2000. Based on their life expectancy, learned in the south of Western Australia, it means that it is not too long now before they will all have to be decommissioned and replaced. Such are the wonders of green energy!

This evening as I write this I can only hear the calls of the birds late to their nests and the lowing of cattle from across the dam which I saw grazing on an area below an earlier water level. Perhaps later when we are lying in our bed and there are no other distractions, we shall hear the whump, whump of the wind turbines which are really not that far from us at all.