2026-05-15
Breakfast this morning was porridge with dates, apricots and almonds. This is a simple, but filling breakkie and easy to make in the caravan. After breakfast, Lea did some washing (using the hand powered washing machine gadget we bought) while I rigged up a clothesline off the awning. I then went for a short walk down the road to look for birds, and came away with a couple of nice shots.
It was then time to decide what to do for the day. We checked the weather forecast and saw possible showers in the morning, before clearing in the afternoon, so we figured we'd try for the Glow Worm Tunnel at Lithgow in the morning, and do Mayfield Gardens in the afternoon. Once on the road though, Lea noticed it was 2.5 hours drive to the Glow Worm Tunnel (an hour of that was to Lithgow itself though). We stopped at Hampton for a coffee and a lamington as it was super foggy and also morning tea time. We decided to crack on to Lithgow and see what the weather was like anyway. However, looking in to the tunnel a bit more, there was 27 km of dirt road to traverse, after a week's worth of rain and showers, and then a 6km walk. This would end up being a whole-day affair. So we decided to give that miss. I needed a couple of things from the shops, so we stopped in at Coles and grabbed some supplies, and then hunted for something else nearby. There was an interesting sounding lookout about 7.5km away (apparently), but when we plugged that in to the GPS, it also said 1.5 hours to get there. That too sounded like a bit much.
We'd settled on returning to Oberon for lunch and then Gardens, when I took a side detour to get around some standstill traffic, and noticed a brown sign pointing to the Blast Furnace Park, and so off we went ('cause I knew that was actually IN Lithgow itself and therefore a good place to have our lunch sandwiches). This turned out to be quite a good place for lunch and a browse around. There's not a lot left of the old blast furnace site, since the equipment was taken to Port Kembla when that site was commissioned. But most of the first engine room stands, and the foundations of a lot of the rest of the site are still there.
We then set off back to Oberon, stopping briefly to photograph The Big Trout, and then onwards to Mayfield Garden. This sprawling garden was awash with autumn colours and numerous birds.
We stopped for the obligatory "selfie" by a water feature.
On our way to find the Maze (less amazing than it could be), we came across The Stumpery, which was pretty cool, but needed more skulls and bone windchimes.
After we'd completed the maze, we ended up by this curious stone oval, which frames part of the lower lake nicely. It lines up with the private residence of the owners further up the hill.
Heading back down towards the carpark, we diverted to the bottom of the stone bridge we'd crossed before, and found this pretty view.
That was just a small sample of what we saw, and we didn't see everything. If you're in the area, it's well worth a few hours here (tickets were a little pricey for a garden $38pp).
Dinner when we got back was chicken schnitzel (with mustard, bacon and cheese topper), and roast potatos and carrots, all cooked in the Wolstead multi-cooker. After which we actually did some planning for the rest of the trip. So tomorrow we're off to Dubbo, where we'll do the Old Dubbo Gaol, and the Taronga Western Plains Zoo, then on to Coonabarabran where we'll check out Siding Spring Observatory and do some star-gazing, and probably poke around the Warirumbungles.