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Today was all about wine tasting, good for T&J, not so good for Kids.

We started off at Pieter Van Gent wines, which was great as the wine tasting was in the cask room. Unfortunately there was a huge rain storm came just as we left, so I had to get rather wet retrieving the car for the others! Of course 2 minutes later the rain stopped! Good wines here, then we visit Petersons Wines, which is related (same family), as Petersons House (old Peterson Champange House). Good wines, but no purchases here as all these wines are available now at Petersons in the Hunter. Then we visited Robert Stein Vineyard, heaps to try but nothing took our fancy.

Then off to luch at Di lusso Estate for some fresh italian pizza, including a desert pizza, and of course some more wine.

In the afternoon, we visited Robert Oatley's  vineyard, which brands such as Wild Oats and Tik Toc. Kids had fun with the kids stuff they provided but none of the wines took our fancy. Finally a visit to Lowe wines, which had fantastic wine, and a great tasting area, in their open wine shed.

So, in summary a very sucessful day for the 2nd last day of our trip, bit hard on the credit card but fun just the same.

We are all starting to get excited and sad, about getting home and ending the trip, but all good things must come to an end. We will have been travelling for over 6 months (188 days) and have travelled over 35,000 kms in that time. We have seen many different things and met many different people on our travels and have enjoyed all our travels immensely. We also enjoyed travelling with my parents in the NT, though that does seem so long ago. We have found so many places, we want to go back to, and some we never want to see again!

Tomorrow we pack up for the last time on this trip to travel back to Lochinvar, but I am sure it will not belong before we are going away again, but maybe for not so long next time ...

Today we decided to visit the local markets at Rylstone, and the lolly shop there. We found the markets were OK, but very small, we were expecting a much larger market with 50 or so stalls, where as found 15-20 stalls. Anyway did find some yummy Lemon butter, and Pickle. Also a some lovely fresh bread (still warm) cooked in a woodfired oven, yum! The lolly shop was a bit of a let down as really just a nic nak shop, with a few lollies, but we still managed to find some sweets we liked.

Back in the car and up to Gulgong, which meant driving back via Mudgee. We also visirewd the Windamere Dam, which as built in 1984 to provide water for Stock, irrigation, and the local towns. We had to laugh though the dam water was currently undrinkable due to Blue Algae in the water, so the water can not be used! Also interesting to see how low the dam was, at about only 60% full, and as it was a newish dam there were heaps of dead trees still showing from the water.

Back at Gulgong, there was the Henry Lawson Museum, which had heaps of interesting information about this famous writer. Not much of interest for the kids, much more an adult display. Had a bit of a look around the town as it has many heritage buildings. addtionally some of the buildings were used in the picture on the $10 note.

On the footpaths here they had many of the symbols used by the Swagmen, or transisent workers, which they would draw in the ground outside a house. They may leave a message for other saying, good work here, or dangerous people do not enter. This way they could tell information or warn other travellers.

Bac to the van in Mudgee for Charlotte to cook dinner, yum!

Today we travelled to Mudgee, but first we went to check out the Memorial to Banjo Patterson. There was a memorial park near the tourist info office in town, which had a small amout of info and recordings of parts of his poem. Then we went to check out the small parklands set aside near where his house was. For a very famous Australian, Orange does not seem to have made much of this, maybe it is because he was just born here and spent most of his life in Sydney.

The information centre told us you could pick fresh peaches at one of the local farms, but when we drove out there we found a very dodgy place, so decided best just to drive on.

 This little detour did add some scenic driving to our drive north. We drove up the Mitchell Highway up through Wellington, and then across, not the normal way to travel across. Arrived Mudgee, to a nice warm evening, so the kids even managed a swim.

Woke up this morning and it was damn cool, most likely the coldest we had been in the whole trip. Think it got down to about 5 or 6 degrees, which I think is cold as this is supposed to be summer. On speaking to the locals, while this is not normal for this time of year, it is not uncommon for cold pathes like this in summer. Guess I see why I live closer to the beach! Mind you it appears it is the height of these places that make them cold, rather than the distance inland, especially this time of the year.

Anyway, we pack up, around Josie having yet another teleconference, and move on up to Bathurst.

OK, now picture this, the Bathurst car racing track, and here comes ... the Gabites family doing the speed limit of 60km/h around the track, with their caravan on! Boy did we get some strange looks coming down Conrad straight!

We kept on driving through Bathurst (apart from the race track above), and headed for Milthorpe, which sounded like a lovely old town to visit. Well it was loverly, but mostly closed for Xmas holidays or as it only opened on the weekend. We did find it a bit strange that this time of year (still School holidays ) is obviously not a popular time as many businesses were just closed for 2-3 weeks.

From Milthorpe we drove through to Orange and managed to get the kids to the very cool adventure playground at the Botanic gardens. We did also though manage to grab the last site in the caravan park in Orange, there are only two parks and the other one is supposed to be full with permanent vans. Found this a bit contradicting where everything else seemed to be closed, and found it was due to the miners (there is gold in them hills), who take all the accomodation, especally during the week!

Up fairly early to get to Jenolan Caves for a 10 am start. We had spent last night studing up the very complex timetable they had, and various ticketing options, and though we were sorted. Of course got there and found it was not the same as we expected and some of the tours we wanted to do were booked out. Unfortunately the staff were not particularly helpful at helping us, so a bit more replaning and we prepared to visit one of the caves.

Maybe we have been a bit spoilt with what we have seen around the country, as we have seen a couple of other caves, but I would have to say, the caves were a bit of a disappointment. We thought maybe the tour we choose was not a good one, but on speaking to the staff it seems we saw one of the best caves they have! It was still worth seeing but certainly not what I would call spectactular.

After we had a bar lunch, which seemed the best of the very few options available, we did the free included tour, which was OK.

One other thing, the drive in is very windy and steep, from Oberon, thankfully no caravan (none allowed either), and once you leave the otherway also windy but not so steep to get back out of the valley the caves are in. Very pretty drive both ways.

One thing that was rather cool was the road goes through one of the caves, they said it is on the only major road/ highway through a natural cave in the world ...

Today we packed up and left our campsite at Canberra to head to Oberon. On the way out of town we visited the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), making it in time for their 10am tour.

Interesting tour around the facility, including the Arena, Pool, Gym, and indoor sports training areas. Then we visited the games area where the kids got to try some of the sports, including goal kicking, basketball, cycling and even skiing!

After lunch we travelled on north stopping for a quick visit at the Big Merino sheep, which is a rather tacky large thing at Goulburn. But boy is it a big sheep, we managed to climb up inside and look out its eyes (windows!).

Eventually arrived Oberon, to find the locals were swiming in the local pool, we of course had jumpers on as it was only low 20-25 degrees. My how quickly we have adjusted to the warmer weather.

Today we are off to the Australian Mint where the make Australian money. I initially thought they made all money here but, they just do coinage and special coins, metals etc. Very interesting place to go and you are able to view the production floor where the blanks are turned into coins. It seemed a bit strange to me that the orginal coins made in a run used to be called the proof coins, now it seems they have a special process to make proof coins, and the original coins from the run are now just set aside and called uncirculated. Seems to be creatin there own little market for these proof coins, but I suppose in reality the also create the market for the normal coins we use!

They did have lots of information on the making and history of coins, which made interesting reading for the adults. Finally the kids got to mint their own $1 coin (for the cost of $3!), which they thought was good.

After this we returned to the War Memorial, and enjoyed a lunch in their main cafe, which was good food for good value, an unusual thing in Canberra! Kids had a good time interacting with the rest of the exhibits in the kids area.

Next we visited Cockington Green, which is a place where there is small replica's of many of the famous buildings around the world. Very well done and heaps of fun for the kids. The girls loved the inside display where there were dolls houses with miniture funiture, beds, curtains and mini everything else. They also had a mini steam train which we got to ride on. Then we walked around the world villiage with minitures from each country.

The place was rather well done as it included things like the Stig from Top gear, as well as things like police finding a body in the park, right through to Stonehenge replica.

This morning off to the National Museum for a look. They had some good displays and a kids zone where the kids got to design a future house or car and then got to view a 3d video with their (and some others) creations included as part of the video, The kids thought this was pretty cool and did this twice!

It was interesting to wander around the museum, as many of the displays were about towns and areas we have now visited, in the flesh so to speak. Interesting to see what small part of an area was included here, when some of the areas being talked about are huge!

After lunch we treked over to the National War Museum, and my it has taken on some recent changes. The older part is still there but now in addtion there are areas with sound and light shows, so you feel like you really are part of a bombing raid on Germany, or on a helicopter in the Vietnam War. They were really well done. Only thing was I could not decide whether they made war sound more or less attractive, as they almost made it almost seem like fun (and educational). Again they had created an area for kids, which was well done, and at least this made it interesting for the kids and not some old boring thing. Much more here than we initially thought so will need to return in the morning for some more viewings.

We did manage to watch the closing ceremony with a Scottish Piper, which was rather special.

On the way home we thought we'd visit the Telstra tower on Black hill. It sounded like it had a resturant and coctail bar, plus a couple of cafes. Well, maybe it used to be good, but now very run down, and the cafe was closed, and now the gift shop sold coffee and pre packed cake as well. The view was still good but since you have to pay a fee to go up, cost us approx $30, I do not think it was worth the effort. Guess as a tourist you sometimes just have to do these things!

Today we thought we would be adventurous and bike around Lake Burley Griffin, which is in the centre of Canberra. We thought no hills, my how wrong were we. There was not too many but I managed to get conned into towing Emily in a trailer, not so easy going up the hills! Still we did have heaps of fun and enjoyed the slow travel and enjoying the views around the lake. We stopped for some morning tea at the dam/ outlet for the lake, and then lunch at the yacht club on the waters edge.

After Lunch we cycled around the lake some more and through the government area where the museums etc are. Also visited the  National Carillon, which is on an island. Here also there was a wedding taking place, though it seemed the bride was running a bit late!!

Returning back to the bike hire we were all relieved to get rid of the bikes, after our riding of 20 or so km, certainly my bottom was happy to be not sitting anymore!

On the way home we drove via one of the City lookouts.