This weekend we went with a couple of friends to a place in
New South Wales called Mudgee. This place is about 270 kilometres from Sydney
on the other side of the mountains and is best known as a wine district.
On the way there we did a quick stop at Lake Windamere, famous for its dead trees in the water.
We arrived to Mudgee after about 5 hours of driving (including a couple of
brief stops) and had some lunch with Chris and Yvonne. While in Mudgee we did
some jump shots of Chris and I pretending to fight (obviously I did some creative editing to get to this final result).
After lunch we headed to a couple of wineries. We were immediately impressed,
some of the local Cab Savs. and some of the whites were excellent and Kim and I
walked away with quite a few bottles from the first couple of places we visited.
The wines were also more reasonable priced than the Hunter.
Late in the afternoon we headed to the Bed and Breakfast where we staying for
the night. This was a place run by an elderly couple with 4 dogs, 7-8 Alpacas, mini horses
and some cattle.
Before dinner we did a quick stop to take some sunset photos. It was a very
quick stop, because within 5 minutes from us arriving at the location the sun
disappeared behind a thick cover of clouds and the good light was gone.
Chris and I had been planning to do some star photography of the Milky Way. The
weather forecast wasn't promising, but after dinner is seemed to clear up a bit
so we decided to give it a go.
We hadn't scoped out any good location so it was a bit of a trial and error to
find a good place. The trick with start photography is to also include an
interesting foreground subject into the photo.
The first place we stopped was next to a vineyard and although the Milky Way
was reasonably clear the grapes weren't that interesting.
We therefore headed
up some of the back streets. On this paddock we found this really old truck
parked in an almost perfect position...it was something different.
While we were setting up dogs started barking at the property behind us and
after a few minutes all the outside lights came on and a woman came out and asked
what we were doing.
Chris said that we were just taking some photos and if she was alright with
that.
She went back into the house, but the dogs kept barking at us. After another
couple of minutes she returned and asked us to leave because we were disturbing
her dogs and parents.
We were on public property so we could have told here that we wouldn't leave
and that we were in our rights to be there, but sometimes it is better to not
push the issue, especially when you are just visiting the area.
Instead we found an area with some trees...alright, but not that interesting
and by that time the Milky Way had started setting in the horizon.
Next morning we met up with Sacha (he's driven up from Sydney in the morning)
to go and visit another couple of vineries (We bought more wine).
And Aiden loved all the attention and new locations.
On the way home we were planning to stop at the Blast Furnace Park in Lithgow.
As we drive into the city we passed a couple of police cars. I was going a few kilometres
over the speed limit and hit the brakes as soon as I saw them. A couple of kilometres
further down the road the cars came up behind me with their lights on and I
thought..."Damn, I got busted", but I was really surprised when they
went past me without stopping...I was even more surprised when they pulled over
Chris in front of me.
He was busted for driving his car without a valid registration (he had
forgotten to pay it a few weeks earlier), given a fine and they told him that
he was not allowed to drive any further without a valid registration.
After the cops left he quickly went on the internet and renewed all the
paperwork online so we were able to keep going.
The blast furnace is an old iron smelter dating back to more than 100 years ago
when a lot of iron was dug out of the surrounding area and processed here to
produce steel. It is interesting walking around the old ruins of which much of
the building foundation still exists.
We also used this as an opportunity for some more fighting
jump shots.
After this it was back to Sydney...