I wanted to get fairly early start this morning so we could maximise our time in the Hunter Valley. We had planned a lunch at a nice looking restaurant in Pokolbin that we had an Entertainment Book voucher for, so a light breakfast was in order ?
The morning news had reports of dangerous fires near Muswellbrook,
although the app showed they were well away from the highway.
We hit the road just after 7:30 and again headed south with the sky again full
of smoke. The road south was again so
dry with lots of evidence of recent fires.
We stopped at a tiny town called Wallabadah, where the general store
promised “The Best Coffee Outside Italy” – Challenge accepted ? Mick said that it was indeed very nice coffee.
Coming into the Upper Hunter Valley we saw many large horse studs. This is horse country and many top trainers have studs and lodges in the area. We came across a beautifully groomed fence line and (lush-ish considering the current conditions) paddocks. When we finally passed the gate, we discovered it was the prestigious “Emirates Park” that has produced many top racehorses.
We stopped in Scone to top up with fuel and get some groceries at Woolworths. I knew that Pokolbin only has a small general store that was sure to be expensive, so I wanted to make sure we had everything we need for the next 2 nights.
Not far out of Scone we saw a very long freight train that had 3 engines pulling it and 3 engines pushing it. We were glad that when we came to a level crossing, we were ahead of the train and did not have to wait for it.
Further along, we came to Muswellbrook and saw huge power stations and caught a glimpse of the coal mines on either side of the road. We saw more trains and guessed that the one we had seen earlier was a coal train.
Further along and we detoured off the highway to go into the town centre of Singleton. As we were heading back toward the highway we saw another train and we wanted to try and get a video of it. We turned up a side street where we thought we might get a good view only to be confronted with a large hedge that we could not see through. It was then we noticed that the train was actually stopped a Singleton station. We turned around, parked the car and hurried up to the platform, just in time to hear the horn blow and the train start moving off. This train had 2 engines pulling 96 coal wagons and one engine at the back pushing. Each wagon was 15.4m long and from the time the train started, until we saw the last engine, it took nearly 4 minutes to go by. That sure is a lot of coal.
Back on the highway and we were soon in Pokolbin. We went to the hotel we were booked into to
see if by chance our room was ready, even though we were early. It wasn’t, but we were able to do all the
check-in paperwork. Coming into
Pokolbin, we had seen the restaurant we had a voucher for and wanted to have
lunch at, so we headed back there ready for a meal. Sadly it was very busy, and they could not
fit us in for lunch without a booking.
There are many restaurants in the wineries, so it was not too difficult to find a very nice menu at Brokenwood Wines were had a superb meal and a couple of glasses of their wines.
Slow Roast Lamb Shoulder
Confit Duck
Luckily the temperature was much better today, so we made the most of being able to wander around without dying of heat exhaustion. I had to, of course, visit the cellar door of McGuigan Wines. I knew I would not be buying wine as it is almost always cheaper at the big bottle shops. Sure enough, the wine I drink was double the price.
We stopped off at a couple of the larger places but decided not to do too many tastings, as we had booked a tour for the next day.
We did find a “Dessert Bar” and we chose a tasting plate each. They were yummy ?
Dessert Tasting Plates
I wanted to go to the Hunter Valley Gardens to see the Christmas lights, so we went to see where it was and look around a bit. The gardens are lovely and have a little village with quaint shops which we browsed through and bought a couple of added Christmas presents. The problem that we could see was the lack of parking. We decided that it would be very difficult to park anywhere near the entrance for the lights, and, with daylight savings it would be a late start.
We got back to the resort just after 4:00 and got the key to
the room and settled in for the evening with just a very light snack of cheese
and crackers.
Today was one of our longer drives at approximately 420kms so we had an early breakfast, packed up the car and we were on the road by 7:30
Heading south along the New England Hwy we were saddened to
see how dry the country was. This area
has been in drought for quite some time.
We have spent a fair few holidays in the Granite Belt so we really
noticed the difference.
Coming into Stanthorpe we noticed a lot of traffic ahead and wondered what was going on. As we got closer we could see that the service station on the Highway was a collection point for water. There were two big double water tankers and many cars, trucks and utes with a 1000 litre caged water tank. I had read that the Qld Govt was giving some water to Stanthorpe residents, so we hoped that the water was free.
Further south, we stopped at Wallangarra on the Qld /NSW border. The old train station here has a quirky story. When it was being built, the Qld and NSW “powers that be” could not come to an agreement as to the design of the station building. As a compromise, the building was built in each state’s traditional style. So the Qld side has a rolled bullnose verandah roof and the NSW a flat sloped roof.
As this is the state border there is a sign marking the fact.
Queensland, however, has gone slight one up and erected a HUGE sign to remind the “Blues” where they are.
Travelling south our next stop was the Information Centre at
Tenterfield, I picked up a few brochures and guide books for our forward
travels. We have been to Tenterfield a
number of times before so did not look around town.
On to Glen Innes. We
had not been here for many years, so we did take some time to drive around this
pretty tow. The main street is lined
with lovely heritage buildings that reflect the past prosperity of the
area.
In 1872 tin was found nearby and the town grew from a population of just 350 to around 1500 by 1875. In 1884 a rail service from Sydney arrived and this further contributed to the prosperity of the town.
I did have to laugh at one very large building on the main street… Kwong Sings Merchants. As an importer/seller of Chinese goods myself, it is funny to see the practice was profitable way back in the 1800’s ?
Travelling out of Glen Innes toward Armidale, we saw more evidence of recent bush fires, including one that had crossed the highway.
We stopped at a roadhouse at Guyra for lunch. We have found that when you see a road house full of trucks, you know the food has to be good. As usual, we were not disappointed. We shared a “works” burger meal deal. – Burger, chips and a drink for $13.99 The burger was huge and came with a dinner plate full of chips and we chose a “Solo Lemon” can of drink. It was more than enough for the two of us. On our way out, we noticed there was a bin to put any empty bottles and cans in. The roadhouse was saving all the 10c refunds to donate to the drought appeal, so of course, that is where our empty soft drink can went.
After lunch, we went for a drive around town. There was a picture in the guide book of a local attraction called “Mother of Ducks Lagoon” We guessed that, in these drought conditions, it would not look as lush as the pictures, but we were shocked to see that there was almost no water at all in it.
From the Guidebook
Lush and green
Now dry as a bone 🙁
Back on the road toward Armidale. The guide book said that this area is renowned for its Beef and Lamb. Looking out over bone dry empty paddocks as far as the eye could see, it is no wonder our meat prices are high at the moment.
At one point we noticed a very large farm under cover off to the left. We wondered what it was. The guide book told us that this area is also a very large grower of glasshouse tomatoes and we are sure that is what we had seen. A bit of “googling” found this article on the project.
Our next stop was Armidale.
It was again too hot to get out of the car and walk around too much (
the car told us we have been at 40 degrees for most of the day. The hottest it
read was 41.5)
So we drove around Armidale and thought it reminded us a lot of Toowoomba, with
lovely wide tree lined streets.
Armidale has many cathedrals and large buildings that again reflect the
prosperity of the New England area. I
knew that Armidale is a University town, and there are a number of prestigious
schools with lovely heritage buildings.
We reached our final destination of Tamworth at around
3:30pm.
Tamworth is well known as the centre of Country music in
Australia and hosts the huge Country Music Festival each January. Driving around town we saw the Hall of Fame and
the Golden Guitar. Not being country
music fans much, we did not stop at these attractions.
We found the Woolworths to buy a few provisions for dinner
and found our AirBnB accommodation in a quiet suburban street.
Our home for the night is “Magnolia on Oak” The home is a well renovated home and we had a comfortable night, but as an AirBnB there were not the inclusions we normally have. To be fair though we got exactly what is outlined in the AirBnB listing. Extra bedrooms, the laundry, the garage and the back door to the yard were all locked off. There was a small fridge with nothing in it except 2 small tetra packs of milk. One thing that was missing was a coffee table to put our drinks on, so I used a “hotel hack” I had recently seen online. Use the ironing board ? It worked perfectly.
After a busy year, were both ready for this break.
We packed our bags the night before (the Engel fridge had
been on for a day to chill down well) and were ready to go after breakfast.
A quick stop to fill up the fuel tank and we were off to
Warwick.
Heading south on the Bruce Highway, we turned off to the D’Aguilar Hwy, through Caboolture, Woodford and on to Esk. We stopped at Esk for a stretch of the legs and swapped drivers.
With the recent bushfires, there was a lot of smoke haze around Esk, I have downloaded the Australian Bushfire app and am confident that ( at this stage) we are not driving near any major blazes. Leaving Esk and heading up the range we saw the first signs of the devastation that the fires had brought. The normal scenery of green Aussie bush was transformed into a black desolate expanse. ☹ We saw farm trucks and tractors completely burnt out in the paddocks where they stood. Fences along the roadside were reduced to a length of wire strung between intermittent charred remains.
We notice lots of sawn tree stumps on the side of the road
where large trees had been felled and we assumed the trees must have been so
badly burnt they posed a danger of falling over the highway so were
removed.
This fire would have been the outer edge of the Pechey fires which began over a month ago and raged for many days. We noticed one very large tree fallen in a paddock and was still smouldering.
Stopping in Toowoomba for lunch, we found the shopping centre where there is an Italian restaurant that we had an Entertainment Book voucher. We parked the car and found the entrance to the shops.
What a surprise… at the entrance there was a community library. Somewhere comfortable you could just sit and read.
Piccolo Papa is an unassuming café/bistro in a suburban shopping centre, but WOW the meals were amazing. We chose two pasta dishes and shared them. Spaghetti & Meatballs and Garlic Prawn Pasta. Tiramisu for dessert finished off the meal to perfection.
A short one hour drive through very dry farmland brought us to Warwick. We found the information centre and got some pamphlets for our forward travels and had a drive around the town. Unfortunately, it was too hot to get out of the car and do much walking – 38C at 2:30pm, but a drive around showed us what a lovely town Warwick is, with lovely wide streets and sandstone buildings. A statue of T J Byrnes sits proudly in the centre of the intersection of the two main streets of Warwick.
TJ Byrnes was a Qld Premier in the late 1800’s … read more about him here
I hope Mr Byrnes had a good sense of humour because for now,
in Warwick, he has been dressed as Santa ?
We found our AirBnB and checked in around 3:30pm.
“The Cottage” in Warwick is a lovely little 2 bedroom house just outside of the town centre. It had everything we needed for our one night stopover. The fridge was stocked with bread, butter, jams, eggs and milk. A good selection of teas and coffees were available on the bench in the kitchen.
We spent the afternoon relaxing in the aircon, and looking
over the information I had picked up earlier.
A fun fact we learnt
was that an incident in Warwick was responsible for the formation of the
Commonwealth Police Force. In 1917 Prime
Minister Billy Hughes was visiting Warwick spruiking his plan for national
conscription. This was not a popular
plan and he was not well received. One
fellow threw an egg at the PM and the local police refused to arrest the man
citing that he had not broken any QLD laws. Hughes’ frustration and anger, led
him to establish the Commonwealth Police Force.
(The Commonwealth Police Force was amalgamated with the ACT Police and the
Narcotics Squad in 1979 after the Sydney Hilton Hotel bombing to form the
current Australian Federal Police)
We had a good nights sleep on the comfy queen bed, ready for the next day’s
drive to Tamworth.
