Wednesday, 5th June ~ Cobar, NSW

With such a beautiful sunrise at Warrawong on the Darling, it was a bit sad to leave. But what can you do?  Move in ?

See what I mean ...
no photo enhancements here,
and all pics
taken using my trustee HTC phone !
Beautiful ...

Each evening, Warrawong on the Darling, has a fireside happy hour and a few people had commented about the numbers of goats grazing near the roadside. Up until Warrawong, we had seen some goats, but not in the numbers that we saw driving from Wilcannia to Cobar ! There were thousands.

Interestingly though, no road kill. I thought goats were supposed to be dumb, but they've worked it out, stay off the road. They must be smarter than emus - we've seen a few squashed ones, that makes me sad, but oh well. When they dart out across the road, it's no wonder.

 

 

This section of our journey offered plenty of rest stops to choose from for our smoko stop.

All of them had vans (varying numbers) parked up, and no doubt would have been there for an overnighter - and why not? The rest stops are very roomy.



The 'ornamental' trees along the highways have been interesting too. We'd seen a cup tree near Elliston (SA), and on this trip we saw other ornamental trees; a bottle tree, a cap tree, a shoe tree, a toy tree and a 'left over tree' (you name it, it was hanging in the tree).

Gives you a laugh along the way and
makes you think you should bring
something along for the next tree ...









We arrived in Cobar at lunch time, set up, had a quickie 'healthy' lunch (more on that later), did a bit of shopping for some necessaries = grape juice and cow juice. Did a quickie tour of Cobar to ensure that nothing had changed since we were last here and back to the van to update the blog. Ha ! The internet speed was sooo sloowwa, that I couldn't operate and gave it all away. Up early to try again - it was faster, but who needs that stress. Abandon update altogether. Still, I shouldn't complain, we live in a big country; this is the outback afterall. (Backdated update now being done in Bourke!)

On our 2012 trip, we visited Cobar (pop 4,500). The town looks cleaner than we remembered this time. The bakery is still the same .. yummy (yeah, remember I said about the healthy lunch ...?). While the pies are yummy, we now have a new benchmark, set by Peterborough. And I have to say, Peterborough is still on top ! But when it comes to a matchstick .. well, Cobar is the winner. That delicate crisp pastry, with lashings of luscious whipped cream and a stream of sweet strawberry sauce, topped with a generous swipe of strawberry icing. Awh stop !  I want another one now.

 this is my half, it's double the size.

Cobar is "The Jewel of the Outback". It's a bustling and prosperous town with a mixture of old and modern buildings which chronical its history through its last 140 years. The town is steeped in pastoral and mining history. Cobar mines copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc. You can learn all this and more in the Cobar Heritage Centre (information centre). What a fantastic building.

Did you know? During my research about Cobar, I read that, should you decide to move to Cobar, you may be eligible for a $7000 grant? WOW.

When you see all the travellers on the road, I do wonder about a town's ability to cope with the influx of people and provide assorted basic services. Is it a drain on its resources eg water? This is the sign in the shower in Cobar. I'd like to think that the traveller $$ is doing some good for the town/community, in other words, "I hope the books balance". And everyone's a winner !!  that's ok, now break into song ...