My Bright Field

In my old Sweet Wayfaring blog I used to post Country Lines images - so I will wrap up this trip with a country lines photo.  Back home I am now getting on with eating up the yummy citrus fruit, pruning the fruit trees, shrubs and roses. It's exhausting work so I will go off the air again for a while.

Between Parkes and Condobolin is the locality of Yarrabandai.  I'm surprised that there were ever enough people to support a shop.

Condobolin (100kms from Parkes) is a nice town (population 3,500) situated on the Lachlan River.  We arrived on the day they were celebrating NAIDOC week with a street parade.  NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee.

Bogan Gate (on the way to Trundle) is like just about every town and locality out west, it has grain silos.  Unlike the north of Victoria these towns are not part of a silo art trail.

Another day, another town.  This time it's Trundle (population 600) about 60 kms from Parkes.  Trundle is reputed to have the longest hotel verandah in NSW.  It also has a very wide main street. Lots of towns out west have wide streets but this one is the widest I have ever seen.

For my "abandoned" shot for this trip, at Daroobalgie between Forbes and Parkes there is an old disused abattoir.  I would have loved to have gone in closer to get good shots of this evocative place but it is on private property.  I see it is available as a movie set . A book I have read recently I am still working my way through the ABC Book Club Top 50 list . This week's book  The First Stone: Some Questions of Sex and Powe r by Helen Garner is one I have previously chosen not to read despite enjoying Garner's work.  Written in the early 1990s it investigated a sexual harassment case of two girls claiming their university college master had groped them at a party - it mostly takes the side of the master.  It made me uncomfortable at the time, whose version of events is to be believed? How do positions of power play into the mix?  Can someone's career be ruined by claims even if they are later rejected in court?  Twenty years down the track...

Forbes which is 33kms from Parkes is another quite sizeable town.  It has elegant civic buildings and has kept more of its old town charm than Parkes. What's growing in my gardens right now? Burnbrae is fragrant with the perfume of daphne.  At Rose Orchard Haus the japonica camellia is beginning to flower and paperwhite jonquils are cheerfully clustered at the trunks of trees.