Now this is malarious! The Big Mosquito at Hexham. We’ll need to call the SWAT team for this big guy. Did you know the inventors of mosquito repellant had little to go by at the beginning of their research – they had to start from scratch.

The Big Ugg Boots at Thornton near Maitland. Some people get the wool pulled over their eyes but sometimes over their feet too.

The Big Kookaburra – Kurri Kurri – this guy is so funny he laughs at his own jokes. Also handy if you have really big snakes around the place.

Kurri Kurri is a coal mining town – there were once 28 pits employing 11000 miners. Now there is only one pit operating.

The impressive Kurri Kurri Hotel

Now here is a shady character! The Big Sundial at Singleton was once The World’s Biggest Sundial when built in 1987. Its 7.6 metre size earned that title at the time which has since been bettered elsewhere but it still lays claim to being the largest one-piece sundial in the Southern Hemisphere. Where is the mouth of a sundial? Near the 5 o’clock shadow.

The Singleton Sundial also has an impressive rose garden – the flowers were huge.

White cedar in full bloom at Singleton.

We belong on the Bylong. The Bylong Way passes through the western edge of the Wollemi wilderness from Denman to Bathurst with great mountain scenery.

Bluebells in Wollemi National Park

Melaleucas in Wollemi

Another view along the Bylong Way

Matchsticks at the Great Dividing Range

Pea at the Great Dividing Range

Ozothamnus

Rhystone and Kandos are two small towns along the Bylong Way. This is the historic Rhylstone Post Office.

Leaving the rugged sandstone ranges on the way south-west.

Sofala – one of the oldest gold mining towns in Australia north of Bathurst.

The Big Gold Panner (I think his name is Troy Weight – look it up) represents Bathurst’s history as the first region in Australia to discover gold and the home of the first gold rush. Edward Hammond Hargraves (his friends just called him Ed) is credited with finding the first payable goldfields at Ophir, near Bathurst in 1851. News of gold spread quickly around the world and in 1852 alone, 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia. I asked Troy what he liked most about gold and he told me (bursting into song), “I feel the rush; Addicted to the gold crush; I feel the rush; It’s so good, it’s so good.”

Another late drive with a magnificent sunset to overnight at Cowra.