Goolie Pub Rocks!

After a great drive from Canberra with the old girl (the Patrol) running like a dream – finally – we arrived at a little town called Gooloogong. The village is located mid way between the towns of Cowra and Forbes on the Lachlan Valley Way. It is close to the historic township of Canowindra and the Lachlan River flows nearby.

Our home for this week

Gooloogong offers travellers a wonderful little rest stop, free of charge!! Now, there are a lot of free rest areas that are fantastic, but the awesome thing about Gooloogong, is they very generously let you hook up to their power and water for free, and they even have hot showers in the amenities block. We haven’t found anywhere else quite so generous. There is a donation box, which of course we threw some money into. We love the little country towns that try to encourage people to camp there. We have developed a little policy – whenever a town lets us stay with them for little or no cost, we will try to put as much of our money back into the town. We go to their pubs, buy groceries in their supermarkets, and buy fuel from their service stations. It’s our little way of saying thanks.

As it turns out, Gooloogong made lots of money from us. There was a notice board at the campground advertising a local mobile welder. Perfect timing, we needed to get our new bike rack welded on to the draw bar of the caravan. So we called Simon up and not only did he weld the bike rack (and did a fantastic job) but also fixed our taps and made us up two really cool signs for the back of the caravan, and two bike rack number plates.

The campground is a huge grassed area, fully fenced off and attached to a big playground and BBQ shelter. Perfect for us! The boys spent the mornings at the shelter doing their schoolwork and the afternoons playing on the playground. Of course, little Zaccy was happy to spend ALL day at the playground!

The day after we arrived we were joined by my mum and dad. We haven’t seen them since March and have missed them so much. We were all very excited to each other and they couldn’t believe how much the boys had grown in such a short time (especially Zaccy!!)

We went on a ‘field trip’ to Canowindra to visit the Age Of Fishes Museum. Canowindra is the site of one of the world's great fossil discoveries from the late Devonian period. The fossils were discovered when a road worker in 1956 uncovered a slab of rock filled with 360 million year old fish fossils. The fish had been buried when trapped in a pool of water that dried up, stranding species that had never been discovered before.

On our last night we went to the “Goolie” pub for dinner. A great old pub, about to celebrate it’s 100^th birthday this year. Friendly people, great food, excellent value for money and a roaring fireplace. Sam and Will added their mark on the famous ‘wall’. One wall of the pub is covered in messages and names of all the locals and visitors to the town. The pub’s motto is “the Goolie pub rocks” and we all agree whole heartedly!

The only negative thing about Gooloogong (and all of its surrounding towns – in fact the whole of central NSW) was the mouse plague! For those of you who don’t know, I have a huge fear of mice. You can put a huge spider on the wall, a snake in the grass, bugs on me and I wont care, but one little mouse can send me screaming. Before this trip I decided I had to get over my fear. I had been working really hard at it and getting much better until our stay at Gooly. There were dead mice everywhere (yes, even dead ones make my skin crawl!) and live ones scampering all through the bushes all day long. Every time I walked out the caravan door I would hear them scurrying out of my way. Over the few days we were at Gooloogong, my fear of mice came back with a vengeance! I was like a nervous wreck! I have a really bad feeling a couple of the little buggers have hitched a ride in the caravan and I am not happy about it at all!!!