2019 - Dubbo and Beyond: Day 14 - Tue 16 Apr: Dubbo to Cowra

Temp: 13-25 degC
Drive: 217km; total: 1483km

We were up nice and early for a departure just after 8:30am. First stop was just south of Wellington at the Osawano Japanese Garden which was adjacent to the Wellington Caves Complex. We had our breakfast before taking a wander through the small but very well maintained Garden. The Garden was about a km off the highway, so we headed back that way and stopped at the Wellington Gateway Sculpture. Made from the girders of the old Wellington bridge which collapsed in 1989, this large sculpture commemorates the history and culture of Wellington and the surrounding districts. At the centre of the piece is a pod-like tripod tangled with metal vines, a wind-chime hanging in the middle, which is surrounded by stone forms with mosaics at their centre. Each of these elements has an important role in the sculpture's symbolic representation of Wellington's character. If you are interested, either visit the sculpture or Google it!

It was then onto Cowra to visit the Australian War Cemetery and the Japanese War Cemetery within the Cowra War Cemetery. Both quite small but well maintained. We then followed a sign that led us to the Cowra Peace Precinct which is a Heritage Listed site. It was originally the Number 12 Prisoner of War Camp at Cowra, consisted of four 7 hectare compounds.

All war-historied out we filled up with fuel before heading to our free-camp for the night. We have actually stopped here on a few occasions and had no idea it was a 24-hour free camp.

The camp - the Edgell Park Rest Stop (a 'contain your waste water' site, so thank goodness for being self-contained) is opposite the Tourist Info centre and McDonalds so we went for a wander over to the Info Centre, rose garden and the Alanis Morrisette Sculpture Park, which we thought would be a number of sculptures however, it was just the one. The info centre was OK and had a diorama of the POW camps with a hologram projected onto it however, it was not working well, so we bypassed that. The rose garden was quite large with 880 bushes making up 130 varieties. They had a lovely bouquet.

Not sure how we will sleep tonight as the trucks come and go quite regularly and most of them use their exhaust brakes and some even blow their horns. Ear plugs will definitely be in use tonight.