A visit to Penrith

We visited Penrith today as described below.  A friend had described this as "a trip to the Heartland" which was not the intention at all.  However as we drove home we heard that the Leader of the Opposition -referred to by some as the Mad Monk - had also been in that 'hood.  We didn't see him (although, judging by one jocular conversation I had while picking up some leaflets, he'd have been very welcome at the Panthers Expo Grounds).

The rationale for the visit was a Caravan and Camping Expo at the Penrith Panthers Exhibition Centre, to check out camper-trailers.  We are contemplating acquiring one as a solution to the difficulty (and expense) of finding dog-friendly accommodation on our travels.

The drive up to Penrith was a doddle.  In seeking directions from Google maps it was interesting that they directed us to Liverpool and then on the M5 to the M4

 This was 305 km and expected to take 3 hours and 1 minute.  This is the route we actually took: the first 100 km and last 45 km were enhancements!  It was 280 km and took us just on 3 hours, including a diversion to the tip in Bungendore.  Google is very keen on freeways and very conservative in suggesting average speeds on country roads!

 On getting to the Expo the first issue was getting a park: the place was chockers.  We were lucky enough to spot someone pulling out and got a place quite close to the entrance.  Once in the grounds it didn't seem too crowded: perhaps everyone was in the club getting a pokie fix?

This is a Tvan, used by a couple of our friends.  It is the 'Rolls Royce' of camper-trailesr and priced accordingly.  Interestingly the manufacturer didn't exhibit but a dealer had on model there to demonstrate the product.  It is very impressive in the way that everything folds in and out, and apparently very strong.  The lady we spoke was very helpful, but not totally familiar with the product (which still put her way in front of us).

The other brand we wanted to see was CUB.  They had the manufacturer represented with a full range of models and the bloke to whom we spoke seemed very knowledgeable.  My impression was that the van wasn't as 'clever' as the Tvan but it was also about 2/3 the price.  More research is needed.

 As we knew this would be at least an 8 hour trip I had enquired what their reaction was to small dogs and received the answer that they were pet friendly.  So took herself along.  he behaved excellently only displaying terrier tendency when spotting the fluffball visible in the previous image.   (I was surprised, given the demographic of punters present - we were about average age - that I only saw two other pooches.  I'd expected it to be to be full of Kelpies and Blue Heelers.)

She was carried in the indoor area, and I took over that duty when Frances wielded the plastic to acquire a vacuum sealing device from this friendly lady!

 As Penrith was officially a town we visited the War Memorial to tick it off the list.  Although many Memorials date from about 1920 - WW1 was the catalyst - there are still new ones.   This was an example, although the Register entry includes some images of the previous version..

 This is the main body of the Memorial.

The right hand panel contains a surprising element, highlighted courtesy of Uncle Photoshop.

Considering that few memorials seem to list any females at all having a woman as 1 on four statues is very advanced thinking!

We then headed back home stopping first at Luddenham where I knew there was an Honour roll in the Uniting Church.  I couldn't get in, but thought the windows in the church were worth recording while Frances acquired some fruit and veg at a fruit stall across the road.

 An Illawarra Flame Tree was strutting its lurid stuff in the car park.

We decided to call in to Camden as I assured Frances it was a very historic town.   They didn't seem to have an historic highlights tour but I was directed to St Johns Church.  Although apparently of modern design, Bishop Broughton laid the foundation stone in 1840. The design is attributed to Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis, the building contractor being Richard Basden. The 386,000 bricks used were made by James Lacey from clay from Mr. Davies' property. The stone was quarried at "Denbigh" and laid by Buchan. The brickwork was done by Richard Basden and the timberwork by Jonathan Wheeler. Craftsman Le Fevre used locally cut shingles for the roof.

In the grounds of the church is this memorial to yet another air crash.

This extract from GE shows a line from the place the aircraft was last seen (Werombi) to Wagga.

 The dark green area just after Werombi is the forest of the Blue Mountains: 60-70 kms of escarpments and forest.  No wonder the wreckage hasn't yet been found.  (This has prompted me to explore the BoM site for the weather on the day the aircraft vanished.  There was no rain, and hadn't been for about 3 days - is it not astonishing that I can find that out in 2 minutes?  Unfortunately temperature records are not as available.)

This is the entrance to Macarthur park, given to the Council by the Macarthur family.  This gate is a War Memorial.

The next image is the back of the main cenotaph inside Macartur Park, on which one of the plaques quotes a poem by Rupert Brooke.  They also had a good array of old artillery!

Behind the cenotaph was a very well laid out park and garden.  At least part of it was established by Baha'i as a peace garden.

Moving on to the Old Hume Highway we crossed over the Razorback pausing to take a photograph of this plant which was common along the roadside.  I haven't been able to identify it!

While paused for the snap, Mr Plod came past at a very high speed with his lights and siren going.  As is often the case we never found out.  I wonder if it was just that he wanted to rip up the road at the speed I'd like to drive if I had:

• a pursuit spec V8 Commodore; and 
• the ability to clear all other traffic out the way; and (most importantly)
• no prospect of copping a speeding fine!

We then got to Picton where they had a very new memorial walkway.

I didn't really explore this but hopefully the Regster will get one of the locals on to it.

The fuel consumption on the Jetta was interesting, in that we achieved 4.7l/100km going to Penrith which had dropped to 5.7l/100km as we got back to Camden but had improved to 5.1 once home.  At one point we had logged about 400km with a range of 650 km.  When we had covered 500km we had 670 to go!