Mittagong October 2013

Mittagong Trip – Long Weekend October 2013

Friday 4^th October 2013.  We headed off for the long weekend around 10.00am and arrived in Mittagong 11.20am an excellent drive, lots of trucks and traffic on the M7 and heavy traffic on the Hume Highway this moved steadily along with no incidents.

The Mittagong Caravan Park is an old park but very clean and friendly.  We were shown to our spot and helped to park our van it is not a big park but has all the facilities we needed.  It did not take long to set up we had some new screens for our awning and keen to see how long it would take us to put together it was very quick much better than our annex.

As the Southern Highlands floral festival was running we visited Corbett Park in Bowral that seems to be a favourite every year.  The layout was very pretty but unfortunately this year the winds had played havoc with some of the gardens and the flowers were swept away or flattened, we did enjoy what we saw and the tulips were beautiful, very stunning colours and shapes.  We drove around some of the streets in Bowral and the old homes are just magnificent and quite beautiful.

Gil read there were the remains of some iron works in an under ground car park in the Highlands Shopping Centre in Mittagong on the Old Hume Highway so we went exploring to see if we could find it.  After a few wrong turns to find the shopping centre we soon found the correct direction.  We drove into the car park but unfortunately there were no signs as to which end of the car park these remains were situated we drove around for a little while and eventually found it.  It would have been good if there could have been a sign at the entrance to the car park.  The ruins were the Iron Works of 1864 of a blast furnace, milling, rolling steel plate and this was used for the railway.  Unfortunately this only lasted to 1920’s as Mittagong was not a good area to develop and hold such industry.

Saturday 5^th October 2013

The weather was a little cloudy to start by the time we ventured outdoors the sun was up and shining.  We first visited Lake Alexandra where we have been previously in Mittagong and found the grounds have been improved with a children’s play area and shelter shed it was lovely just watching the ducks with the tiny ducklings, water hens and many flocks of corellas flying and squawking around.  It is a very pretty area with lovely grassy areas to sit or picnic on.

On leaving Lake Alexandra we headed for Moidart Garden in Bowral  we wanted to visit just one big garden while we were in the area this weekend.  We were not disappointed it was a beautiful garden, Moidart is a nursery as well as having their own stunning garden.  
The trees must be years old they were so big camellia’s, spruce, pine, beech, golden ash, azaleas, rhododendrons and more truly beautiful and the colourful ground cover was stunning..  As we walked along the back of the garden the view over the dam and cows in the paddock made a wonderful picture.  The garden was terraced from the house and near the house was a sunken garden it was stunning we took forever to walk around and just take in the view.  A most enjoyable time.

Next stop Robertson we wanted to visit the Old Cheese Factory that I (Jules) visited when I was in high school and it was then a working cheese factory.  We would have to say we were a little disappointed with the set up, mainly old wares and a cheese section and lunch area, no cheese tasting and no information on what would be available to have for lunch.

We left this area and headed into Robertson with not much to see so we eventually drove a few kilometres east (Illawarra Highway) and came to the Pie Stop this was great, it had a large variety of fresh meat and tasty pies big and small and also fruit pies and this stop was very, very popular.  We had a quick bite to eat here then headed back into Robertson looking for the railway station, this was amazing, it still had the gravel platform and old concrete water tank on the platform obviously this has been closed for some time.
 
There was one stunning sight that took our breath away the number of Waratah bushes which surrounded the Railway Station, not only the red Waratah but the white as well an amazing scene.  The most we had ever seen was an occasional bush when bush walking and then these only had one or two flower heads and not very big well away from any heavy people traffic, it made our day.

On the way back to Mittagong we stopped at the historic village of Burrawang that dates back to the 1800’s still with the original buildings, post office, pub and general store.  We ventured further down Church Street and saw the St David’s Church and St Peters that were also very old places of worship and at the back of St Peters church was a very old cemetery and on the grave stones were Irish names from Tipperary, Limerick and many other places in Ireland so the area was obviously settled by Irish immigrants from the beginning, a beautiful area.

Sunday 6^th October 2013.

Today is the Grand Final Day for NRL footy so we were not going to go to far as Gil is a mad Manly fan and we needed to be back to see his team win.  Also born and grown up in Windsor he wanted to see the Windsor Wolves play in the NSW Cup. 

We planned to go to a ghost town called Joadja. Joadja Creek Heritage Tours,
we don’t know that the name ghost town is relevant as this was a Kerosene Oil and Mineral company that had Scottish immigrants come and settle for the industry and what remains are ruins when it stopped producing and everyone left the area and in some of the areas the bush has regrown over a number of ruins.  We had tried to find this place on a previous trip to the area but lost our way and abandoned our search, now we put in some further research and found some good directions on how to get to our destination, it reminds us a lot of the ruins at Newnes near Lithgow. 

 Although loose gravel, the road in, is in good condition, it changes to tar on a steep decline in a small section, then back to dirt road at the end, there is only one very small section after the tar that is a little rough but easily accessible.

At this site you can do a self guided tour or take a guided tour with the manger of the area on a tractor pulled wagon.  We took the self guided tour and found this to be great we were given a sheet of paper on which the lay out of the tracks and  

old ruins were very well indicated, this is suitable for a sedan or all wheel drive vehicle.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time inspecting the ruins, trying to imagine how people lived and taking photos and a whole day could be taken up enjoying the sites.  The manager advised us they intend rebuilding some of this site and really making this into a tourist destination, some of the clearing had already started when we were visiting the area.  This is a great site to visit and see how this industry started and how against great odds it worked at the time wonderful Australian history.