You’ve probably been wondering what’s been going on here Down Under since I haven’t posted in many days. Well, I’ll start catching up.
Wednesday is go to Mudgee day for shopping. Margaret picked us up and off we went. It’s a lovely drive and I thoroughly enjoy the scenery. It was a very hot day and we were all red-faced moving around the town. Lou and I met with the architect about the church ramp. Lou showed her the photos of the modular aluminum ramps I had found along with the photos I took of the church entrance. After considerable discussion, Barbara, the architect, agreed that it might be possible to use this kind of ramp. The big question is the total rise and would we have sufficient length on the walkway for the ramp. We had forgotten that total rise includes both the rise of the steps, but also the added rise from the walkway that does have a bit of a slope down toward the street. At any rate, with Barbara’s agreement, I think we have a more cost effective solution and Lou will contact the company that makes the ramps and start the process.
Mudgee is a nice little town with many heritage buildings. Here’s a picture of the town hall. Funny to see the Christmas decorations still up, especially when it is so hot.
One of the shopping stops for me was back to the pharmacy to get cold medicine. I can’t seem to shake this cold. After conferring with the pharmacist, I bought more AM/PM cold tablets and a different kind of cough syrup. I’ve been buying Robitussin, but the pharmacist convinced me otherwise and said I need to take 20ml of it with 20ml of hot water. And I will tell you it tastes absolutely terrible! But hopefully, it will do the trick.
We had to wait quite a while after shopping as Margaret was getting her car serviced. She had to wait a long time for the ride to come and then wait for her to pick up her car and come and get us. We were sweltering. But eventually, we were in an air conditioned car headed back to Rylstone.
Wednesday evening we went to the Rylstone Club for dinner. Originally, the club was for returning soldiers after WWII, sort of like our VFWs, but anyone can join. The club in Rylstone has a bowls green and a golf course, which Lou’s sister Marianne calls “rough,” meaning difficult to play with gritty greens (not green at all) and difficult turf to play in. The golf course is what we walk by on our walk to the cafe each morning. Someday, I want to watch a bowls session at the club, which is like bocci. While we were at the club, big storms swirled around with tremendous lightening and thunder, and finally heavy rain. We had to make a dash to the car.
Thursday, Margaret and Lou had appointments and so they took off early to Castle Hill, Windsor and Richmond. It’s a long drive and I wasn’t up for going. I laid on the couch watching tennis most of the day and napped all afternoon. This darn cold is wearing me out.
Friday, we packed up for a weekend away at Lou’s brother Tony and his wife Liz at their beautiful home in Nana Glen, also hometown of the actor Russell Crowe. It’s a very long drive, about 8 hours, and the weather forecast for the drive and the entire weekend was pretty dismal. The coast from Sydney northward has been battered by high winds and rain for days. There’s been significant flooding and damage from the wind. But we set off anyway and had fair weather for the first couple of hours.
I love driving through the countryside. It’s amazing to go from farmland, to sandstone cliffs, to rolling hills.
The driving is quite challenging through the mountains, which are the western edge of the Dividing Range, lots of hairpin turns both up and down. We eventually got to the major highway, the Pacific Coast Highway, and finally the rains came. Margaret is an excellent driver and she steered us through lots, and lots, of rain.
We left the Pacific Highway at Coff’s Harbor and made our way to Nana Glen and arrived at Tony and Liz’s at about 7:00pm. We were all happy to finally get there.
More about Tony and Liz’s lovely property in the next post.