sonny photos

Fossicking for Kangaroos and hopping gold at Hill End :-)

So after Orange, we arrived on dark at little historical town, Hill End ( gets dark at 5:30 here in winter now, crazy ) Next morning and the scene outside our bedroom, frost everywhere. We stayed upstairs in Hosie's old grocery store beautiful day coming up, but a cold one As it was dark when we arrived, I go for a little morning stroll before breakfast, and look what I spot on the block of land across from Hosie's
some kangaroos grazing in the morning sun trying to get closer to one of them relatively tame for a wild kangaroo church service couple more, probably enjoying the warm sun rays as much as I am Hey ! No fighting outside church


party's over off they hop big old pine tree where a church used to be, in its hey day, Hill End had some 52 pubs ( licensed and non licensed ),now only one left & well over a dozen churches and from memory, a population of up to 8000 at one stage, now just under a 100 remain After breakfast we drive up to one of the look outs,Beaufoy ( named after a local 1870's photographer ) and this is what it was all about Hawks Hill, see all the gravel on the side, there were about 20 mines along there and in the middle of that hill is where one of Australia's largest nuggets was found some 50 meters underground weighing in at close to 300kg, strike it rich the end of Hawk Hill and at the bottom of the photo, a still operating mine quite a lot of small alluvial gold is still found around these parts, so best we have a go to we got our pans and some one optimistically thought we would each need one of these jars to collect our small pieces we would find...for sure we gave it a go, but involved getting our hands wet and dirty ( dirty was not a problem ) but th water was ice cold, I think we might have to come back on a warmer day, say early autumn :-) all (cold ) hands on deck even though all is bushy, you can tell there was once a thriving community out here, judging by this old orchard
amazing blue sky day today finding lots of old artifacts, but.... after spending well over an hour here, still nothing in these little jars
we leave empty (cold) handed driving down the blue mountains, back to Sydney
"There's gold in them hills"

:-)

Duntryleague , Orange

After our bush walk in Lithgow, we planned to have the most amazing vegetarian dinner in Orange, about 50 km west of Bathurst ( sorry no photos - Jacqui will do a post of the dinner soon ) We discovered it about 3-4 years ago on our way to Dubbo zoo. Bodhi Garden in Orange it's called, and I'm guessing they are Tibetan, such a variety of dishes, all vegetarian and still some taste like chicken dishes and others like beef, very yummy. So when in Orange next, visit Bodhi Garden for a healthy meal. Speaking of Orange always wondered why it was called Orange, as there it is not an Orange growing district, so why the name.
It was first called Black Man's Swamp, after John Blackman who was guide, employed by Captain Percy. Then later on in the 1820's , surveyor Sir Thomas Mitchell, who served in the Peninsula war as a aides des camps to the Duke of Wellington alongside, Prince William from Holland royal House Of Orange. So Thomas Mitchell named it after his dutch friend who went on to become the King of Holland.
Aniiiiiiiiiiiway, we stayed at the Duntry League historic house, always nice to stay somewhere like this as opposed to the sterile motels. Beautiful place just on the outskirts of Orange on a golf course. I've seen building before like this, but did not realize that those posts are solid cast iron, I just always thought it was a hard wood. So these iron posts were cast in Sydney and then shipped out ( some 290km ) to the country, back in the day, amazing stuff beautiful tiled floor, all individual pieces too, these are not tiles with a pattern, they pieces to make a pattern outside out room for the night ( yes, they did have an actual bathroom and we did not do it old school ) view from our room in the morning, they had a family room that we all fit in love me a good old iron lace verandah would look nicer in summer ( the barren trees ) inside After breakfast, see-ing as we are in wine country we visit some of the local vienyards Spring flowers are up early on one of the vineyards they had a little animal farm, Belle managed to touch one of the newborn lambs, only a few days old. Now drive of to Hill End.