02-19/23-2023: Final Days in Rylstone

When you start a trip for nearly 7 seven weeks, it seems like a really long time, but here we are on our last few days in Australia. The time just sped by; I guess that’s because we were on the go a lot of the time and did many wonderful activities, so time flew by. At any rate, we’ve had a low-key last few days with Lou.

That storm we watched last Friday night, marveling at how the sky turned from black to orange/red, really was actually the result of a grassland and bush fire. Lightening caused a fire within a couple of miles of here that burned for several days. We did smell smoke that night, and now we know why. Fortunately, fire crews, mostly volunteers, fought the fire for two days and were able to get it out. It’s scary to know how easily a significant fire can be started and how difficult it is to extinguish a fire in the dry grass and bush once it gets going.

Monday, Lou had a physiotherapy evaluation in Lithgow and so he accompanied Margaret, who also had an appointment. Lou had a knee replacement 3 years ago. He unfortunately got tangled up in a snafu related to districts of service and didn’t get physio for weeks after his knee replacement. That put him behind in movement, and he has remained unable to flex his knee fully. I urged him to get a PT evaluation to see if he could regain additional flexion in that knee. He is able to walk pretty well, as he has done on all our adventures, but steps are difficult, and things like getting in and out of the car are not easy. While he and Margaret were in Lithgow, Christine and I went exploring in The Common, a council owned parcel of land in the bush right across the road from Lou’s.

The Common offers a lovely loop walking track. It was to be a hot day, so we started in the morning to avoid the sun and heat in the middle of the day. We really enjoyed the walk as it was quite beautiful through the bush, the grassland, along the river, and close to some interesting rock formations.

Christine is wearing the head net over her hat that Daniel had given her. It helps tremendously to keep insects out of her eyes, ears, and nose. It was a great gift from Daniel and I know Christine will wear it a lot, especially at our cottage while clipping in the woods.

These lovely little flowers were all along the track up to the top of The Common. They are called pavonia and are related to the hibiscus, but are much smaller.

Tuesday we walked into town in the morning for our cuppa. I’m going to miss these early morning walks. It’s a nice stroll of about a mile into town and we hear and see lots of birds, see nice views across the golf course and keep track of the work being done at the Rylstone Caravan Park. I noticed this web in the sunlight this morning.

Wednesday was shopping in Mudgee, riding with the ladies and Margaret. Then when we got home, Lou started baking. This weekend is the annual Rylstone Kandos Show. It’s a big deal event, somewhat similar to a large county fair. There will be all kinds of exhibitions of livestock, flowers, fruits and vegetables, cake decorating and baking, and competitions like a dog show, wood chopping, horse jumping. There will be all sorts of activities including a parade, carnival rides, and fireworks. I’m sorry we’ll be missing it, but Friday night we’ll have an opportunity to go through the cake decorating and baking exhibits. Clare, Daniel and Margaret are all entering items in cake decorating. As I mentioned, Clare is running a creative cake business, so I’m sure she’ll have some amazing entries.

Lou wants to enter some items from his mother’s recipes in the baking exhibition. He has his mother’s well-used and well-loved binder of recipes. He’s selected carrot cake, Anzac biscuits, and pumpkin scones. Sounds like a lot to me, but he set to work on the carrot cake and biscuits this afternoon.

Thursday I started the day in an early Webex meeting for the hospital. Unfortunately, the dicey internet here didn’t have enough bandwidth to stream audio and video signals and I had a big problem with hearing what was going on in the meeting. Everyone was in a conference room and I was the only remote attendee. At least I tried to connect and attend. I’ll be glad to be able to attend future meetings of this special team working on a project in-person. Christine accompanied Lou on the walk and cuppa this morning without me. Then it was laundry. We’ll be able to go home with more clean clothes than dirty!

After pegging out the wash, Lou drove us to Kandos. Christine had had a nice morning with Clare yesterday going to the pool and then touring around the main street of Kandos. Christine wanted to go back to get a birthday gift for Clare and to show Lou a painting she spotted in the Community Shop that she thought he’d like. We did get Lou the painting and he bought a black glass vase and Christine bought two really sweet plates. Kandos is the sister town to Rylstone, 7km down the road. It was home to the Kandos Cement Plant which produced cement used in the building of many famous buildings. Unfortunately, the cement plant closed and Kandos has lost some of its luster. But it is a nice little town and the shopkeepers are very welcoming.

Kandos has an Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool, where Clare and Christine went swimming yesterday while Lou and I were in Mudgee. It was a nice opportunity for Christine to bond a bit with Clare. I think they had a good time.

On the way back home, I suggested to Lou that we try and find the Rylstone reservoir. The cafe owner had mentioned it to us as a nice place to hike and gave us some directions, but we didn’t manage to find it earlier in our stay. Today, I used Google Maps and we did get to a road that took us to a gate, so we couldn’t drive any farther. We walked up the road a ways through some very nice scenery. Just when we all decided that we’d walk far enough and didn’t find the reservoir, we came around a curve and there it was! We found the Rylstone reservoir.

The Cudgegong River is so interesting. It’s described as a perennial stream, and yet with the Kandos and Rylstone weirs, large masses of water are created, like at Dunns Swamp where we went kayaking. The Cudgegong is dammed by the Windemere Dam which creates Lake Windemere, a very large lake. The river eventually travels a total of 250kms and meets up with the Macquarie River where the Burrendong Dam dams both rivers to create Lake Burrendong. We’ve crossed over the Cudgegong many times in our travels and in most places it does look like a very narrow, barely running, stream. The Rylstone weir, though, has created a lovely reservoir. We see only half of it from the weir. An equally large section is around the end of the reservoir in the photo above.

You can see the tiny blue lines going into and out of the reservoir. That’s the size of the river and the reservoir is the big blue stuff. Really interesting, and we’re glad we found it. Next time we’re here, we’ll plan a picnic lunch at the reservoir as it’s a really nice area.

Once back at home, the last baking job was pumpkin scones. These were quite the challenge because the dough never really got to the right consistency. At any rate, Lou worked hard to produce nice pumpkin scones.

Lou then dove into a special recipe for tomorrow evening’s dinner. Margaret, Daniel and Clare will be joining us. Sunday is Clare’s birthday so we’ll have a joint celebration, our last night in Rylstone and Clare’s birthday. One of Christine’s favorite Maltese dishes is Timpana, a wonderful baked macaroni dish in puffed pastry. We’re really looking forward to eating it tomorrow.

Tomorrow is our last day at Lou’s. Saturday we go to Richmond where Alex and Gloria will pick us up to stay with them in Bensville for the night. Then they take us to Sydney airport Sunday for our flight to Los Angeles. Hopefully, I’ll have more to report tomorrow on the Rylstone Kandos Show. I’ll certainly make a final post summing up our wonderful time with Lou. Boy, does time fly!