We awoke to a rare phenomenon for this trip…BLUE SKY… We could only hope that the firies were getting some reprieve.
We only had a fairly short drive today, so we took the advantage of a slow start, and, with clear skies, we took advantage and headed back up to the Three Sisters to get a better view than we had a couple of days ago.
WOW!! What a difference. We were even able to see across the valley to Scenic World. We had not even noticed it before behind the smoky veil.
From Echo Point, we headed to one of my “must see sights” The Hydro Majestic” Hotel. I had seen a documentary of the history and renovation of “Foy’s Folly” awhile ago and always wanted to see it. It did not disappoint. Such a gorgeous example of an historic 5 star hotel.
We booked a $10 tour and were lucky enough to be the only 2 so our guide was able to answer any questions we had.
From the top of the escarpment we noticed that there was still an active fire in the valley below and in the time we were at the hotel, it had obviously intensified a far bit ☹
We had a lovely dinner in the “Boiler Room” restaurant before continuing to our accommodation in the little town of Kandos.
On the way, we stopped off at “Historic Hartley” a cute little village that was built in the late 1800’s to service travellers on their way to the goldfields in the Bathurst area.
My fires app showed me that there was a large fire in the forest near where we needed to go, but the app showed that the Castlereagh Highway was open, but may be slowed for crews to do clean up after the fires. After doing a bit more “googling” we decided that is was safe to take the highway.
Seeing plenty of traffic on the highway made us more confident that was no danger. We finally came to the area of the fire and there was evidence of a MAJOR fire. We could only imagine the hell it must be fight these intense fires, but we marvelled at how homes, sheds and buildings had been protected.
It was long until we found our accommodation for the night. “Bowers Hideout” is a bungalow at the back of an old shop. Our host had let me know that he would be away, but had given perfect instructions to access the property.
We had organised dinner provisions, so there was nothing to do but relax and prepare for the next day and Dubbo Zoo
