Boorowa and Young


Friday the 27th September, woke up to a beautiful sunny morning after a very peaceful nights sleep, albeit a very cold one. Put the diesel heater on straight away. We were able to hook up to water at this free camp at the Gunning Showground which made it so much better, not having to use the noisy water pump in the van. Had my favourite breakfast of mushrooms and eggs and headed off.



We headed south on the Hume Highway and turned off on to the Lachlan Valley Way. The countryside was beautiful and green. They had rain less that two weeks ago which has greened up the place. Despite that the whole area is still in drought of course. It will take a lot more rain to end this drought as the earth is just sucking the moisture in. A lot of farmers have already planted wheat and other crops and they are looking good now but time will tell if they get a good head on them.



We pulled in to Boorowa as we were on the way to Young. I had not given Boorowa any thought when planning the trip but it was on the way and it was perfect timing to grab a coffee. We were pleasantly surprised by the history that the town has kept. I had not realized that it was as significant a town that it was. Around the 1860s it was the southernmost town established in NSW. It still seems to be thriving today with a strong farming community. We took a walk around town and a bit of a drive to check out the historical buildings.


The Court House was built in 1878. Apart from the bar table and all the old wooden chairs the old court is in good shape. Linda assumed her rightful position as Judge.







What is now the Boorowa Hotel was the Royal Standard Hotel and built in 1880.



This old home is impressive for an 1866 build, called ‘Glenara’, a six room house.



This was the Star Hotel built in 1867.





The oldest Hotel was the Royal Hotel (of course, it had to be the Royal, based on my last blog referencing there being a Royal Hotel in every town we went to) built in 1860.
We drove on to Young and checked out the Showground. Linda was not keen on it so we went to the caravan park. After setup and lunch we went to the information Centre which is housed in the old railway station which is a classic old gem.


From info we gained there we visited the Ballinaclash Orchard Winery where Linda sampled a couple of wines and came away with a couple of bottles of chardonnay and a port.


Back to town and fueled up. Surprisingly there was nothing done in terms of a lookout over the town itself. There was a lookout another 14 kilometres out but nothing overlooking the town directly. We relaxed with a bit of reading and blogging and tele. Linda cooked a very tasty salmon and pasta dish for dinner.


Next morning, Saturday the 28th, we left the van park and drove to the Information Centre where they have a great car park. We then commenced the Heritage Walk around town. Young quickly developed with the discovery of gold in 1860. With the gold rush came Europeans and Chinese and a surveying of the place for a town. It was originally knows as Lambing Flat. The European miners rioted against the Chinese miners, assaulted them, drove them off their diggings and stole their belongings. They also cut off their pigtails. The Police were grossly out numbered but did their best to quell the rioting. More of that in a tick.


There were some grand old banks, Post Office and Court House (not the original). All built around the 1878 to 1890 mark.





We came across the Lupton Lookout which was developed as a memorial to the only miner who was killed during the riots. It is not known exactly who shot the miner. There are two stories. The funny one is that a warning shot was fired in the air by the Police and as Lupton had climbed a tree the shot fired wound up hitting him and killed him. The other story is that he was shot by Police when they did a sabre charge to disperse the rioters. I hope it is the funny one that is true. The miners were rioting on the occasion of Lupton’s death as five of the leaders of the miners had been arrested. They were trying to force their release. The Police literally read the Riot Act to the miners and I guess that is where the saying comes from. The following day the Police released the prisoners and retreated to Yass. I guess they thought the miners would attack with a vengeance as a result of Lupton’s death. Many miners and Police had been wounded.








We moved on to the magnificent Court House built in 1886. It seems it’s grandeur had was owed to the Government wanting to establish it’s authority following the chaotic history of the town.





The gaol gate was built in 1876, presumably the gaol was built earlier.





Then there was this beautiful convent building.



In 1889 Young became the first town in Australia, apart from the capital cities that had street lighting installed.




Another early building was the Millards factoy.




I loved the classic old Empire Hotel which was built in 1860 and moved across the street for some reason.

 That concluded our Heritage Walk. Back to the rig and headed for Cootamundra.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Road Home and Lake Wallace, Wallerawang

Image
Friday morning and we left Lake Cargelligo as our trip was all but over. The first main town we came to was Condoblin. We had been here once before which was on the trip prior to this one a few weeks earlier. When we were camped at Parkes we took the drive out to Condoblin to check it out. It was a good town and on that occasion we took a walk around and over the bridge but did not bother walking beyond the bridge very far as that was already the outskirts of town. So as we approached the town from the west we saw a big display that we did not come across previously. I would have been so disappointed had we been told about it later and had not seen this display. It was only because we came from the west that we saw all this 'Ute Art'. Very talented artists had done amazing work with the common themes being a Ute and Australia. I could not help but photograph nearly all of them. They were so good. ...
Read more

Lake Cargelligo

Image
Thursday the 3 rd October and we left West Wyalong after having a walk around town and doing a bit of shopping. It has been getting progressively drier as we have been coming north west from before Temora. As we were heading for Lake Cargelligo it was very dry. As always I had taken a look at Wikicamps to see where we might stay. There were two free camps and a caravan park. There was no need to go to a van park that night so we went to the freecamp very near town so we could walk in for dinner. So we pulled in to Frog Hollow free camp. It is a great spot right on the lake. There is a portaloo flushing toilet but that was all we needed with our fully self contained van. Don’t even need that but it makes life easier. This was our spot. After setup and lunch we took a drive around to the other freecamp which is on a point on the other side of the lake, called Deadman's Point. It got it's name from a couple of swaggies who were doing their best to s...
Read more

Junee

Image
After a nice breakfast and walk at Bethungra Dam we left for another short trip of about 35km to Junee. We checked out the Golf Club for camping. They do $25 a night power and water, but $20 for CMCA members. It was ok but we thought we would checkout the van park which had a little lake. Should have rung because we did not get a spot by the lake anyway. So I was kicking myself a bit about not staying at the golf club. Anyway, such is life. We were ready to slow down a bit so we decided to stay two nights. After setup we took a drive around town and checked out a free camp 6km away but were not keen on it. Did some shopping and then went to the Chocolate Factory. I could not believe the number of people that were going through the place. It was packed and most of it would have been touring trade. It was a Sunday so that meant there were more people around as well. Word must have spread about this place. It certainly is a big deal there. We came away with three different chocolate c...
Read more