Sapphire Bend/ Blue Hills Quarry, Oberon NSW

Saturday
As I mentioned in my first post -
"Crikey, bugger it, damn it, flamin hell, etc."
It pi**ed down most of the night.
This morning we arose with the sun (well there would have been sun if the clouds had cleared off and the rain had stopped falling).
So we went back to bed and waited the weather out.
We wandered out of our lodgings around 10:30am, fired up the Gembaru, (outside temp was 4 degrees) and headed out to the forest at SB.

1. "Ye old fossicking area" at Sapphire Bend ....



2. With the best holes in the forest full of mud and water, from the overnight rain ....



3. Oh ... did I mention the SNOW!



We gave it a miss, and headed back into Oberon to my favourite cafe for coffee and a stack of pancakes with cream and maple syrup.
Yummmmmm!

Saturday night we walked to the RSL for dinner. (It was some hours before my ears got any feeling back in them from the cold)
My son and I were joking about the lack of road kill beside the roads around Oberon this trip.
When our dinner arrived - lamb shanks for me, steak for him - we couldn't help noticing a peculiar odour from our meals.
Still, as we had paid for it, we had to eat it - fortunately there were no ill effects later that evening. (Must have been some kind of odd spice that we could smell)

Sunday
Bugger, it rained all night again.
After staggering out of bed about 9am, (temperature was an improvement from Saturday - now 5 degrees) we decided to call the trip a bust and headed for home.
It was my son's birthday and his new girlfriend was planning a big dinner for him down in Canberra (I was not invited - bugger it) so he was happy to hit the road early and return home early to his new filly.

QUESTION - Why do motorists travelling the Great Western Hwy insist on driving sedately in the right hand lane?

GR8 report there Mr 52.

A rather pathetic report really Gilly.
I would have liked to flash pics of all the wonderful gems we'd found.
Still, the pancakes and hot coffee were yummmmm!
Pity about the 3 hour drive for those pancakes.
Anyone finding themselves in Oberon and would like to partake of those yummy pancakes -
The cafe is next to the Foodworks Supermarket on the main street.

Footnote - I washed my car this morning to remove the kilos of fine dust (formerly mud) it had accumulated over the weekend. Then went shopping shortly after.
When I returned later, there was a rectangular patch of thick dirt on the road in front of my house where I had earlier washed the car.
I quickly got down on hands and knees and had a quick look for gems, crystals or gold nuggets I may have accidentally bought home from the trip.
Nope! Nothing! Nada! Typical!