Bathurst, Hill End and budgets

We are camping just out of the town of Hill End tonight. Hill End was a booming gold mining town in the 1870s and once had 52 pubs in operation! They only have one open pub now, and less than 100 people living here. Many buildings from this boom time still stand, and the town markets itself as a chance to step back into history and experience what life was like in the 19th century.


It wasn’t really what I was expecting. The bulk of the buildings and gardens are in a poor state of repair, and while there are excellent plaques describing the former uses of the buildings with copies of old black and white photos, it just didn’t work for me. I think I was expecting something more like Sovereign Hill in Victoria or Burra in South Australia.


We went to the Visitor’s Centre which has been housed in the restored old hospital. We found that as the area is in a National Park the camp fees were quite high. I find it hard to stomach a $30 per night camp fee when we use such little power. The only power we use is for charging laptop, DSs and phones – which I don’t think use that much, and the lighting in our van (this is dual powered so uses battery power when we are free camping, or power when we are at a powered site). We use gas to cook. To get a hot shower, you need to feed the water heater $1 coins. It is so chilly camping at night and we always try to get going early in the mornings so we are often going a few days without showers. The boys think this is great and I have learnt to increase the previous uses I had for baby wipes. My point is that campsites know how to make money!( I do understand National Park fees are also for maintaining the parks ....).

Max packing chairs. It doesn't look much but this was a great fun campsite!

On the advice of a sympathetic Visitor Centre lady we drove 3km out of town and found a protected spot to free camp. It is surrounded by piles of rocks that the boys have already started to explore. Trevor has built a fire which the three of them are sitting around cooking foil wrapped potatoes, eating 2 minute noodles and Max is cooking toast using a BBQ fork. They are discussing things like fossilised poo and having rowdy cuddles. He’ll hate having me include this, but Harry enthusiastically made a gorgeous comment - “Dad! Tomorrow morning we can dig up my poo and we can see if it’s fossilised!!”. Maybe in a few thousand years Haz!!


I see the kids outside playing and Trevor teaching them things like how to cook and stay safe around a fire and think to myself what a fantastic Dad he is to our boys.


Earlier today we drove to Bathurst and did a lap around the course, including getting to see the Mt Panorama mosaic in the hillside. It was exciting to see – and the view from the top was amazing! Trevor and Max went inside the ‘National Motor Racing Museum’ while Harry and I read. Max came out very exuberant as he had seen footage of a nine car smash!                          


Outside the museum was a lifesize statue of nine time Bathurst winner Peter Brock and his famous ‘05’ numbered Ford. While I’m not a fan of watching motor racing I do admire someone like Peter Brock who was so passionate, committed and dedicated to an interest that developed into almost an obsession where hard, constant effort paid off for him to become one of the best in the world.


Bathurst is a pretty town and we liked getting to drive through it. We look a long and convoluted route to Hill End (where we had to back track a way when we found a road closed due to a rock fall) but the long drive was amazing. I remember driving through a lot of roads in Victoria which have been cut out of stone, and it is the same out here. How backbreaking it would have been in the early days when trying to improve a track.  I guess it all happened slowly with picks, shovels and explosives – and a lot of sweat and effort.


Tomorrow we are going to head to the Blue Mountains. We’ve found a free camp just out of Lithgow where we’ll stay a couple of nights before going on to Sydney for three nights. Free camping does make sense as we are a bit short on cash at the moment. Two reasons we are is that I went clothes shopping with my stylish cousin in Melbourne ($150) and also I found once I added it all up, that I had severely overspent in Canberra on food and eating out. I think I tried to repay the people we were staying with in Canberra a bit too much - trying to repay their time and attention with food was a waste of money really as they were still going to be time poor no matter how many packets of Cornflakes I buy!!