Yass 13 – 16 September 2012

On Thursday we struck camp in morning in the rain and the cold, which followed us all the way to Yass. The road was very steep and windy going up the mountain and poor Jimmy struggled up in 2nd or 3rd gear. We stopped at Braidwood for lunch and in spite of the rain and cold, we enjoyed walking around the town. As it is a bit of a backwater, progress has passed it by and all the shops are still in the original buildings. We didn’t get to Yass til after dark, but we knew a spot to camp down by the river, so we soon settled in with the heater full blast! The next morning we settled into the festival camp with a lot of other campers and explored Yass. We enjoy wandering around the town – while it is close to Canberra, it still retains an identity as a farming community. We had some problems with the electronics of the RV but we were soon hooked into a network of blokes, all helping to work out what we can do. On Sunday we went out to Cooma House and enjoyed looking at the historic house and gardens This was the first year the Turning Wave Festival had been held at Yass, so it was a bit small, but it still had lots of great acts. One of the highlights was a show on Henry Lawson presented by Max Cullen. Great script and fantastic acting! Caught up with Rod and Judy over coffee and then back to the music. By the end of the WE, we were very happy to have an early night. We had intended to head south after the festival, however we had problems with our electricity supply and ended up taking our invertor/charger to Sydney and then it was shipped to Brisbane. We stayed with Katie and Carl for a few days and did some work on their house while we were waiting, however in the end we decided to go back to Yass. We went on a few day trips and enjoyed a day walking around Canberra and caught up with the beautiful flowers at Floriade – there were magnificent mass displays of tulips, pansies, jonquils, English daisies, hyacinths all mixed together by colour. On Sunday we drove through green undulating hills to Boorowa, a small town about 50kms north of Yass for the Woolfest Festival. The climax was the running of the sheep – not to be confused with the running of the bulls at Pamplona – no one was gorged or trampled by the rams! We enjoyed walking around the town and admired the mini cathedral – a result of the large number of Irish Catholics who settle there. While only a small town, Boorowa is far enough away from Canberra to survive as a centre for the local farming communities and has enough facilities to be largely self-contained. The festival attracted 1,000’s of people from the region and as well as lots of sheep (but no Kiwis) it had live music, a street parade, stalls and exhibitions. It is now next week and we are still waiting for the part to arrive - very frustrating!!