We arrived after a good flight and easy passage through to baggage.
We are now on the road from Dallas to OKC! Looking forward to the next adventures!
Cheers
Kat xo
Tag Archives: Australia
Trippin’!
Yes folks it’s that time again where we get to go play on the other side of the world.
Only for a short stint now as this past crazy 6 months Jack and I have settled back into reality here.
Things have been quite on here but hectic nonetheless and will do some more blogs of costuming in the next day or so.
Today we head for Newcastle, bags packed and surprise surprise all under weight!!?? Yippee! More room to bring stuff back!
We fly out of Sydney tomorrow and head for the next adventure. Stay tuned!
Love and hugs to you all!
Kat xo
ANZAC Day
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.”
Remember our fallen soldiers from Gallipoli and all campaigns. For those who have served or are serving – thank you, thank you for your service.
Kat xo
Trans Tasman – Duel Downunder
‘The Special Breed’ that’s what us cowboys and cowgirls are. The Gamblers, Deslaredo had written a spectacular poem of this and so it became the theme for the Trans Tasman this year.
The Trans Tasman – Duel Downunder is a southern, across the ocean, challenge between Australia and New Zealand and alternates at a range on either continent every other year.
The Gamblers again hosted the Trans Tas and it wasn’t long before everyone arrived for the match held over 14-17th March.
It was great for Jack and I to catch up with many that we hadn’t seen for some time.
We had been busy in the weeks leading up to the match helping with match confirmations, prep and more!
What a great weekend we had! It started Thursday with the Pat Garrett match and Posse 4 – Bones, Carter Moss, Coyote Baz, Deadly, Doit Daily, El Rio, Fox, Meggs, Mad Dog Morgan, Painted Mohawk, Rick O’Shea, Two Gun Kate, Trigger Happy, Willy Avashot, Jack and myself.
That afternoon was spent doing speed events before we retired for Ex Sighted and I to get into the scoring and the rain set in.
Main match started on the Friday and we had a great lot of folks on Posse 5 with Alvira Sullivan Earp, Big Bad John, Bones, Boots and Spur, Chiquita, El Hombre, Etta Place and Doc Cummins, Coyote Baz, Meggs, El Rio, Curly Wolf, J P Remington, The Deadwood Gunslinger, Legend Lyn and Short Shot (both from NZ), Lucky Luke, Willy Avashot (with Narelle kindly doing the scoring all weekend) Jack and myself.
Six stages done, rain again that evening, scores done and it’s an early night. Well, early to retire home with Charlie Wagon and Pearl Starr coming to stay for the evening. Rain putting a dampener on the hawk and knife throw side matches.
Saturday and it’s just a few spits of rain taking us into the final 6 stages of the match.
I wasn’t clean by any means which put me very close with the other ladies BUT managed to hang on and clinch it by just 1.30sec’s! 6th overall, 1st lady and 1st in Lady Wrangler, with a few side matches thrown in.
Jack finished with just a couple in 5th overall and 1st place Elder Statesman. Good one man!
A great weekend! Great gathering! Good fun that ended all too soon.
See you down the trail.
Kat xo
Do you have a cowboy in your room?
Having nightmares or dreams? Been woken by a random cowboy standing by your bed?
My eldest sent me this just now. 😂😂
I love it when my kids send me random things pertaining to the old west and cowboy times.
Now let’s go find Rex and have yippee-ki-yay kind of day!
Kat xo
Heading North
From Newcastle to Gold Coast in a day, means around an 8 hour plus trip. Unlike days of old, it’s now mostly double highway, bypassing the coastlines and beach town views.
What would you find along the coast should you go the old route?
Newcastle
Beautiful beaches like Nobbys, Merewether and more.
Bogey Hole is a convict-built ocean bath. Also known as Commandants Baths, the sandstone/conglomerate rock was constructed in about 1820 intended for the personal use of Lieutenant-Colonel James Thomas Morriset.
Fort Scratchley today is a historic site and popular for watchers of whales migrating. Now a museum, it was built in 1882 to defend the city against a possible Russian attack. (Hmmm first time I’ve ever read about that!) The Fort never fired it’s guns in anger however, until 1942 during a Japanese submarine attack.
Seal Rocks
Further North you can find other popular surf spots such as Seal Rocks and Treachery. I frequented that area in another life.
Seal Rocks was originally named for its fur seal colonies that have not inhabited the area for many, many years, apparently they are being seen again in the Port Stephens area.
Popular for some awesome surf breaks, Seal Rocks and Treachery are very much a surfers paradise and still remains very uncommercialised.
Forster-Tuncurry
The twin towns on the coast about 20-25mins East of Mum and Dads at Taree.
Tuncurry is the smaller of the two towns and began around 1875. Tuncurry means ‘plenty of fish’, originally a timber milling area it is a beautiful sleepy little fishing town.
Forster being the larger town of the area, boasts beautiful beaches and surfing spots. It is a very popular Summer holiday spot being only 4 hrs North of Sydney.
Best fish and chips are found in coastal towns where it’s coming in fresh daily! No trip to Forster happens without fish and chips heavily salted and wrapped in paper! Yum!
Port Macquarie
First visited by Europeans in 1818 when John Oxley made it to the coast from his interior explorations.
It became a secondary crime penal settlement for convicts in 1821.
In 1823, the first sugar cane to be grown in Australia started here. Now that is interesting, as a kid, I only ever knew far north NSW and Queensland as the sugar cane country! Well there you go, learn something new ever day!
Anyway, lots of history there and gorgeous beaches also.
Up into further North NSW, the only remaining old section of Pacific Highway still goes through Coffs Harbour. Really don’t think there is anywhere for them to bypass this section but who’d want to miss the Big Banana attraction!?!😂😂
Coffs Harbour
Home to Big Banana, banana plantations (being superseded by blueberries), sugar cane regions, beaches and porpoise pool.
Was named after John Korff when he sought shelter from a storm in 1847, later accidentally changed to Coffs by an administrative error by a surveyor in 1861.
Many resorts and marinas here, very big tourist area.
Further there is Grafton, Byron Bay, Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads before crossing into the sunshine state.
Soooo much coastline to explore and then from Coolangatta up is beach after beach after beach!
Get some sand and surf into ya!
Kat xo
P.S. with Drive thru and a couple quick stops it took us just on 9hours.
Sunday Sightseeing
As we left Mean Mongrel Matt, Sassy Belle and Broken Spur to enjoy the rest of their weekend, Jack and I took a Left out of town and headed for the hills.
Well, hills being the Blue Mountains area; Lithgow, Katoomba, Laura, Wentworth Falls, Glenbrook, then down into the Sydney greater region heading North then to Newcastle.
The Blue Mountains
Aptly named for its haze, a mixture of fine drops of eucalyptus oil (given off from the Eucalyptus trees) dust particles, water vapor and that little thing called light waves cause this beautiful blue hue to the mountains.
The Blue Mountains were inhabited by aboriginal tribes when the First Fleet landed. First Governor of NSW, Arthur Phillip had seen these tremendous ranges from a ridge at Castle Hill some 40-60miles East of them. He had named them Camarthen Hills and thought them to be worthy of government stock.
In 1799 it was the place Gidley King established a town for political prisoners from Ireland and Scotland.
The name was first documented in Captain John Hunters account of Phillip’s expedition up the Hawkes yet River in 1789.
There is a whole other story about who passed over them first and when and the explorers who are actually noted for gaining passage through here but I’m not going into that today.
Suffice to say at its highest point at Mount Werong is 1215m/3986ft above sea level and it’s lowest point on the Nepean River at just 20m/66ft.
It is home to such beauties as;
A quick stop at Echo Point to get our own snaps at The Three Sisters.
Coffee with a view.
And Wentworth Falls
Poets, artists, sculptors and lovers of nature have frequented the Blue Mountains region for years. One of the most notable and one of my favourites – Norman Lindsay.
http://www.normanlindsay.com.au/
So as we continued to wind through the eucalypts, past car shows, reminiscing about visits to the caves, galleries and sights; we eventually came out on the flat plains into Penrith, heading towards the outskirts of Sydney and onto Newcastle.
spectacular, spectacular!
Kat xo
Bathurst, NSW
Not Barth-hirst it’s pronounced Bath-urst, think bat add the ‘h’ and urst on the end.
Bathurst, the next stop on the road is the oldest inland settlement in Australia and has around 35,000 people living in it.
Bathurst was established in 1814 and was site of the first gold discovery and where the first gold rush occurred in Australia.
In the early years of settlement, Bathurst was a base for explorers headed inland.
In 1823, flecks of gold were found in Fish River and later ‘payable’ gold was found in 1851 at Ophir and Hill End.
Here’s some trivia for you on the gold mining front!! Hill End’s claim to fame is the Holtermann Specimen (correctly the Beyers Holtermann Specimen) found on 20th of October 1871, it is the largest single mass of gold ever discovered in the world and still retains that record today.
Bernhardt Holtermann and the gold Specimen.
BUT! We are driving and almost anybody knows (especially in motor racing) that Bathurst is home to Mount Panorama, hosting the Bathurst 1000 and Bathurst 12 Hour motor races!
The track is 4 miles/ 6.213km in length, is technically a street circuit and is actually a public road.
Historically the circuit saw motorcycles and open wheel car races but times have changed, safety restrictions tighter and now only closed-bodied cars can be raced on the track.
In 1992, Jack was a driver in the Under 2litre Sports Sedans and has raced on this very track!! (I’ll post a picture of his car later)
So of course – as one does – and now we have a manual car – he had to drive the track, ride the curbing, touch the wall (I exaggerate here), and give a running commentary on gear change, speed and who overtook him where! 😂😂🏎🏆
Mount Panorama offers a great experience and spectacular view, and maybe just the occasional wallaby sitting in the paddock.
On to Mean Mongrel Matt and Sassy’s for a visit.
Start your engines, open the throttle and let ‘er rip!!
Kat xo
Flying Visits
It’s usually the way isn’t it, you make a plan to get a few things finalised and then you get a phone call that could change life’s plans and you aren’t there to take advantage of it.
Could have been a great role and hopefully still in the running for it come Monday.
……or sometimes things work out for better options ahead. 😉😉
Wednesday we lit out early (not as early as we thought, forgot about time change!😂) and headed down the coast.
We stopped in at Emerald and Paddlewheel’s to see how they were and then on to Dad and Mum’s for the night.
Catch ups with my brother, nieces, Fiona and of course a couple games of Scrabble with Mum never goes astray!
Onward to Canberra for paperwork and visits; stayed with Trooper for a couple of nights, dinner with Trail Rider and Wendy, lunch with my Rori boy and down to the poo farm to cause a bit of trouble. 😊
Saturday on our way through to Bathurst we take the road through Boorowa and Cowra.
Usually we are coming through here in the Spring where it was meadows of golden glow, field after field filled with flowering canola. The fields are bare and dry, a little bit of green in some places see the sheep surviving well.
Boorowa is a small farming in South West, New South Wales (NSW). There are only about 1200 or so people living here.
The first unofficial residents (1821) in Boorowa were two Irishmen, Rodger Corcoran and Ned Ryan, who were ex convicts having received their ‘ticket of leave’ or pardon from the Governor.
The first Land grant came to Thomas Icely in 1829 and by 1837 a mill was operating along with an inn and some houses on the future town site of Boorowa. The village was established at its present location in 1843.
As usual in those days, there was much lawlessness, mayhem, boundary disputes that led to livestock theft, arson and murder.
Bushrangers often took advantage of the remoteness of the town as they roamed the mountainous wild lands. They would make raids in the town and on stations.
With later large land parcels sold to ‘ticket of leave’ men, the area also went through a short boom of gold, copper and iron extraction. One copper mine continuing operation up until 1900.
Now the little town continues its sheep and cattle stations in quietness. No longer subject to bushrangers and outlaws, this is pure farm country.
We continue through to Cowra, in the Central West of NSW. Population approx 10,100.
The township of ‘Coura Rocks’ had its beginnings (European settlement) in 1844. 1847 the township site was called Cowra and it proclaimed a village in 1849.
Hmmm sometimes history makes me wonder, why is a village different from a township? If it was surveyed in 1817, technically did it not exist from back then? The mind boggles.
Miners heading to gold fields made their way through here and over the next 50 years expanded rather rapidly.
- 1857 first school
- 1870 first bridge built over the Lachlan River
- 1880’s Gold was discovered at Mount McDonald
- 1886 the railhead from Sydney reached the town
- 1888 local government was granted
- 1901 the first telephone exchange was established
During World War II, Cowra was the site of a POW Camp for mostly Japanese and Italian detainees – captured military personnel.
In 1944 the infamous Cowra breakout occurred. Some 545 Japanese attempted the mass breakout. Four Australian guards and 231 Japanese died during the recapture of the POW’s with another 108 wounded.
Still to this day Cowra’s Japanese gardens have those laid to rest in their with other memorials to those who served in Darwin and World War 1.
Photo by John O’Neill
Made a quick stop at Cowboy Guns and Gear and had lunch with Wondering Hans.
On to Bathurst!
Yours in travels
Kat xo
Shooting with The Gamblers
Saturday passed with a down range kind of day! After a busy few weeks assessing and establishing we are almost there!
The weather was rather warm but nothing that a good ole icy pole can’t fix. Ooo brain freeze!
We had a great group of 17 turn out despite the heat.
Six stages with The Gamblers, saw Jack on top!! Woo hoo! Go man.
Things are starting to look good for The Duel Downunder!
Hope you had a good one no matter where you are!
Kat xo
The Adventures of Jack n Kat 