02-10/12-2025: More Leisurely Days

After that frightening drive home through the storm, we needed some low key recovery time. Unfortunately for Margaret, she was up early driving her bus route. We, on the other hand, didn’t do much at all on Monday.

I actually watched the Super Bowl, which was broadcast here at 10:30am Monday morning. Terrible game if you were a Chiefs fan, but the Eagles were, well, super. Funny to be in Australia watching the Super Bowl. The only down side of it was that all the commercials were Aussie ads, so I didn’t get to see any of the American Super Bowl ads.

Monday was a rainy, overcast day, not conducive to any outdoor activities. The best thing was a dinner invitation from Daniel. He made his delicious massaman curry dish. He made it for us the last time we were here and I think because we raved about it then, he repeated the dish for us. His massaman is with beef, potatoes, and cashews and the curry is just the right amount of spice. We were in heaven. It was such a nice thing for him to have done.

After dinner, Margaret, Clare and I played the card game Phase Ten. I’ll have to buy this game because its fun. It’s a variation of rummy and the name is because a player works her way through 10 different combinations in order (phases) of various sets, runs, and colors of cards. If you don’t achieve a phase when another player goes out, you’re stuck on that phase until you achieve it. Anyway, it is a fun game.

As we were leaving, Daniel provided us with 3 containers of another dish he had prepared, packed nicely with rice. It turned out to be like a beef stew, and it was delicious when we had it. Another very nice thing for Daniel to have done. He is a very giving young man.

Tuesday, another poor weather day, was also a low key day. Christine and I took another stab at playing ping pong. We were only slightly better than the last time. I went with Lou to Kandos to buy a couple of ingredients for the dinner I was fixing. I wanted to make the teriyaki chicken and sesame noodles that Dave and Eve make for us when we visit. Thanks, Dave and Eve for the recipe! It was a hit, although I had to use a George Forman grill for the chicken because Lou’s backyard barbecue grill had water in it and I didn’t want to take the time to clean it. The GF grill didn’t care much for the teriyaki marinade on the chicken and burned it, but overall, the dinner was yummy, so said Lou and Christine.

It’s hard to believe that one week from today, Tuesday, we’ll be on an airplane flying back to America.

Wednesday was my last trip to Mudgee and Christine joined us today. I’m so happy that she came.

Margaret dropped Lou, Christine and me off at the cafe we frequent to have a cappuccino. This is the tradition. We were missing Angela, who usually meets us. She’s now in rehab after having a hip replacement. Today is her birthday, so we sent her birthday greetings and a photo of us via Messenger. She was most appreciative.

Christine went to talk with two women who were at the cafe while we were having our cappuccino. They were having a wonderful time and their laughter was contagious. Christine stopped by to tell them how happy she was to share their good time while listening to their laughter. We had a nice conversation with them. One of the women was a photographer and the other told us about her 3-year-old daughter who was on a billboard in Times Square because she is a child beauty pageant star. Of course, the mom showed us photos and videos of her child. At any rate, it was fun to chat with them. Good friends are so important and these two women were definitely good friends.

Margaret picked up Lou to take him to the podiatrist. Christine and I wandered along the main streets of Mudgee window shopping. We also checked out the Anglican church, St. John the Baptist. It had some really beautiful stained glass windows.

I took this photo while we were waiting to cross the street. It could serve as a post card for Mudgee showing 2 of the most popular landmarks in the town.

We went to Woolies to shop for a couple of items and met up with Lou. Margaret and Clare eventually completed their shopping. They then had to run off to Coles, another grocery, to get a couple of items not available at Woolies. We all met up and dashed off to McDonald’s for a quick lunch and then picked up Regina at the allotted place. We were a little late, which puts stress on Margaret. She needs to be at the bus depot by 3:00 for her afternoon school bus run. Of course, we got behind a slow poke driver on the Lue Road, which put us further behind. So, it was a little tense as Margaret has to drop off her groceries at her house, drop us off at Lou’s, drop off Regina in Kandos, and get to the bus depot on time.

Wednesday afternoon Lou made one of his scrumptious fruit salads with the fruit he bought today. We have been enjoying nightly fruit salad for dessert, with ice cream. At Margaret’s the other night, she served fruit with Vanilla and Boysenberry ice cream, and I loved it. Lou had picked up a half gallon of it today for tonight. I guess boysenberry is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry and I have never had it. It has a lovely flavor mixed in with the vanilla ice cream. Louis also placed a ship on the salad to be our going away token. He couldn’t find the airplane he wanted to use, so the ship sufficed.

From the dining table, we look out across his back lawn. We noticed growing clouds in the distance and I thought another big storm was brewing.

But no, there was no storm. It was a cool, somewhat chilly evening with a full moon. Lou sat out in the yard for a while and we joined him briefly. With the bright moon we didn’t see many stars, but it was lovely watching the moon slowly rise.

We’ve been trying to make plans for our departure, which has been up in the air due to illnesses in families down on the Central Coast. We haven’t been able to catch up with Alex and Gloria (Lou’s sister) because Alex has started chemotherapy. Originally, we were going to spend several days with them on his new yacht the first week of February, but those plans had to be scrapped because of the start of his chemo. We then made plans to stay with Marilyn (Lou’s sister-in-law) for a couple of nights and she was going to drive us to the airport. Her sister is ill with an unexpected cancer diagnosis and Marilyn needs to be with her. We will stay at her place Saturday night on the Central Coast at Somersby, but she’s not available to drive us to the airport. We do have plans to get together with several folks for dinner Saturday evening. Alex cannot be exposed at this point in his chemo, but hopefully we’ll get to see Gloria. Final plans for Sunday, Monday, and getting to the airport on Tuesday still are to be made. Lou, Margaret and Clare will drive us Saturday to Marilyn’s, but they’ll return to Rylstone on Sunday after dropping us off wherever we decide to stay for the last 2 night. All this is a plan in progress.

02-09-2025: Dunn’s Swamp

After our scare with Lou’s sudden illness last evening, he was up and about doing his Sunday morning duties at the church. Thank goodness he recovered so quickly. I was rather worried last night. We’ll have to keep a close eye on him for the next few days.

We have talked about kayaking at Dunn’s Swamp since we arrived, but due to one thing or another, we never managed to fit it in. This weekend was our last chance, but the weather has been either threatening to storm, or storming. This afternoon there was a window of reasonable weather, however, no one wanted to load the trailer with kayaks and go through all the effort of unloading and launching especially since the weather forecast was for more storms in the evening. So, we decided to go to Dunn’s Swamp for a hike.

Along the way, Margaret drove us around Dabee, the huge estate where she and Clare do cleaning. This is one of the homes of architects Gary and Susan Rockwell, clearly one of the 1%ers. They have homes all over the world. Margaret says they helicopter in occasionally to spend time at Dabee. The estate is actually a working ranch with probably thousands of cattle. It is an incredibly beautiful property with lush landscaping, loads of out-buildings for various purposes. The Rockwells, in addition to their use of the property, invite loads of friends and family to come and stay, thus creating the housekeeping job for Margaret and Clare. A little down the road is the first home, Fernside, the Rockwells lived in and raised their family. Although not so grand, it also is a beautiful property. As Margaret went in to do some work, we marveled at the peacocks strolling around.

Margaret and Clare said it is a pleasure working there because it is so beautiful. And the best part, she said, is that the Rockwells are wonderful people and have been very generous.

After our Dabee and Fernside tour, it was on to Dunn’s Swamp.The Aboriginal name for the area is Ganguddy. It’s location is within the huge Wollemi National Park. The Dunn’s Swamp recreational area was created when the town of Kandos built a weir across the Cudgegong River in the 1920s. It was built to supply water to the Kandos cement factory. The water impoundment area created by the weir is known as Dunn’s Swamp. I don’t know why it’s called that. The only thing that I could find is that below the weir, the creek originally wasn’t much of a creek, rather a boggy swamp. The use of the name “swamp” might come from that. Dunn’s Swamp is a beautiful reservoir. It is surrounded by sandstone walls and pagoda rocks. It’s very picturesque. In the national park are camping sites and the area is very popular for water sports, hiking, and camping.

With about two hours until dusk, we set off on a trail to the dam wall (weir). It was great seeing the river from the land because we had kayaked the river to the weir along the same route in a past visit. We started at river level and slowly walked upwards through the bush. There were amazing rock formations along the path.

Christine and I added to our photos of eucalypts, so interesting to see all the variations.

The vistas across the river were beautiful.

We stopped at a place along the river for group photos, one by Clare with all of us, and one by Christine.

After walking uphill along the path, we got to steps going down. Christine and I talked about whether she wanted to continue. She decided to wait at the steps so Lou, Margaret and I went on. We went down a lot of steps, leveled off, then went up again. We got to an area where we had to cross two rocky ledges. Thankfully, there was a railing to hold on to, because without that railing, I would have been rolling down the rock into the river far below. It’s a good thing Christine decided to sit this part out. Also, when Lou got to the first rocky ledge, he decided that was it for him and he took a seat to wait for us on the return trip.

Once past the rocky ledges, we found a flight of steps going up further. That was an easy rise. Then came a fairly vertical rock face that we had to pull ourselves up via a chain attached to poles sunk into the rocks. I found it very difficult, but Margaret and Clare scampered up like it was nothing. This photo shows where the chain starts just where Margaret is standing. Clare is already at the top ledge and I’m huffing my way up some steps. From where Margaret is, the chain goes up and around for about 40 feet, reaching the flat top of the rock.

Fortunately, after pulling myself up with great effort, I turned around to see a very gorgeous view.

We climbed a bit farther and came to the top of the rock which was a flat section that offered a gorgeous view of the river below. You can see the ledge that we crossed on the right side of the photo between the two clumps of trees.

Once at this lookout, I called down to Lou, who was sitting at the start of the rocky ledge suggesting that he start back to where we left Christine. We had been gone long enough that I was concerned that she would be worried. At first, he heard us, but didn’t see us. He finally looked way up the rocks and spotted us. He agreed, and began his return. I put a blue arrow in the photo below pointing to where he was, just to give a little perspective of how much higher we had climbed.

Margaret, Clare and I continued the path to the weir. From the lookout, it was mostly downhill and fairly easy to walk. We arrived at the weir, which was quite a structure. The weir held back the Cudgegong River. There was a sluice-way where water could run through.

We decided to continue on to a section called Long Cave. It was a flat pathway along the river. Along the way, Clare picked up a beetle that she saw, called a Christmas beetle, which is a member of the scarab family. Very colorful.

Long cave is an undercutting in the rock created, I assume, by flooding waters of the river. It was a huge rock overhead and a narrow cutout below this huge rock. It didn’t look so big approaching, but as you can see from the photo on the right, definitely a huge rock overhead.

Meanwhile, Lou got back to Christine and she was very happy to see him. She took photos of him, and he of her as they waited our return.

Margaret, Clare and I started our return. Going down the rock holding on to the chain was scary, but we managed. Margaret later confessed that she found it a bit difficult to scale that section. On the return, Margaret and Clare took a right turn onto another trail to Pagoda Lookout. I had intended to also visit this lookout, but by now I was pooped and red-faced from effort, so I continued on to find Lou and Christine. Margaret and Clare had to scramble over rocks without any indication of a path to get to Pagoda lookout. I’m sorry I didn’t go with them, but I doubt I would have been able to reach the lookout. They said it was quite a challenge to get there. Clare took photos from the lookout.

She shot a video while walking along the rocks at the lookout. I got queasy later looking at the video. She was very high up and walking along a ledge. It would have been a long way down if she had accidentally slipped or tripped.

I had joined up with Lou and Christine and we waited near the car park for Margaret and Clare. By now it was dusk and the sky was showing stormy weather coming in. Soon, Margaret and Clare arrived and we could start our 30-minute drive back to Rylstone.

We had a wonderful hike at Dunn’s Swamp. It had been the perfect time of day to go because it wasn’t hot and by late afternoon, the crowds had dispersed. I didn’t miss kayaking at all and found it so interesting to walk through the areas that we saw two years ago in kayaks on the river.

On the return drive back to Rylstone, a massive storm hit. We were all shocked at its severity. We had been seeing lightening off in the distance and knew we would get rain, but all of a sudden it poured, and within a few seconds, quarter-size hail came crashing down. The hail hitting the car was like being inside a tin can being hit by a metal spoon. It was so loud. I am so surprised that the windshield didn’t get cracked. The hail, rain, and wind were so fierce that Margaret stopped a couple of times because she couldn’t see the road. The one thing that made the drive possible was the reflective markers along the side of the road every 20 feet or so. We were all frightened and jumped at very big lightening strikes along the way. I was scared that a tree would come crashing down in the wind. There was tree debris all over the road. I know that we all will associate our trip to Dunn’s Swamp today with this storm. It definitely was a memorable one. I don’t think I’ve every experienced such a fierce storm while being out in it, and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such large hail. Fortunately, Margaret didn’t find much damage to her car from the hail.

Eventually, the hail stopped and we just had rain, but the conditions remained very challenging as pockets of fog were present. Margaret crept along very slowly until finally we saw the lights of the hospital in Rylstone. I think we all breathed a collection sigh of relief that we made it back to Rylstone. What a drive, and what a driver Margaret is. She got us home safe and sound.

02-03/07-2025 Leisurely Week

We didn’t have any big trips planned for this week, so we enjoyed a leisurely week around Rylstone.

Lou and I walked to the cafe most mornings this week, always an enjoyable walk in the early morning. The temperatures around 7:00am are what Lou describes as “fresh.” We’ve had clear skies every morning with a bit of a breeze some mornings. Lou’s flags showed beautifully – the Malta and Australia flags.

It’s a lovely walk along the golf course. We also look to see how many campers pulled into the caravan park along the way.

Lou’s the town greeter sitting outside the cafe in the morning. Most people are very responsive. He can tell who’s a tourist and he makes a point of finding out where they are from and chatting a little about where they are staying. Most everyone, whether local or tourist, stop at least to say hello and pat Banjo. Banjo always keeps an eye on Lou when he goes in to place our order. The cafe is also a community gallery and there is always various artwork on display.

Here are more photos around Rylstone.

Monday we went swimming at the Kandos pool. It amazes me that this little town has an Olympic size swimming pool, and again when we were there it was virtually empty.

Tuesday we didn’t do much of anything, but I did get Christine down to the carport where Lou has a ping pong table. We rarely play ping pong, except on our Olivia trips (the cruise ship always has a table where the ball might end up in the ocean). We’re really bad at ping pong and suffered through a game. We didn’t do much else Tuesday because of the heat. The temperatures soared back into the upper 90s. Nice afternoon for a nap under the ceiling fan in our room. Lou’s singing group started up again in Kandos and so I cooked dinner while he was at practice, a nice (hopefully) frittata with sausage and potatoes.

Wednesday, of course, was Mudgee day. A funny thing happened on the drive. I mentioned that I sent Eve a birthday greeting on Messenger and Margaret said she did, too. Lou then pulled out his phone and typed a Messenger greeting to Eve. Somehow, he must have hit a button for a call. A moment later, Lou’s phone rang and it was Eve asking did he call her. So we had a short chat with Eve wishing her a happy birthday from Australia, even though it was still the day before her birthday in America.

In Mudgee, I had seen this statue when sitting across the street having a coffee with Lou. The statue is of Louisa Lawson and I loved reading her plaque – “there is no power in the world like that of women…” A young boy saw us looking at the statue and he came up to us telling us about Louisa Lawson and showing us all the books she had written that were sculpted around the back of the statue. It was very cute that he was so informative and proud of Lawson’s accomplishments.

Thursday at noon, Christine and I phoned Eve to wish her a happy birthday. Noon in Rylstone on Thursday was 8pm Wednesday evening in Vermont, so Eve’s actual birthday. We couldn’t keep the Messenger video call going, and didn’t have much luck with an audio call on Messenger. We were able to see her briefly, which was nice, but we finally just dialed her using the cell service on my cellphone, and that worked beautifully. It was nice catching up a bit with Eve, although, things are really a bit scary and up in the air for her as a teacher. She teaches all the things that the Trump administration is trying to eliminate, like, DEI, , the 1619 Project, racial and ethnic injustice, etc. So far, her school’s administration has not made any changes, but I’m sure it is really frightening at this moment in time to be an advocate teaching all that the Trump administration is trying to blow up.

Thursday evening we were invited to Margaret’s for a birthday party. A friend of Daniel’s, Jess, who has been living in the little cottage on Margaret’s property, had a birthday today. Daniel ordered Chinese takeaway for everyone and Margaret set out a nice table in the carport where we could catch an occasional breeze and be comfortable. Jess’s daughter Freya, aged 2, was entertaining, as was Jess’s grandmother Helen, who had a lot to talk about while we were there. It was a pleasant evening.

Friday Lou had to get some blood work done. There is a health service with lab at a small little hospital here in Rylstone. The hospital is similar to a critical access hospital in America. It has an emergency room, a few beds for stabilizing patients, an ambulance service, and a helipad. Most patients are stabilized and then transported by road or air to an appropriate full-service health facility.

After the blood work, Lou and I went to the church, St. Malachy’s, to await a truck that would bring the Joy to the World Christmas display shed back to Lou’s. Lou’s friends Arthur and Gary were there to help. I thought this might be a difficult venture, but the truck was a tip truck and it very easily scooped up the shed and pulled it onto the bed of the truck.

At Lou’s the truck easily backed up to Lou’s big shed and the Christmas shed was lowered to the ground and the guys pulled it into Lou’s shed.

Afterward, Christine, Lou, Arthur and I went to Yum Cha & Tea House for lunch. We weren’t expecting to go out to lunch, but we had a lovely dim sim lunch of 6 varieties of dumplings while sitting in a lovely space. Arthur put some kind of sauce into a little bowl with soy sauce and said he loved whatever kind of sauce it was. We all did the same. When the first set of dumplings arrived, we all put them in our little bowls with the sauce. Arthur ate his right down. Lou and I coughed after the first bite because the sauce was quite full of chilies and was quite powerful. Christine didn’t have quite as much trouble as Lou and I. The dumplings were delicious, however, and after adjusting to the sauce and not getting so much on the dumplings, we enjoyed the food and the lovely Jasmin tea. And, we didn’t have to worry about conversation because Arthur had a lot to talk about.

We all kind of lazed around the rest of the afternoon. I’m getting addicted to an afternoon nap, which surprises me because I haven’t been much of a nap taker. Today was the third nap this week.

After dinner, Lou, Christine and I sat out in the back yard trying to cool off. It was a pleasant evening outside and we watched the stars begin to appear. It was a half-moon, very bright, which prevented us from seeing a host of stars, but Christine identified Orion and Lou pointed out the Southern Cross. I Googled to see if some of the other constellations that we see at home are visible, and no, constellations like the Dippers and Cassiopeia are not visible in the Southern Hemisphere. We were amazed by how many airplanes we saw. It was a lovely evening just sitting out in the cool evening just chatting.

Saturday morning Lou and I went to pick up some tin sheets. The lady who rides with us to Mudgee on Wednesdays, Regina, said her husband had a bunch of sheets behind his shed that he was going to take to the dump. She called her husband Garry and arranged for those tin sheets to be given to Lou. We arrived at their house and Garry and Lou loaded the sheets into Lou’s trailer. I talked with Regina while the loading was going on. I really listened while the loading was going on. It would be interesting to get Regina and Arthur together. I’m not sure what would happen and who would talk more. Garry and Regina’s property is neat as a pin and over the past 5 years, they have created a lovely garden and numerous sheds. Garry has quite a man cave with a Harley Davidson theme and a giant Harley bike in the corner which he still rides. He’s a big, tattooed guy with an earring and I never would have pictured him as Regina’s husband, but it’s clear they are a loving couple.

On the way back home, Lou stopped at the church to mow the spot where the Joy to the World shed had been sitting. After mowing, we loaded the mower back into the trailer and went home. When we got to Lou’s and unhitched the trailer from the car, we noticed that the trailer tailgate was missing. That’s a big problem because that’s where the license plate is attached, and without that, Lou can’t use his trailer. So, we got back in the car and retraced our steps looking for the tailgate that had apparently fallen off the trailer somewhere. We drove back and forth from Kandos a couple of times looking along the road for the tailgate, but no go.

We came home to pick up Christine because we were going to the Rylstone market, kind of like a monthly farmer’s market and craft fair. Before we went there, we drove to Kandos again looking for the lost tailgate, but didn’t see it. Then on to the market.

Clare has a nice display of her cookies, cupcakes and bakes with a fantastic book showing all the beautiful cakes she has produced for weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions. She is so very talented with her baking, her artwork, her costuming.

Here’s a photo of beautifully decorated cupcakes.

After telling Margaret and Clare about the missing tailgate, Clare posted on her Facebook page a message about the tailgate, hoping that someone found it. Christine and I wandered around the market for a bit chatting with vendors and looking at the lovely items for sale that were mostly handmade.

When we got back home Lou got a message from Clare saying that the tailgate had been retrieved by a guy and taken to the service station across the street from the church. Lou was absolutely thrilled! Off he went to pick it up. He spoke with the man who found it, who marveled that we didn’t hear it falling off the trailer as we left the church after mowing. He didn’t recognize Lou’s car, but he picked it up and carried across the street to the service station. Thank goodness there are still Good Samaritans.

We were thinking of kayaking at Dunn’s Swamp, but with thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon, we opted for a visit to the pool. Again, we arrived and had the whole pool to ourselves. A few people arrived, but still it’s amazing that a huge pool is not utilized very much, or else we’re just lucky with the times that we show up.

By the time we left the pool, the storm clouds were moving in. I’m glad we decided to skip Dunn’s Swamp, although it’s a wonderful kayaking area. Maybe we can do that tomorrow.

When we got home, Lou had a little episode of feeling shaky. He had a low-grade fever. We think between the sun, and then sitting in a wet suit, he got a chill. He also hurt his good knee when he sat down on the side of the pool. Because of his shaking, I covered him up in a blanket in his recliner. He napped for a bit, but didn’t feel any better. After taking his temperature, we learned he had a fairly high fever, 101.4. We got him into bed and I consulted with Margaret. We did a COVID test (negative) and called his doctor, but didn’t get a call back. We made Lou comfortable and he went to sleep. It was kind of scary that he got sick so suddenly.

Sunday morning, Lou got up, showered, dressed, and had breakfast. His fever is gone and he feels reasonably well. Thank goodness the episode of sickness passed quickly. We’ll carry on today, as we enter our final days in Rylstone.

02-02-2025: Zig Zag Railway

Our excursion today was to ride on the heritage, small-gauge, steam engine train call the Zig Zag Railway. Just as building the tunnels through the Wolgan Valley was quite a feat, building the Lithgow Zig Zag was a great engineering accomplishment to overcome an otherwise insurmountable climb and descent on the western side of the Blue Mountains. The Lithgow Zig Zag railway operated between 1869 and 1910 and was built by hand up and down ragged cliffs and steep valleys. The engineering included four large rock cuttings, three fine stone viaducts with 30-foot semi-circular arches and a short tunnel.

Margaret chauffeured us to just past Lithgow to the Zig Zag Railroad car park. The Zig Zag Railroad corporation started as a steam engine preservation society. The corporation is staffed by all volunteers, steam engine enthusiasts, and they have amassed several thousand engines, rail cars, and wagons, lovingly renovated and preserved. This steam engine, coal powered to make the steam from the firebox to the boiler, was at one end of our train today. Steam engines are not so wonderful because they produce smoke and grit, which you can feel, especially when going through the tunnel.

The rail cars are comfortable and have windows that can be lowered so you can lean out during the trip to take in the views.

We started our 90-minute journey and fairly quickly went into a tunnel, very dark for a few seconds until the lights in the car came on. After the tunnel, the train travels along sheer rock cliffs until we got close to the valley.

When I heard about the Zig Zag, I thought of the shape like a Z and during the early stages of the trip I wondered when we would start zig zagging. I soon learned that the zig zag is a process of going in one direction, and then going in the opposite direction switched on to a different track. Going forward, then backward, then forward again onto different tracks is where the zig zag gets its name and is how the train climbs or descends the western side of the Blue Mountains as each track is a different elevation. Historically, there was another zig zag train line on the eastern side of the Blue Mountains as well.

One of the problems with this zig zag approach to climbing or descending was that it created bottlenecks of trains reversing while others were waiting to use the track. That’s why after 1910, ten tunnels were dug out so that it eliminated the need for trains to reverse onto the three different levels of track and could go straight through. Diesel engines replaced steam engines, which were much more powerful and could push trains up the ascent and over the Blue Mountains. There was a diesel engine at one end of our train pushing or pulling along with the steam engine at the other end.

We relished the ride and saw great vistas across the valley. We crossed one of three viaducts, which gave us a view of the valley.

We arrived at a stop at Top Points railway station. It is situated at the reversal point of the Middle and Top Roads of the Zig Zag Railway. The signal box is where the action is taken to switch the rails for either the ascent or decent. We had a 10 minute stop to get out and take a look.

Back on the train, we switched onto another track and reversed direction to descend to Bottom Points station. It is situated at the reversal point of the Lower and Middle Roads of the Zig Zag Railway. We had another 10 minute stop at Bottom Points to take a look around.

We then reversed and started our ascent back up to Top Points and then on to Clarence, our original starting point. On the ascent, the steam engine was at the front of the train and we could tell how hard the engine was working to take us back up the mountain. The elevation at Clarence is 3,658 above sea level, so it was a long, slow ascent.

The train crossed another viaduct and we could hang out the window and look down. Of course, hanging on to one’s cellphone is all important. It could easily take a fast trip into the valley. As we crossed the viaduct and looked down, we could see a worker down on the lowest track.

This photo shows the three levels of track.

It was a fun ride and I think we all enjoyed it. I especially like learning about historical things, and the history of trains in such a mountainous area was very interesting.

On the ride home, I asked if we could stop at a lookout point over the Capertee Valley. The road to Lithgow passes the Capertee Valley and you can get an incredible view. The road, on past visits, was under repair as one side of the road, which hangs off the side of the mountain, had collapsed. We never got much of a view and the lookout was closed so this is the first time we’ve been able to see the full valley.

The Capertee Valley is reported to be the widest valley on earth, so their signage says. Wikipedia disagrees, stating that the Great Rift Valley in Africa is the largest. But no matter, the Capertee is a very unique and beautiful geological area. From the Pearson Lookout, one gets a tremendous view of the valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. The sandstone escarpments in the distance were visible, although the view showed how humid it was so as to make things in the distance a bit fuzzy. It was marvelous to take in this fabulous vista.

Margaret invited us to dinner when we got back to Rylstone. She had roasted a leg of lamb that morning. Within an hour of getting home, she had whipped up the rest of a delicious dinner. We haven’t seen much of Daniel this trip. He’s working full time at Woolie’s so he has limited time to be with us, but he joined us for dinner tonight and we got a chance to catch up with him.

It was a very fun day and we enjoyed ourselves a great deal.

02-01-2025: The Common

Lou had a men’s breakfast at the Anglican church this morning so we were on our own. Across the street from Lou is a nature reserve called the Common. This public space has a 1.5km loop walking trail through the bush and I’ve wanted to visit since we’ve been here. This morning is our chance, nice weather and not too hot.

Before we left Lou’s, we tried to get Banjo to go out into what we call the compound, the side screened in porch and fenced in yard. He refused to go. He’s never happy when Lou goes away and he just wanted to lie in the lounge chair. When I tried to give him a little nudge, he actually snapped at me. We decided to leave him in the house and leave him be.

Christine wasn’t too keen on going, but she came along. We should have brought a bottle of water with us because she was thirsty and had a dry mouth. Her alternative was to chew some gum and after that, she enjoyed the walk.

The path winds its way down through a grassy woodlot to a very picturesque view of the Cudgegong River and a paddock of cattle. It’s a lovely spot.

And here we are on our walk through the Common. It started off chilly, but very quickly we warmed up and had our jumpers (what the Aussies call a sweater) around our waists.

I am fascinated by gum trees, eucalypts. There are over 700 species of this really interesting flowering tree. One of the reasons I love walking through the bush is the smell of eucalyptus that permeates the air. The area we were walking through was ravaged by bushfire in 2020 and many of the trees in the Common are dead from fire or have very blackened trunks. Many were badly burned, but are still alive. It is nice to see the regeneration of the bush. For thousands, even millions, of years, the eucalypts have been ravaged by fire, but the species finds a way to keep going. Some species actually need fire for regeneration through epicormic buds. Epicormic buds lie dormant beneath the bark, their growth suppressed by hormones from active shoots higher up the plant. Under certain conditions, they grow into active shoots, such as when damage occurs to higher parts of the plant like when fire ravages the bush. The epicormic shoots look really funny poking out from the trunk making it seems as though the tree is fuzzy.

The other thing that fascinates me about gum trees is that all eucalypts grow new bark each year. Many gum trees grow so fast that they need to get rid of their bark to make room for rapid growth. The dead bark may be shed in large slabs, in ribbons or in small flakes. This makes bush walks so interesting because of all the variations in the trees and in their bark. It’s like walking through an art gallery of bark paintings. It adds color, texture, and patterns in the bush.

Here are some more photos around the Common.

I took a very long nap in the afternoon on Saturday. I guess I needed to catch up on sleep.

Later in the evening, Angela stopped in to say goodbye. She is going into hospital in Sydney for a hip replacement next Wednesday and will then go to rehab, so we won’t see her again. It was really sweet of her to want to say goodbye. She gave Christine and me holy stickers of Sister Mary MacKillop, an Australian saint canonized in 2010. Sister Mary lived from 1842 to 1909. She co-founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart whose members were known as the Josephites. Their work involved running schools in southern Australia and New South Wales for impoverished children. She was also an early reporter of clergy sexual abuse, often enraging church hierarchy and getting her excommunicated for a period of time.

It was a very thoughtful thing for Angela to present to us.

We thoroughly enjoyed meeting Angela and spending time with her. She is a very funny, opinionated, and lovely woman. She and Lou spar a bit about things, especially related to church matters, but they have a great relationship and are there for each other when the need arises.

01-31-2025: School Bus Ride

Today Margaret returns to one of her day jobs, driving a school bus. The craziest thing, though, is that students don’t start until Thursday, February 6, but each day between now and then, school bus drivers have to drive their entire routes twice a day as if they were picking up and dropping off student. Four days of, in my opinion, unnecessary fuel use and driver time. The only good part of it is that drivers get paid for driving empty school buses for the next 4 days.

Margaret’s run is unbelievably long, a 2-hour round trip of about 62 miles. Her route goes way out into the rural countryside from Rylstone. And she does this morning and afternoon. That’s a lot of driving!

Because there weren’t any students today, Margaret asked me if I’d like to ride along. Absolutely! We drove to Kandos to pick up the bus and then in the bus we drove back to Rylstone elementary and junior high. Then it’s back to Kandos high school. Then on to Ilford elementary. And now she takes all the kids to their homes, all of them off the main roads and down several country dirt roads.

I will say that the countryside she drives through is absolutely beautiful. Mostly it is rolling hills with lots of pasture land with grazing cattle, goats, and sheep. The occasional kangaroo jumps across the road.

Margaret said she loves driving and finds it very peaceful on her route. I asked her how she handles the kids on the bus. She said they are mostly well-behaved and that she sees the kids grow up from elementary school through high school, so they all know what she expects from them.

It was a great ride and I got a chance to talk with Margaret. She had a tough time during her messy divorce and has paid a really high price. It sounded to me like she got lousy legal representation and her ex-husband’s family, well-known in the area, did some dirty tricks. As a result, Margaret has had to work very hard to give her kids a stable home. In addition to driving the school bus, she does cleaning of a large homestead owned by a well-to-do-family from Sydney who allow friends and family to use the property for holidays. She does the cleaning, with Clare, in between her school bus runs, so she has to be ever conscious of time. Margaret is quite amazing, and I understand her much better having had the two hours to talk with her during her afternoon run today.

This was a great view from the top of Lou’s driveway this evening looking past the neighbor’s house.

01-30-2025: The Glow Worm Tunnel

A really interesting place we visited during our trip in 2023 was an old railway tunnel containing thousands, maybe millions, of glow worms. It was an experience then because the rail bed was full of rocks and holes and we stumbled our way through the tunnel with only cellphone flashlights to show our way and didn’t see many glow worms because of people shining lights on the ceiling, which makes the glow worms turn off. We had read that there had been improvements made through the tunnel with a walking track, making it much easier to traverse.

So off we went to Lithgow. Margaret had to take her riding mower and push mower to be serviced. With a 75 minute drive, one learns to combine errands and appointments to cut down on driving. It’s interesting to see how rural living is very different than city living. Margaret and Lou think a 45 minute drive to Mudgee, or a 75 minute drive to Lithgow, isn’t a big deal.

After dropping off the trailer with the mowers at the service place, we then proceeded to the Glow Worm Tunnel. One of the things that didn’t really improve was the dirt road we had to travel for about 30 miles. We bounced along for what seemed like forever. Although some grading had been done, the road was corrugated, as Lou called it, an apt description. It was interesting, though, to see how the landscape had recovered from the 2029/2020 bushfires. Although we saw loads of standing and downed dead trees, the scrub grass and bushes and small new trees were green and lush.

We came to a sign showing roads to two different car parks. Margaret chose the right one going to the Old Coal Path Road. The sign said 5km, but none of us believed that after going about 15 minutes down a narrow path. We came to a two-slot car park with a sign showing a map. After consulting the map, which showed a rather long, winding, track to the tunnel, we opted to head back to the fork and take the left road, which indicated 3km to a car park, also unbelievable.

Near the glow worm car park, you drive through a very narrow tunnel several hundred feet long, a taste of things to come. We finally arrived at the car park and began walking descent down to the glow worm tunnel.

The tunnel was hand-dug through the sandstone in the early 1900s for a railway through the Wolgan Valley enabling rail cars to get to the shale oil fields. It was a dangerous endeavor and many men lost their lives due to falls from the cliffs or mistimed blasts. The railway ended in 1932 and all the track was pulled up and shipped to shipped to North Africa for use as anti-tank traps and gun emplacement reinforcements during WWII.

The tunnel has since been inhabited by glow worms, tiny creatures that produce a compelling blue-green light called bioluminescence, which they use to attract their prey. Here’s a photo that I borrowed from the internet showing what the glow worm larvae looks like.

We hiked down to the tunnel entrance through the bush and rock cliffs. It is a really nice walk with many beautiful things to see.

We arrived at the tunnel and were pleased to find a proper cement walkway, with hand rail through the tunnel. What a difference that walkway and handrail made!

The tunnel is 1,320 feet long and is curved. Within a few minutes, once past the curve so the light from the entrance was blocked, it became very, very dark, but with the walkway and handrail, you really didn’t need a torch. You could just shuffle along holding on to the railing. What a difference from our last visit where we stumbled along in the unimproved rail bed, stepping in puddles and tripping over rocks.

It took a while for our eyes to adjust to the total darkness, but as we shuffled along into the tunnel, small dots of light began to appear. It was a really incredible sight as thousands of pinpoint lights began to appear. I had better luck using my peripheral vision to see vast swaths of glow worms rather than staring straight at the glow worms. We saw so many more glow worms this time around and it was exciting. Photos don’t do it justice, but Christine was able to capture a couple of shots. The glow worms look kind of like flying over a small town in an airplane and seeing the lights.

We stayed in the tunnel much longer than Lou, Margaret and Clare did, and as a result, we got separated from them and didn’t know where they went. We wandered around the area outside the tunnel, which is beautiful, while waiting to see if we could connect up with them.

There was a track that went to a lookout, but we stayed near the tunnel and waited. After a while, we walked back through the tunnel and up to the car park to wait for them. I guess we should have walked the track to the lookout, because that’s where they went. They said it was a great view over the valley. Oh well, maybe next time.

This trip to the glow worm tunnel was a thousand times better than the last visit. It was well worth doing and we’re glad we made the trip.

Then it was back over the bumpy dirt road to Lithgow. Margaret had to pick up her school bus to drive back to Kandos. This is the end of her holiday from school and so she starts her school bus runs tomorrow.

Clare then took over the driving and we followed behind Margaret in her school bus. We encountered heavy rain on the trip home. Margaret took the bus to the depot in Kandos and as we waited for her, we watched a lot of lightening over the Coomber Mountain and then we saw incredible pink clouds. Christine took a video of the clouds as we drove, but I can’t upload videos currently and I couldn’t take a clip to show you.

We arrived home late and were all tired. It was a lovely day.

01-26/29-2025

On Sunday, Lou’s sister Marianne arrived in her caravan. She has a very nice rig in which she travels around with her dog Bella. Marianne is a golfer and so she travels to golfing outings with her friends. Marianne lost her husband in March, 2024 after several years of Alzheimer’s, and so she is working on establishing her own life now. Marianne is the cousin with whom we’ve spent the least time and it is nice being able to spend a couple of days with her so we can get to know her better. She’s the next to last sibling of 10 and is closest in age to Margaret, the youngest.

Of course, we all wanted to see the inside of her rig and silly me, I forgot to take photos of the inside. But it is a really tidy layout with queen size bed over the cab, a nice size refrigerator, cook top and oven, bathroom and separate shower. It has solar panels on the roof so she can go off grid. It seems very comfortable with all the comforts of home. Marianne says it’s perfect for one and could work well for two.

Sunday evening we went to a Thai restaurant here in Rylstone. For such a tiny town, it has several food choices, Thai, Mexican, Vietnamese and a couple of traditional Aussie/American places. The Thai restaurant was really nice. We sat outside in a covered patio area. The food was good and we had a lovely evening.

Monday morning I walked down to the cafe with Lou. Lou loves starting his day this way. He says it limbers him up. He had a knee replacement a few years ago (at my urging). Unfortunately, there was a delay from the time he had the replacement to when his physiotherapy started and as a result, he did not get the best results from the replacement. He has to work hard to keep his leg moving. The morning walk to the cafe does help.

Here’s a couple of photos near and on the main street in Rylstone, which is not very busy at 7:30 in the morning. Lou situates himself at an outside table near the cafe’s door and he greets everyone who comes in for their coffee.

On the walk home, we pass by a couple of beautiful little cottages that I just love. I’m struck by the smallness of most houses. Traveling around, the houses are typically one story, brick, with a front veranda. They are very charming.

Later I spent some time trying to get more bird photos from his aviary and bird cages.

I think my favorites are the cockatiels. These 4 stick together and they shuffle back and forth across the perch as a unit. And I think they look like they have rouged their cheeks. They are so cute.

We’ve had very hot weather the past couple of days, in the mid-to-upper 90s. Monday afternoon was a great day to go to the public pool in Kandos, a sister town to Rylstone just about 5 miles south. Lou, Marianne, Christine and I enjoyed a wonderful swim. When we arrived, we had the whole pool to ourselves. The Kandos pool is an Olympic-sized pool. It cost $3 for “pensioners” to enter.

Lou made one of his famous baked dinners Monday evening. This involves roast pork and lots of baked veggies. Everything was delicious. Margaret and Clare joined Marianne, Lou, Christine and me for dinner.

After dinner, everyone but Lou played Uno for a while. Christine then got tired and so Margaret, Marianne, Clare and I switched to a game I just learned called Phase 10. The Caruana siblings are quite competitive and there was a lot of trash talk during the game, which had Christine in stitches so she ended up videoing us for a while to document the table talk. It was a very fun evening and we appreciated getting to know Marianne, who has a wonderful sense of humor.

Tuesday morning Marianne packed up her van. She has a place for everything and everything in its place. She was very methodical in how she packed up. We were sad to see her go. She’s going back to the Central Coast to her home for a few days, then off on another caravan trip.

For the rest of the day we all stayed in the house in air conditioning. It was nearly 100 degrees with very high humidity making it very uncomfortable to do anything outdoors.

Wednesday was Mudgee day. Lou went to the insurance agent to inquire about a claim on the damage to his clothesline and bird aviary from the wind storm. The clothesline took a second big hit from wind and got even more mangled. These clotheslines are quite expensive, so even with a $500 deductible, it makes sense for him to file a claim. The company will send an adjuster out to view the damage. Hopefully, he’ll get some replacement money.

We met Lou’s friend Angela (the sacristan) and her husband Raymond for coffee. Angela is such a pip! She is very opinionated, and very funny. I’ll have to get a photo of her as a reminder.

With shopping done, it was back home for the rest of the day. I cooked dinner, my “shrimp goop” dinner. I think Lou liked it. And then we settled in to watch an episode of Married at First Sight. The Aussie version started a new season on Monday. I got hooked on this stupid show the last time we were here. It’s totally ridiculous, and I’m really hooked.

01-25-2025: Family Gathering

On Saturday we are planning another long drive to the Glenbawn Dam where several of the Caruana clan are camping and caravanning. The plan was to leave at 9:30am and to arrive at the Glenbawn Dam for lunch. Friday night, though, Margaret received an unexpected booking in her Cubby House Farmstay unit, so Saturday morning she had to quickly get everything ready. She likes to present a nice tidy environment, which means she wanted to do some mowing around the property. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get her riding mower working. When she then tried her weed whacker, it fell apart. Then she couldn’t get her push mower started. So, she called Lou for help and we attached his trailer to his car, loaded up his riding mower into the trailer, and off he went to Margaret’s to help out. They worked on the lawn for quite a while. Lou eventually came back to his house about 11:30. Christine and I were concerned about leaving so late and having a long drive to get to the dam. We actually felt like it wasn’t worth the long day for a very short visit, but Margaret was determined to get us there. At 12:34 we were all in the car and off we went.

Up the Bylong Valley Way we went, which is now becoming very familiar to us. We stopped in the little town of Sandy Hollow to eat the sandwiches we packed, knowing that we weren’t going to be eating lunch with the family, and then on our way we continued.

I have been raving about the beautiful countryside. That all changed near Muswellbrook. This is a mining and quarry area and I couldn’t believe my eyes seeing miles of pit mines and quarries. I couldn’t get any good pictures because of the berms around the quarries, but the landscape was lunar-like.

I borrowed this image from the internet showing what a coal pit mine looks like. What an ugly thing it is to see.

It was quite shocking to see all this.

We arrived at the Glenbawn Dam at about 3:30pm. We found the caravan park where the family was camping. It took a little figuring out how to get into the park. We had to enter a gate and drive about 5 kms to where we had to buy a day pass. Then we retraced our route back to the area where everyone was camping.

The Glenbawn Dam was completed in 1957 and is a major embankment dam across the Hunter River. The lake formed by the dam is about 280 feet deep and impounds 750,000 megaliters of water, which is about 1-1/2 times larger than Sydney Harbor. The dam is a popular location for boating and water skiing and fishing, both by boat and from shore, and clearly is a favorite spot for caravans as we saw loads of campers all along the shore.

Lou’s brother Len and his wife Sandy were there in their caravan. Their daughter Jodie and her family were nearby in their caravan. Lou’s sister Marianne was in her caravan. Lou’s sister-in-law Marilyn, who is Lou’s brother Michael’s widow ( Michael is who Christine calls her twin cousin because they were born 9 days apart in Malta) and her daughter Sandy Lee were in their caravan, and Marilyn’s son Luke and his family were also there in their caravan. So it was a big Caruana clan gather. Even though we arrived late in the afternoon, we are so glad that Margaret stuck to her guns and got us there.

We sat around initially catching up with Marianne, Len and Sandy. Marilyn was out on the water on a jet ski.

Everyone then got into their swimmers (except me) and went into the water.

Getting into the water was a bit tricky because the bottom near the shoreline is mud, as you will note the brown water in the photos. Once past the mud, the water is clear and beautiful. Christine enjoyed her swim. She was hanging onto a floating mat for a while chatting with several of the family.

After the swim, we sat around and had drinks and snacks.

Margaret wanted to leave at 5:30pm for the long drive home, but naturally, that didn’t happen. We managed to get ourselves together for departure at 6:30. Before leaving, we took a group photo. Clare is our selfie master. She always does a great job getting everyone and herself in the photo.

In this photo are Len, Margaret, Sandy Lee, Lou, Kate (Luke’s wife), me, Charlotte and Jessica (two of Luke’s kids), Marilyn, Luke, Christine, Sandy, Marianne, Bella (Marianne’s dog), and Clare. It was a long way to come for a short afternoon, but we had a great time catching up with everyone. We’re so glad we did it.

Once again, driver Margaret, outdid herself after her hectic morning. I think she’s been on the road nearly every day for two weeks, traveling thousands of kilometers, all for our benefit. What a gift she has given us in chauffeuring us around.

We made a rest stop in the tiny town of Bylong, which we have done on previous trips through the Bylong Valley. It’s always good to get out and stretch our legs. Margaret is really good at stopping about every 2 hours for a break. We were treated to a lovely sunset during this rest stop.

We got back to Lou’s about 9:30. A quick visit with some of the clan, but well worth it. It was great seeing everyone.

01-24-2025: Hunter Valley Gardens

The last time we visited, Lou had talked about taking us to the Hunter Valley Gardens, but we never managed to find time to make the trip. But now, we are going to Hunter Valley Gardens today. Margaret, now having driven us several thousand kilometers already, is retracing the first part of the route we took to Tony and Liz’s up the Bylong Valley Way.

We are getting familiar with this route and we love seeing the changing landscape. After the first descent from the mountains, you enter the Bylong Valley, a very beautiful, lush valley of green pasture land. Cattle and sheep are the main agricultural products from this area.

Eventually, we got to the Hunter Valley region, which is one of Australia’s best known wine regions. As we were nearing the Hunter Valley Gardens, we drove past several very large vineyards and wineries. I recognized a couple of the winery names, having consumed some Australian wines in the past.

We arrived at the garden’s village and looked around for a place to have lunch. We sat out on a veranda under cover of an umbrella and had a nice lunch before taking in the gardens. My smashed avocado toast looked like a garden.

Hunter Valley Gardens opened in 2003 and spans fourteen hectares of land, containing ten differently themed gardens, and at Christmas time has the largest display of decorations in the world. It was very strange to be in 85 degree heat, strolling around a lovely garden that had the most Christmas decorations I have every seen. The Christmas display comes down on January 26, so it was in its final days. We did not spend the money for the nighttime garden entry to see the decorative lights because we would have had to stay the night someplace, but it must be one heck of a sensory overload because all the various gardens were totally decked out in decorative fixtures and lights.

Here are a number of photos from the oriental garden, my favorite section.

Here are some photos of some of the Christmas displays.

There was a storybook section for kids showing many themes from various stories. That was fun to wander through.

There was a wonderful rose garden. It smelled heavenly! It had over a hundred varieties of roses, all very nicely labeled showing the name and the country of origin.

We were very fortunate with the weather. It was a fair day, not too hot, with cloud cover eliminating the hot sun most of the afternoon so it was comfortable walking around the gardens. The gardens started shooing visitors out at 4:3pm in preparation for those holding tickets to the nighttime Christmas display. We had walked several kilometers, so we were ready to call it a day at the garden.

Here are a few more photos.

Not too far from the gardens, Margaret pulled into a winery which we had noted earlier.

Christine actually has a bottle of Tyrrell’s wine sitting in her office at home. Someone had given it to her to save for a special celebration related to her business, but we’ve never opened it. This vineyard and winery is in a really beautiful setting.

After that stop, we headed back to Rylstone. Again, it was a beautiful drive in the dusk. The sun was reflecting off some of the sandstone cliffs and everything looked golden.

What a great day we had visiting the Hunter Valley Gardens and driving through the Hunter Valley winery area.