gold

We often travel out west from Sydney over the Blue Mountains to visit Mr Flowerpress's family in Bathurst.

Last week we decided to take a roadtrip to see some more of the surrounding countryside. I love to travel to new places, and its always amazing to me just what you can see quite close to home.

We planned an extended journey, staying overnight in a hotel in Mudgee and driving there via the small town of Hill End, one of the sites of the Australian gold rush back in the 1850s, and later home to an Artist's colony which included Russell Drysdale and Donald Friend.

This lovely little town is steeped in history, and after a lovely counter lunch at the Royal Hotel we had a wander around, imagining the place back in its heyday. A short drive takes you out to the local creek and Bald Hill mine (which never produced much gold apparently) and then further on to a lookout where you can look down on Hawkin's Hill where the really big finds were made, including the Beyers and Holtermann Specimen the world's largest single mass of gold.

I've got some more pics of the rest of the trip, the landscape, the little towns, the food... I'm going to share them later in the week.