Bathurst Oct 1st-starting the trip home.

We were heading out of Bathurst with a full tank of fuel just before 1100, having completed the house clean up to our satisfaction.

Between Mandurah and Cowra we suddenly came across about 30 cars all stopped on the side of the road with people everywhere.  An accident? No... lots of tourists taking photos of a lovely canola crop !!! We should have taken a photo of the people taking photos.

We decided to pull in at the Cowra Japanese garden and parked right behind a very familiar A-van.  Sure enough Al and Zita had had the same idea.  On an idyllic sunny day just at the start of spring it was just about the ideal time to visit, and despite a lot of tourists (mostly Asian) there was plenty of space for everyone to enjoy the tranquility of the garden.

Lots of beautiful blossom,  water and sculpted plantings. It was well worth 2 hours of our time.

Japanese Maple

Accidental twins for the day

We gave up on the idea of lunch at the gardens due to slow service and snacked our way along the road after a cuppa with Al and Zita.

We took a short break at Rankine Springs for a cuppa and a cache under the turntable just to break up the trip a bit

before continuing on our way.  Just about 20km short of Hay we turned in to the Murrumbidgee river road, and then south towards the river and the Meriola reserve. Winding our way down towards the river we found a small flat campsite beside a sandy beach with a fire place just waiting or us and good spots for our swags.

The Garmin thought it was a cute idea to suggest that, instead of following our track in (the blue line) when we headed out the next day, we could just ford the river and pick up a track on the other side (pink line is suggested route) .  We thought not.

 We sat beside our lovely fire, cooked ourselves some tea, enjoyed some lovely wine and watched the coals die down, thinking that this wonderful peaceful evening would be the last like this for a while.