Warwick

Australian Standing Stones, Glen Innes

Changes of plan are nothing new to those who spend time on the road. Adjustments need to be made to cater for a whole variety of things.

One of those things in, our case is temperature. I'm unable to rest easy in temperatures below 10 degrees and although we now run with air con in the Avan which allows us to be away through winter, it also means we need a connection to power. We've never entertained a generator and besides, national parks aren't that keen on them, so we have to be content to only stay in NPs when the night time thermometer is ten or more.

As a result, with the weather suddenly under the influence of a slow moving cold pressure system, our plan to stay for three nights at Main Range NP near Cunningham's Gap, had to be changed.

Two nights and a full day in Warwick was the result of the start of this changed plan.

The drive north to Warwick was uneventful, which is just the way I prefer drives with the Avan to be! We stopped at Armidale for fuel, bypassing the city and on to Glen Innes for morning tea at the Australian Standing Stones at Glen Innes. This open plain with all of its tall granite stones purpose hewn and placed strategically to display from above, both the Southern Cross and the Celtic Cross, is a memorial to Celtic peoples in Australia. It is arranged as a calendar and is based on the Ring of Brodgar.

We have been calling in here for more than twenty years. At first it was to toss the kids out for some fresh air and exercise on the way to somewhere but in recent years, it has provided a nice spot among the trees for the caravan and a cuppa. This visit coincided with two ladies with wild flowing hair and similarly flowing skirts engaging in some bathing ceremony of a child in the middle of the ring. Everyone seemed happy.

On to Tenterfield for lunch by the weather rock and then Warwick by mid afternoon.

O'Mara's Pub

Our full day in Warwick on the following day, started with a walking tour of the town centre to look at the more spectacular buildings. Many of them were constructed with sandstone quarried at Yangan, Emu Vale and Tannymore to the east of Warwick. The town hall, post office, police station and court house stood out but other buildings, such as the hundred year old Criterion Hotel were also impressive. We followed with a driving tour of Warwick for the same purpose and saw many a fine Queenslander, which have been well preserved as homes and more impressive hotels. The huge Abbey of the Roses, built over 21 years from 1883 and home to the Sisters of Mercy until 1987, is another sandstone monster. Its serves as a function centre now, hosting everything from weddings to murder mystery nights.

After lunch, we drove a circuit out to Killarney, in order to view the three falls and have a coffee at a renowned cafe. It was beautiful countryside and the drive there included a diversion on a road which became dirt, then narrow, then crossed cattle grids and continued on without us in deep and heavy ruts down a very steep slope. It was too much adventure for us.

Dagg Falls

A quick backtrack got us to Killarney and quickly out the other side into rain, which started as spots and ended in a solid wall not far beyond Queen Mary Falls. Less than five kilometres from our goal, we again left adventure for others as the road became a sneaky river and the descent a nerve jangling ten minutes.

Back in Killarney, we looked for some time for supposedly the best cafe. We eventually developed the ability of reading script on signs designed to be read from a metre away and vanishing into the background. By the time we reached the open front door, the machines were off and the till being collated. My enquiry informed me that the proprietor would be happy to start up the coffee machine again, but it would take 15 minutes and we would have to sit outside to wait. It was pissing down outside. We left.

The last acts of the afternoon were grocery shopping for Sue and a few noisy beers at the Criterion Hotel, where I recited three poems to a background of ACDC, John Cougar and Meatloaf. Its a long story but when a 140kg woman insists, you don't argue, but it is sufficient to say that next time I am a stranger in a country pub, I will sing along to the music rather than write ideas on my iPad.

Click here for today's photos

The Ring of Kerry

It couldn’t have been a more pleasant day touring a well-worn tourist path in County Kerry today, exploring what is known as the Ring of Kerry.

Largely formed by the intervention of an ice age which carved deep u-shaped valleys and left a series of spectacular lakes, our tour took us through sleepy little Irish villages and spectacular mountain scenery. Its been a very wet summer in the UK, which is great for making the place green but particularly bad for summer crops like potatoes. Back in 1845, they had even worse, when a fungal blight spread through potato crops, turning them black and putrid. As the staple in an already poor diet, families at first resorted to eating the black spuds and died as a result. Unable to feed themselves, they turned to selling their possessions, then stealing food. Neither solved the problem and when the blight returned for the following two seasons, the only two alternatives were to leave the country or huddle in their stone cottages and die. These were poor people made poorer who couldn’t afford to emigrate as families, so ones and two were chosen to leave, mostly for America, where some survived, even found success but left behind families they would never see again.

In those three years of the potato famine, the Irish population reduced by 25% from 8 million to 6 million. Its hard to imagine the scale of such devastation but sitting roadside beside a series of broken, overgrown stone cottages which had become tombs for their occupants, the imagining become much easier.

This was the most powerful image of my day.

Contrasted with Muckross House in the evening and a life of extreme opulence of the Vincent Family who lived there, it became more vivid, more telling of that age old gap between haves and have-nots and makes it all the more understandable why the Irish have became such a practical and hard people not given to folding when times are tough.

At Muckross House, the owners planned for six years for a visit by Queen Victoria. They spent much of their wealth redecorating in the finest quality furnishings of their day, for what became a two day visit, in anticipation of Royal favours of a title or perhaps a land grant. Instead, they got nothing, no return on their investment and eventually had to sell their house and land and cut their losses.

In between these very human stories, the scenery was very pretty, especially up in the mountains. Unfortunately, lunch was taken up in the lower cloud ceiling and the “prettiest view in all of Ireland” was instead white out conditions. Not all was lost: I had a Murphy’s to commiserate. The day ended back at Lough Leane, overlooking the loch and the remains of an old castle whilst frothing up my moustache over yet another Murphys.

We are starting to enjoying the company of the people on tour, mostly by being selective as to who we talk with. Each has stories to tell and after a few days, become willing to tell them. Our tour is dominated by Australians, making up half of the group. We are among the youngest.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

During one stop, whilst others snapped the scenery, I listened to some music from a folk duo who played harp, flute and guitar: most pleasant but cut ridiculously short as the commitment to moving on engulfed me. I’ll have to wait until Australia to hear their CD.

Bad couple of days for me but what else can I expect. When that old Black Dog comes snapping at my heels, all I can do is grab his leash and keep him from biting me too hard. Like the Irish, I’m a survivor.