7 April- Bathurst

Its raining, its pouring - actually it ended up snowing not far from us.  So we ran away from Cowra to Bathurst about an hours drive away.  Why – there were lots of inside attractions where we could shelter from the storms (literally).  Actually we totally lucked out – whilst it rained on and off throughout the day, every time it did we were indoors,  and indoors thoroughly enjoying ourselves I should say.  So what did we do – well after driving through bucketing rain we did the most sensible thing and headed straight to a café.  

 

Even driving through Bathurst in the rain it was lovely, the houses seemed much older than surrounding towns, and after consulting one of our in car bibles (actually a real physical book truly) we found it that it really is.  Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in Australia so it made sense that the buildings we were looking at were really old with a lot more Victorian buildings that we had seen elsewhere.  So even parking in the centre of the town to find a café was a lovely experience although hard to photograph in drizzle.

Mt Panorama

So with our tummies full of warm food and warmer drinks we braved the streets of Bathurst and headed off to Mt Panorama.  Now I will say this was much more David’s thing than mine but the whole family was pleasantly surprised that not only can you visit the National Motor Racing Museum (which all the boys of my family enjoyed) but you can drive around the track.  Our twin boys asked us to do this three times – twice the ‘right’ way and once the ‘wrong’ way.  There is also a look out at the top of the hill.  I will say I was really taken back by how steep the hill is and how tight the turns are.  We of course kept to the legal speed limit of 60kph so I can’t imagine how it would feel on race day.

 

Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum

Having consulted our in car bible again on things to do in Bathurst, we chose to go the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum.  Now we had no idea what to expect but it had fossils and rocks and a large bank of rain clouds were on the horizon, so we couldn't really go wrong could we.  It turned out that we didn't - this place was cool.  First it was back in the old part of Bathurst housed the beautiful old 1874 public school buildings. But the exhibition was really cool (remember though that this is the blog of a totally self-confessed science geek so this was my part of the day).

There were rocks of course, lots and lots.  But they were well displayed and very shiny.  There were also some neat videos focusing on mineral extraction such as opals, gold and iron - both our 7 year olds were riveted (our MrC even tried to video them all on his camera). There is also a T Rex - shiny crystal rocks, television programs and dinosaur skeletons, what more could you want.  There were a couple of kids activities; a drawing corner (a bit young for our guys), and a really cool section where you can do fossil rubbings.  We lasted well more than the storm in the museum (although it had brought driving rain, hail and snow in nearby Oberon).  We left Bathurst feeling that we had not just escaped the weather but had had a really cool day.  Next time we are in Cowra we would be happy to go back to Bathurst as we have much more to explore.