Today we took a trip to Bathurst. Which is world famous for it's V8 Super Car race track. Every October Bathurst and Orange is absolutely crazy for people coming from all over Australia and the world to come and watch the races at Mount Panorama. So Sara and Daniel had a few errands to run in Bathurst so they decided to show me the Mount Panorama track, up close and personal... first we decided to leave kinda late in the morning around 11am, and just as we got there I got a photo of myself on the main street of Bathurst as we were headed to do Sara's mystery shopping in Kelso (just outside of Bathurst on the Sydney side).
After doing all the errands around Bathurst, we got to pose in front of the Mount Panorama sign as you're about to drive onto the race track.
...and then we got to learn a bit more about the famous race track...
...and of course - here's the big sign you can see from many kilometres away... the famous Mount Panorama sign on the side of the mountain!
I couldn't drive on it without getting a picture of that... :-)
...and now it's time to take a drive on the famous race track... keep in mind this is open to the public all year round and a lot of the people of Bathurst actually have to drive on it, just a little bit - to get on the road to their home. It's kinda funny. It was very cool anyways, here are the pictures of us on the track...
As you can see it was a very long track... and there are some very steep parts of the track, and thinking some CRAZY people go around that track at 120+ kilometres an hour is crazy! Sara said that there's been a few hits and misses with kangaroos on the track with races going on, last year, one kangaroo came very close but managed to get away after slipping and falling as some of the cars were coming around the bend! Pretty lucky kangaroo I must say!
After that we were pretty pooped... there was so much to see in Bathurst, so after that we got on the main street of Bathurst and got a shot of what the main town of Bathurst looks like...
If you look just right of the lamp post you can see the top of a church... that's this one...
...then we drove to the petrol station and filled up with a bit of petrol before continuing our long drive back to Orange...
...and now were back on the road to Orange... only 56 kilometres to go...
...and half way there we are entering Cabonne Country which is part of Orange, as you can tell there are not many photos on the way home because this is pretty much what it looks like the whole way back to Orange... until of course you get to Lucknow...
...oh and of course, here's Mount Canobolas in the background (the one with the tower at the top of it). It's an extinct volcano around 20 minutes from Sara's house and there are lots of nature trails around it, it's quite fun. Sara says it's the highest point West of Sydney standing at 1,395 metres above sea level, until you get to Western Australia. That's crazy!
...and very soon we got to the very small town called Lucknow, it's probably got less than 300 people inhabiting it. The town used to be called Luckno because there was literally "no luck" digging for gold in that town, until like 20 years later when they tried again, they found a whole heap of gold, so they renamed the town Lucknow. It's literally a one road town, with a few shops. Here's what you see coming into Lucknow...
Besides the huge truck... this is a close up...
...one of the gold mines, it's very old... and on the other side of the road, the same thing...
...so not much to see in Lucknow, but now were almost home... between Lucknow and Orange (which is around 5-10 kilometres) there are two wineries... Orange is very famous for it's wine and has quite a few wineries, especially up on Mount Canobolas, Sara's told us around 6-7 just on the Mountain itself, but this is the most famous of one in Orange...
You can't see it very easily but in the upper right hand side is the resort, and all of what you see is grapes, lots and lots of grapes. It's called Turners Vineyard... :-)
...and now were so close to home we can smell it, I'm so excited I just feel like I'm going to collapse once I get back into the house... I'm so exhausted after this extremely long day...
...and then Welcome To Orange! Woo hoo!
...and now I'm going to go lay down and relax, after that huge day I had... I don't feel like I want to move for a week... I probably will though, so much more to see and do!
