Happy 2015!!!

Did you know that cows lay down for 14 hours a day but only 3.9 hours are spent sleeping, from 1-5 minutes at a time?  These are the sort of things you learn from Google while travelling.  We've also learnt things like...talcum powder sprinkled around things attached to the ground, like tyres and stabiliser feet stop the ants climbing aboard and not to park on the lowside of a camp site when there's a possibility of rain. It never ends, words to songs, who owns what properties or Stations you have driven past and where the nearest Howards Storage is.  I love Google and the internet - just sayin'

Since I last wrote we have visited Gulgong, Mudgee, Wellington, Orange, Bathurst, Sofala, Blayney, Cowra, and stayed with friends on their property at Young.  We are now in Murrumbateman, staying at a beautiful free camp where we have had a helicopter land and take off, Markets to explore, met some lovely people and watched a cricket match - all on our doorstep! Yesterday we left the van and drove 20 minutes to Canberra where we spent the day going through New and Old Parliaments Houses and The Australian Mint.  We will go back into Canberra again because there's so much to explore.

To date, we have done 18,518 kms and have been away for 158 days

A quaint sign in the window of an empty building in Gulgong

Love these old buildings in Gulgong

Lake  Canobolas, Orange

We walked all the way around the lake

View of Orange from Mount Canobalas Lookout

with our Heritage Trail booklet in hand we took off on a two hour

walk of Orange while we had new tyres fitted 

The Fernery in Cook Park

Beautiful Gardens and historic buildings

A restored Cobb & Co Coach in Bathurst

Our free camp in Bathurst

Mount Panorama sign

We took the van for a lap of the circuit

We set up camp and left the van to do a couple more laps

The big boys do a lap in about 2 minutes 15 seconds - we did it in 6 minutes and 50 seconds!

Had to stay on the 50kph speed limit, though.  Here's a snippet of the Esses (sorry about the watermark)

Winners Podium

Pit Straight

Part of the circuit

The Mount Panorama sign from a different angle

The Peter Brock statue in front of the Motor Racing Museum

Winner!

him too!

Wayne Gardners bike

Well, he's my Number 1

racing memoribilia

Statues called 'Conversations' Bathurst

(They didn't say anything)

Some of the manicured gardens, Bathurst

Did a big ride around town, Bathurst

Macquarie River, Bathurst

Took a drive to historic town, Sofala

Sofala

They are restoring quite a few of the old buildings, Sofala

How quaint, and very low to the ground

Visited the site of the POW camp at Cowra

There was a mass breakout, now there's only these fellas left

and some ruins, toilets and urinals

Cowra from Bellevue Lookout

One of our camps at Cowra, on the river - didn't find any gold :(

The oldest working Urinals in Australia at Young Railway Station, 

Friends we met at Mataranka and then again in Darwin took us to the Chinese Gardens

A tranquil place

We stayed on their property with their Goats and Alpaccas

beautiful blonde from next door

such a lovely place

Our camp at Murrumbateman, NSW

The road into Canberra

The foyer of New Parliament House

I'll just have a little sit down here

The Senate, Parliament House

The House of Representatives

Tapestry in The Great Hall, Parliament House

The Queen walked through the doors beneath the Tapestry when 

she opened the building and it was said she walked through the Australian bush

View from the roof across Old Parliament House with the War Museum in the background

Bob Hawkes Office in Old Parliament House

Some people lay across the desk - hey Mandy?

Luckily, this Speakers chair is only a replica

Coins being processed at The Australian Mint

The view to Parliament House from the Lookout