Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Cowra Snapshots

There is something about cherry blossoms that have always intrigued me. I'm not sure whether it is the fragility of the blossoms, the sense of fleeting beauty, or the wonder invoked by the oriental poets.

Since I last visited Cowra I had hoped to return for Sakura Matsuri, the Cherry Blossom Festival. So Mum and I took a couple of days off at the end of September to visit Cowra.

Cowra

Our first day was spent at the Japanese Gardens. The main activities for Sakura Matsuri were scheduled for the weekend and we were leaving on the Friday. Other activities in the gardens were for school children: calligraphy, oragami, kite-flying.

Different sections of the gardens were in different stages of growth ranging from buds to blossoms.

By the lake there were beautiful weeping cherries, drooping branches covered in dark pink blossoms.

I spent a lot of time zooming in and photographing blossoms.

I think these are crab apple blossoms. Although Mum and I continually checked the names of plants, there were so many related plants with similar blossoms I could not remember which plants I had photographed.

There were many beautiful flowers. I loved the colour and shape of this yellow iris against the rock.

I took Mum up to Bellevue Hill from which we could view Cowra and the surrounding countryside. The whole countryside is in bloom.

The canola fields of yellow really stood out across the countryside.




Weddin Mountains National Park

On the second day we visited the Weddin Mountains National Park near Grenfell, about an hour or so from Cowra. It was a refuge for bushrangers, in particular Ben Hall.

We did a bushwalk up to Ben Hall's Cave, thought to have been used for storing supplies and as a lookout. Just near the cave Mum noticed this lizard. She was wondering if it was alive so I prodded it with a small stick. Because it didn't move I concluded it was dead but on the return journey it had disappeared.

The bush was also blooming. There were masses of yellow wattle overhead and blankets of purple/blue flowers along the track.
The National Park includes Seatons Farm, which is preserved as an example of a Depression-era farm. Scrap pieces of corrugated iron were used to create these ‘patchwork’ buildings.

Passing through

We travelled to Cowra from Sydney through Bilpin and the Bells Line of Road. At Blayney there is a wind farm and we stopped at the viewing platform (and I played with the stitching app on the iPhone to create a panorama of the hills, the wind turbines and the lake).

Our route home took us through Bathurst and down the Great Western Highway. We stopped at Bathurst for a walk and lunch. The cherry trees were also flowering especially those in Kings Parade near the Bathurst War Memorial Carillon.

Note for future trips: Don't always trust the GPS. The Great Western Highway was suppose to be the quicker route. It might be longer in distance that the Great Western Highway but Bells Line of Road seemed to be quicker.


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