Chillagoe to Wrotham Park 6-9-12

We had a mixed day today, it started off beautifully.  We went to the Chillagoe limestone caves for a 9:00 AM tour.  The cave we went to was called the Donna cave, there are several, the best ones are guided tours but you can try others on your own, although we were told that they were very difficult and had been ‘souvenired’ .  The Donna cave was lovely, a mixture of all of the best features of limestone caves.

We looked for a coffee shop and were sent to a ‘hardware store’.  No advertisement outside for coffee and cake but sure enough – coffee and cake!

We drove out to have a look at the smelter ruins, these are roped off at quite some distance for 2 reasons,  unsafe ruins and toxic stuff still in the ground.  Those poor workers of years ago must have suffered from lead poisoning (lead and copper smelter).

We then went to see Tom’s Ford collection – these cars were in immaculate condition and were still running due to his tender loving care..  He had a GT 351 Falcon in a special plastic humidified  bag, can the car lovers out there recognise it?  He has been offered 1/2 million dollars for it.  Tom was quite a character and clearly loved his cars & trucks.

Then off to Wrotham Park Station, this is a cattle station owned by a UK pastoral company (formerly owned by the Packers) and Tony had organised through his contacts for us to camp on it.  We got our instructions from Sally, the cook, and headed off.  After driving for a while we decided that we had gone too far (from this clearly marked road.  Ha!)  We stopped off at another station to be told that we had missed the turning so back we went.

Found our road (unsigned) and headed into the station following our instructions.  We are supposed to be camping near the Mitchell River.  We drove around dirt farm tracks, amongst large numbers of cattle and recent calves,  looking for our spot for at least an hour and a half (some very hairy ones too 4wd hi to navigate them), it was getting late and we were getting worried that we would have to set up camp in the middle of a paddock (not nice grass, but horrible scrubby stuff that would burst into flame and spread like wildfire if given the chance.  FINALLY, we backtracked to an alternative road that seemed to be in the direction we should be going – towards the river – and we found it, lovely spot overlooking the river with wide sandy beach.  On the way we passed some spectacular erosion canyons, the floods here must be incredible.  We did at one time find our way to a high cliff with spectacular views down below of the river.