Day 26 Wednesday 12th July

We were booked into the Cobb and Co stagecoach experience this morning so we needed to be in the main part of town by 8.50am.  The experience started with “Smoko”, a lovely feed of scones, jam, cream and tea or coffee. (This was done because another earlier group were already out in the coaches.) From here we went into a courtyard where we saw the coaches return from the previous trip and were given information about our ride. Our drivers were 2 young men who were bothers and part of the Kinnon family who run many outback tourist experiences. I was very brave and opted for the seats “up top” rather than in the cabin. Rob, I and another man climbed up and were told that these were the expensive seats and in the past the Lawyers and Doctors rode up here. We had headsets on and our driver gave us an informative commentary about the history of the Cobb and Co coaches all the while driving the 5 horses. We left the main part of town and it was most exciting when he “opened up” the horses and we went so fast! After about 20 minutes or so we returned to the courtyard and disembarked. We were then taken to a small picture theatre, given pop-corn and watched a very old iconic Australian movie called, “Smiley gets his Gun”, starring Chips Rafferty. It was a laugh as the story is about a young boy, aged around 10 who is trying to do lots of good things so the police sergeant will reward him by giving him a gun! After this we were taken to the courtyard again and this time it was set up as old-time tent show. The 2 brothers now starred in this comedy, aided by dogs, horses, ducks, a donkey and a cow. Very enjoyable. We returned back to the van around 1pm. After lunch Rob worked on the vehicle and I went for a walk back to town via the cemetery!   





















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 14 Friday 30th June

Image
We were happy to wake to blue skies this morning and had packed up and left by 8.30am. We made good time and crossed the border into Queensland and arrived in the outback town of Cunnamulla well before lunch. We had intended to continue on to Charleville but after visiting the Information Centre decided to stay the night and explore the town. We saw our first beautiful “Queenslander” home as we drove into the town. Cunnamulla is notable for the “Cunnamulla Fella” who was apparently made famous in a song by Slim Dusty. There was a very large bronze statue of the “Fella” in the main civic area. We took a tour of “The Artesian Time Tunnel” which was a very interesting and told of the history of the Great Artesian basin” from when it was first formed millions of years ago to how it is used today and how there is now a very strong environmental focus on using the water responsibly.   We went for a drive around the town, out to the weir and on the way back stopped at the cemetery to tak...
Read more

Day 103 Wednesday 27th September

Image
We had another reasonably easy drive from Goulburn to Albury Wodonga situated on the Murray River, arriving around lunchtime. (Wodonga is on the Victorian side of the river and Albury on the NSW side.)   After setting up, we headed into the city centre of Albury to visit the Library Museum. In this building we found a wonderful exhibition called “Crossing Place” which told of the history of the area, famous people who came from the area and other general information. There was an excellent display dedicated to Bonegilla Migrant Centre which operated from the 1940s to 1970s. From here we drove out to the Lake Hume, a huge reservoir formed by the building of a dam wall from 1919 to  1927. This wall is built across the Murray River. 27. This wall is built across the Murray River.
Read more

Day 102 Tuesday 26th September

Image
Goulburn has a very interesting history. It was the first regional town in Australia to have the steam train service. The train came from Sydney in 1869 and there are many buildings and reminders of this around the town. The actual town was established in 1833 as free settlers were given land grants here. It was a large agricultural centre for the region. We did a bit of a historical railway walk and even Rob may have enjoyed bits of it! After a stop for coffee we drove to the War Memorial Tower lookout. We had good views from the town here but were more impressed by the tower which was a brilliant memorial to WW1. After lunch Rob dropped me back in town to do a couple more historical walks while he did some jobs back at the van. With Goulburn being such an old town there were many magnificent buildings and some interesting old homes. There was even a very old letter-box still in use today. The letter box had slots for letters quite high and these were for people who wanted to post le...
Read more