Saturday...3 May 2014

Griffith is a lovely town. The main street goes forever! Just the thought of having to walk along there left me breathless. One would not want for anything is this town. The number and variety of shops is astounding. From what we saw, most of the area surrounding Griffith is planted to grapes with every second gateway being another little winery. Some of the better known labels also call Griffith home. We stayed out of the wineries. Way too much choice and my liver is just not up to that these days!
Yesterday we travelled out from Griffith along the Yenda road or to be a little more precise, Burley Griffin Way which eventually connects with the Newell Highway.
Once out of town we were back in open country with views for miles around us. There was a lot of activity as the farmers were taking advantage of the fine weather to either plant their crops or harvest them depending on what part of the growing cycle their particular farm was into. Some were planting wheat, some were harvesting cotton and rice. It was so nice to have the open country around us again, even if it did come with the dreaded kangaroos!
At Barellan we found the big tennis racquet which is a 45 foot long exact scale model of the wooden Dunlop racquet used by Evonne Goolagong who was born in Griffith and grew up in Barellan and went on to become a World Number One Ladies Tennis player.
Barellan is a small wheat town with characteristic silos and functions primarily as a service centre for the surrounding agricultural district.

Right beside the big racquet was a statue of Eric Joliffe's Saltbush Bill cartoon character.

In the background of both these photos is the Commercial Hotel which is impressively large and was built in 1924.

Back on the road we came to Ardlethan which is located at the intersection of Burley Griffin Way and the Newell Highway. Ardlethan claims to be the birthplace of the Australian Kelpie.
The kelpie is a dog much admired for its ability at mustering and droving with little or no command. It is a medium sized dog and comes in a variety of colours. The famous Western Australia Red Dog was a kelpie.

After all that learning we continued our journey via West Wyalong to Condobolin where we parked up at the caravan park and went to dinner at the local RSL club with Himself's aunt and uncle. So lovely to see them again and all the other folk we have met and got to know in this town over our years of visiting. We even got lucky and won one of the meat tray raffles for the night! It began raining while we were in the club and it rained all night.