Cobar

 We spent two days at Cobar, mining is very big here.  Copper, Gold, Silver, Lead and Zinc are all mined in the area.    Visited the Heritage Centre and the Museum which was really interesting.   Had a walk around the town and its heritage buildings.    We also did a tour of the Weather Station and saw how the weather we see each night on the news is forecast and watched them launch the daily weather balloon which travels 29klms. into the air.     Also visited a couple of other mines, one of which wasnt open to the public, even though we had been sent there by the tourist info. centre.    Cobar was a reasonably nice place to visit but it was hot and sticky and we decided to head off on the afternoon of our second day there.  Hadnt had the best of nights sleep as we were kept awake by noisy trucks sharing our rest area.  It had been a perfect little spot to have happy hour and dinner but when night time fell, the trucks rolled in.  Looking forward to getting to Bourke and going into a caravan park for the first time on our trip.  So need to power everything up, clean and do the laundry.   The joys of travelling - dust, dust and more dust.

This is the site of the Old Copper Mine, established in the 1800's and now just a fairly barren landscape, but with water in it, looks very pretty..

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Repair job when our window awning came off the side of the bus.There is always someone to give a helping hand or just watch.  Bill, standing to one side, was someone we had met before in Deniliquin in 2011.   He recognised the bus and had had a happy hour with us at one of our Rallies. Also above, one of the gold mines we could view from a platform high above.  There is another mine, 8 stories high below this one's surface.  Hard to beleive.