Guyra, Glen Innes and Little Llangothlin

 Commemorating the lamb and potato industries in Guyra

Saturday we took a drive up to Glen Innes, stopping in Guyra on the way there.  Guyra is "Australia's highest town" at a whopping* 1,330 m (4364 feet) above sea level. It is even colder than Armidale there on average, with more snow than anywhere else in the New England Tablelands.  It was a quiet little town except for one coffeeshop which had a band playing American folk songs outside.  We bought eclairs and a berry pie danish at a bakery; the eclairs were pretty awful (only wanted to buy one but she gave us two) but the pie was tasty.  It astounds me that you can get a danish for a dollar at the bakery, but doughnuts at the supermarket are always at least two or three.  Supermarket doughnuts (or even at the Donut King) are pretty expensive here.

*While there is no way to note this, this is actually sarcasm.

Cloudy hillsides on the way to Glen Innes

Idyllic foggy pastures

We had a late lunch and coffee at a Glen Innes restaurant that spelled feta with two t's and headed to the main attraction, the Standing Stones.  It's cool but it's also kind of lame; the stones were put up as a commemoration to the Celtic heritage of the region in 1992.  Also lame, Glen Innes has a sister city status with a suburb of Sydney.  (Not even in a different state?!  Though they also have an appropriate sister city in Scotland.)

Downtown Glen Innes and Australian Standing Stones

Thumbs up.

These stones have some first-class lichen

Having a good time as usual.

EXCALIBURRR!

 No horse riding, but Gangnam style is a-ok.  Also, the roses there were really beautiful.

The rain and drizzle continued throughout our lunch but had stopped when we got to the Standing Stones.  We had fun walking around for a while, but there wasn't anything else to do in Glen Innes, so we headed south again and stopped by Balancing Rock.  Our "let's pretend we're in Scotland" trip was ruined a little bit when we saw a troop of kangaroos out in the field.

Unfortunately the Balancing Rock is just in the middle of some private cattle grazing land, so you can't really get any closer to it or run around and take silly pictures.  Too bad.

Most of the non-eucalypt trees have lost their leaves by now (left)

I really liked the perfectly-sculpted lines this row of poplars made (right)

Our next stop on the drive back was the Little Llangothlin Nature Reserve, a high altitude protected wetland.  Surprisingly, as we drove there, there was a lot of traffic coming back on the narrow gravel road, and we speculated where all these people were coming from.  There were probably 20 cars (give or take) in the tiny parking lot and 40 some people milling about.  Not sure what kind of meeting or event had just taken place, but they cleared out pretty quick and we were the last ones out of the lot when we left.

Variegated Fairy-wren (I think.. pretty sure.)

We walked around a little bit before going down to the lake.  It was drizzling again; the grass was wet which meant our shoes and pants were somewhere between damp and soaked through, and it was cold, so we didn't stay for too long.  We saw some black swans and other waterfowl, and a wallaby at the edge of the marsh.

Very wary wallaby.

One of the coolest things I have ever seen, startling a kangaroo in the adjacent field as we drove down the quiet road.  It hopped along side us at 30km/hr (approximately), closer than we have ever seen one, probably only 10 meters from the window before disappearing into the bush.  It was like being on a safari.  It was amazing.