Before leaving on our adventure today I had to go and see the new kids. Last night I was a little concerned about one of them that seemed very lethargic. But I need not have worried because this morning, both kids were bouncing around in their pen under the watchful eye of Ace, their mom.
Mom and the kids 
Linda 
Christine
They are so cute!
We then set off for Bathurst, the closest major city near Rylstone, about 60 miles away. It was a lovely drive through the countryside of rolling hills. Unfortunately, the drought is affecting everything, especially the trees. Their foliage looks almost like our autumn trees, mostly orange in color. Everything is very thirsty.
Drought affected countryside 
View from the car
Our first stop was in Sofala, population 208. Sofala began in 1851 as a result of the gold rush. Louis commented that he thought the place looked like a movie set for a western. We wandered down the main street looking in windows and marveling at the ornate wrought iron railings.
Welcome to Sofala 
Wrought iron railings 
A nice heritage building 
Gold panning pans on the wall 
This sign made me laugh 
Odd Fellows Hall 
Hotel with great railings 
It does look like a movie set 
Ornate ironwork 
Lovely building
As you may have noticed in some of the photos, the storm clouds were significant while we were in Sofala. We heard thunder and felt a few drops of rain. Later, as we were arriving in Bathurst we saw that there had been a significant storm with some flooding and power outages. The weather has been crazy up and down the east coast of Australia. With drought and high temperatures, we’re now in a period of torrential rainfall causing significant flooding. There have been hail storms with golf ball sized hailstones causing a lot of damage. Although there had been some rain in bush fire areas, enough to assist the firefighters in controlling many of the fires, there hasn’t been any rainfall in Margaret’s area.
From Sofala we went to Bathurst, a city of about 36,000. It, too, came about as a result of the gold rush. It is the oldest inland city in Australia. Margaret and Ray stopped in a Bunnings, similar to Home Depot, to get some plumbing parts. We then had lunch at an outdoor cafe, and then on to visit the Australia Fossil and Mineral Museum which is housed in a heritage building, a public school dating back to 1874.
The museum features some of the finest and rarest examples of minerals from around the world and scientifically significant fossils from Australia. It contained wonderful displays containing the most interesting and beautiful minerals. These types of displays are almost too much to take in. I also marveled at some of the fossils. Complete creatures were contained in the sedimentary rock.
Christine at the museum 
Mineral display case 
Malachite 
Pieces from around the globe 
Blue azurite 
Crocite, which is extremely valuable 
Interesting calcite within a rock 
Solecite
The museum also contained a life-size skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex.
T-rex 
T-rex head
The fossil collection was really cool. Complete creatures were seen encased in sedimentary rock.
Garpike 
Nothosaur skeleton 
Nautiloids in limesone 
Crinoids – really weird-looking 
Trilobites
And Christine’s favorite shape is a creature called an ammonite, which is an extinct cousin of the nautilus.
Ammonites 
A beautiful specimen
After the museum, we went up to Mount Panorama, a famous racetrack where the Bathurst 1000 is held every year. This was quite amazing because when there isn’t any racing, anyone can drive their car around the track, and what a track it is. I think of racetracks as ovals. This one was serpentine all up and down the mountain with hairpin turns that were hair-raising, especially on the downhill part of the track. The track is just shy of 4 miles long and it has a vertical lift of 571 feet. From the top of the mountain, one gets a fabulous view of the Bathurst plains.
After driving the track circuit, we headed back into Bathurst for some ice cream. This shot I think is hilarious.
Daniel, Clare, Margaret, Ray, Linda, Christine, and Lou
After our ice cream, we wandered around some of the historic sights of Bathurst. Christine and I really felt like we could have been in a place in England. It had an old, stately feel about it. We wandered through two lovely parks, Machattie Park and Kings Parade, containing some monuments and typical park things like a bandstand and a duck pond.
Beautiful courthouse 
Wing of courthouse housing Historic District offices 
War memorial carillon 
Founders statue 
South African War memorial 
Iron drinking fountain 
Lovely cottage 
Bandstand
Walking back to the car we noted some wall paintings. Elton John has a stop on his worldwide farewell tour in Bathurst next month, so these paintings were Elton advertisements.
Elton John concert ad 
Cool wall painting for Elton concert
We made the 90-minute drive back to Margaret’s, all exhausted from our long day of touring. We had a very late dinner, nearly 10:00 pm. We had the Australian Open tennis on the TV. Neat to be in Australia during the tennis tournament.
What a great day we had, jam packed with interesting things.