Hi to all from Shepparton.
We have been busy since out last Blog. We left Parkes and headed towards Griffith. You would not believe the amount of water that is lying in the paddocks up here. All the farms around West Wyalong have floodwater on them. Driving through the little town of Forbes, the cycle track just on the edge of the town was under water as well. Most of the people you speak to in the towns have had enough of the rain.
Driving through the little whistlestop of Barellan, population not many, you come across a huge tennis racquet in the centre of the town. The racquet has been placed over probably the smallest tennis court in the world. The racquet has the photo and name of Evonne Goolagong on it and it is just near Evonne Goolagong park. According to the information, she was born in Griffith and grew up in Barellan. There is your history lesson for the day.
We arrived at Griffith and after getting set up in the Caravan Park, it was off to the Information Centre. It is pretty easy to find, as there is an actual fighter plane suspended out the front. Had a bit of a look around and then back to the van.
Got up nice and early Wednesday for our planned day of exploring. The first item on our list was to check out the 'Hermits Cave', which overlooks Griffith. The hermit, Valeri Ricetti arrived in Australia in 1914 from Italy, at the age of 16. After a few labouring jobs he decided to set up in a cave overlooking the town.
He lived in his cave from 1920 up until 1942. During that time he fashioned a couple of the caves into different rooms, with one being the Chapel, complete with domed ceilings, main bedroom, junk room or visitors quarters and a kitchen with a cooking area. He even had a bit of a lounge room window, minus the glass, so that he could keep surveillance on the town below. He did a fantastic job, building a 2 metre fence along the front of his area. He also bricked in different areas, all with local stone, to make a pretty cool living area.
A bit of a stroll further along the mountain goat track, you come to the garden area that he made. He even made steps out of the local rocks. The only shame is that during the 2nd World War, he was interred as a Prisoner of War in 1942, for 18 months. On his release he returned to Griffith, where he worked for 8 years, living on and off in his cave, before returning to Italy in poor health in 1952. As you can see from the photos, your intrepid travellers go to great lengths to get you the best photos. We even came across a family of wild goats that have claimed the area as their own.
I think the only reason it remains in fairly good condition is that the local layabouts don't have the energy to hike along the goat track to find it.
A quick drive through the town and we located the War memorial in the centre of town. A pretty impressive place and extremely well presented. Just down the road from that, there is a fantastic statue of 2 soldiers standing over a plough. This was to pay tribute to the fact that after the war, 2000 returned servicemen were sent to Griffith, primarily to assist in the reclamation of huge amounts of scrubland and the building of the irrigation system, which the area relies so heavily on now to support the agriculture in the area.
Another statue having pride of place is the bust of Donald Mackay. It is hard to believe that it was way back in 1977 that he was murdered, after giving the huge Cannabis Growers in the area tons of grief.
Our next stop was to go out to Southern Cotton and have a tour of the Cotton Gin. We had tried several times during out travels to do one of these tours, so this was a blessing.
As part of your history lesson, a Gin is where the cotton is taken, after being taken from the field. The huge Header type harvester cuts the cotton and it is wrapped in a huge circular bale, wrapped in yellow plastic. From there it is taken to the cotton Gin on a semi Trailer. Each cotton bale, at this stage weighs about 2 1/2 Tonne.
They are all stored at the Gin, until being picked up by an Australian Invention called the Moon Crawler. This incredible machine picks up about 6 bales and takes them to the Gin where, basically, everything else is automated from then on.
The first step is to remove the plastic cover, which has a code on it. It then goes through 3 or 4 different stages, where the seeds are removed, the plant put through an area where huge furnaces dry the cotton, and basically the twigs and other pieces of branch are removed. The cotton bales consist of about 55% seeds, 35% cotton fibre and the rest of the weight is made up of twigs and dirt.
After all of the processing, the cotton bale is pressed into shape, weighing about 270kg. Each of the huge 2 1/2 tonne bales produces 4 bales that are ready for sale. It is pretty sad, but 95% of Australia's Cotton is purchased by China.
The day that we visited, there were thousands of bales ready for processing, but the staff told us that they would be done within about 5 days. They were facing huge problems, with the heavy rainfall, as most of the cotton crop was still lying in the farmers paddocks, unable to be picked up due to the extremely boggy farmland.
After the tour, which was really interesting, we headed back to the van. It was then off to the local leagues club for dinner. The only downer of the whole night was N.S.W. winning the 3rd game of the State of Origin series.
On the way across to Griffith, at the town of Coleambally, we found a pretty impressive sculpture of The Big Brolga. A bit further along, keeping in tune with my promise to photograph everything big, we came across The Big Strawberry.
Shortly after we arrived at Shepparton, where we will probably stay for a couple of days.
That's all for now.
Barry and Deb.
