South to Beechworth

Tuesday, 11 September 2018

Memorial at Holbrook

HMAS Oxley

At home under the gum trees (scary place to be!)

Inside Beechworth Town Hall, with original organ returned only three months ago

Beechworth's original Police Station

Beechworth Court House

Ned Kelly reward posters

Kelly's replica armour

Judge Polly presiding

Unhappy prisoner in the dock

Old Beechworth Gaol - now contains a coffee shop!

Young Californian redwood trees

Cool and shady park

Butt butt tree

Michael at the Butt butt tree

Section of a Chinese panel

Street inside the museum

19th Century Sexual discrimination

Stained glass window

Lake Samball Caravan Park

We continued south from Coonabarabran, following the Newell Highway through Moree, Narrabri, Dubbo and Parkes (as well as The Dish) before an overnight stop at Forbes.  There was a slight improvement in the highway but many, many more trucks!  We have now passed quite a few trucks loaded with hay, all heading north to very hungry stock.  At Peak Hill, we traversed a large gold mine which extended both sides of the highway.  The large, flat plains around Parkes had been planted with wheat, which seemed to be struggling mightily in the dry conditions.  The Big4 Caravan Park at Forbes was a nice small park, with lots of green grass – a welcome sight after so many nights in dirt and gravel.  The main tourist attractions at Forbes are a memorial to Ben Hall (notorious bushranger), graves of Ben Hall and the sister of Ned Kelly (notorious bushranger).

We had a slight change of direction – south east – on Monday, heading across to the Hume Highway.  After passing through Grenfell, the countryside changed dramatically, with green grass, canola, wheat and sheep farms.  We continued through Young (the cherry capital of NSW), with some beautiful views of the farmlands, before turning at Cootamundra (the birthplace of Donald Bradman) and joining the Hume Highway at Coolac.  We had a short stop at Snake Gulley for a photo opportunity with the Dog on the Tuckerbox before continuing to Holbrook for the night.  (I think we must be the only people in the caravan park without a dog!!!)  We did a quick tour of the tourist attractons and arrived at HMAS Oxley at the same time as a bus load of 60 primary school students!  Having visited here only three years ago, we decided to give the museum a miss this year.

The weather has continued to be clear and sunny, with daytime temperatures reaching about 18-20 degrees.  However, the same can’t be said of the night time temperatures – 2-3 degrees is a little hard to accept!

After a very cold night (and morning!), we continued south, crossed the Murray River at Albury and headed to Beechworth in the foothills of the Victorian Alps.  Although we had beautiful, clear, blue skies all day, it was a little on the cool side.  We booked into a nice caravan park on the shores of Lake Samball, even though they did have an unusual set up with the utilities – it was necessary to run our cords and hoses across another site to the water and power connections.

Today we acted like tourists, and after visiting the Information Centre and buying a heritage pass, we started working our way through the historic buildings.  Apart from a huge amount of gold being mined, Beechworth is probably better known as the place where Ned Kelly was sentenced to be hanged.  The original police station is now a museum to Ned Kelly and even contains two original “Wanted” posters.  Next door is the Court House where Kelly was tried and sentenced, as well as his mother on a previous occasion.  Lunch was at the Beechworth Bakery (where else would one eat?) before joining a walking tour of historic Beechworth.  Our guide, Michael, was very informative and interesting, leading us to parts of the town that we would never have seen.  Our outing was concluded at the Robert O’Hara Burke (of Burke and Wills fame) – Burke was in charge of the police at Beechworth for some time.