mike & rhonda's latest adventure: The Path Less Travelled

Since leaving Canberra we have been travelling north on an inland path to avoid the busy Sydney area and the coast north of there since we will see all of that on our return trip south at the end of our journey. In doing so we have come across some lovely National Parks, beautiful valley views and very few people, allowing us to move at a very leisurely pace. In fact it got quite slow on one road where some modern day shepherds were moving at least 1,000 sheep along the road to another pasture. It was worth the wait.

In Tamworth, the Country Music Capitol of Australia, they had a Lighthorse memorial with a sad story. The Whaler breed of horses were very strong and were brought to the near east to be used in World War I by the Australian forces. Before departing the Turkish region at the end of the war, the soldiers had their mates kill their own horses which could not be brought back home due to disease concerns, and they did not want them to become mule alternatives if they left them behind. In Uralla, we learned about Captain Thunderbolt, a villain with panache who never killed anyone and often served a drink to people after robbing them. He is now a local hero and his statue is the home of a very interesting geocache which we found.

Heading east from Armidale, we spent time in 4 National Parks, most of them along Waterfalls Way. The Gara Gorge was the home of Australia's first hydro-electric station and we had a good hike along the old flumes used to carry the water to the steep drop into the gorge. While the trail was devoid of hikers, we spotted numerous younger people at the bottom of the gorge, jumping off 5 metre high rocks into pools and sliding down smooth rock waterfalls on boogie boards.

We spent one evening at Cathedral Rock NP, which was an 8 km gravel road drive into the campground, only to find that we were the only ones there. We had a lovely campfire with the only sounds coming from the birds around us. It also meant there was never a line-up at the long-drop (their affectionate name for an outhouse).

This morning we had an apple pie breakfast (from a local bakery) at the beautiful Ebor Falls, another spot with only a handful of people. We are now back to civilization in the town of Glen Innes. They have a Celtic heritage and celebrated their centennial in 1988 by building a Stonehenge lookalike, with 30+ massive granite stones in a local park where we had a picnic lunch. Following that we did their Heritage Walk showcasing many buildings from around 1900 which are still in use.

Tomorrow we will continue our northern path to Tenterfield where we will visit a few more NP's before heading east towards the coast on our way to the BluesFest in Byron Bay on Easter week-end.