Travelling Hopefully - Southern Highlands Edition Part 1

I made a chance comment to one of my parents and before I knew it I was committed to accompanying them on a weekend away to the Southern Highlands.  Pausing only to briefly admire the modern urban magnificence that is Wolli Creek I caught a selection of trains which would, collectively deliver me to Moss Vale in the heart of what, for some reason, is one of Sydney's favourite holiday destinations.

At Moss Vale I met up with my parents.  Or at least I met up with my mother.  She was the rather forlorn figure huddling against the ferocious wind and looking as though she might be warmer if the earth swallowed her up.  I met her with the traditional greeting of Son to Mother.

"Christ it's cold," I said.

"Isn't it dreadful, I'm coming down with something," she responded as ritual demanded.

"I've got a cold coming on myself," I told her because I just can't resist showing off in front of my mother.  It was true though.  What had been a bit of a tickle in my throat when I left home had, by the time I arrived in Moss Vale, developed into a full scale attempt by my body to expel my lungs through my nose.  My mother pretended sympathy as is the custom in such situations.

Eventually I realised someone was missing.  My father had wandered off, supposedly to find me but in actual fact to look at the railway station.  He enjoys railway stations, he's rather like an unambitious train spotter.  At least trains move.  Eventually a kindly local returned him to us and we chatted about the cold for fifteen minutes or so.  After which I pointed out we were standing next to their car and perhaps we could continue the discussion out of the wind.

This was such a good idea that we didn't take it up.  Instead we decided we wanted lunch and I pointed out there was a café across the road.  Risking traffic and hypothermia we crossed the road to the café.  It was closed.  Eventually we found an open café and lingered over lunch while our extremities thawed out and we decided what to do with the rest of the day.

The only thing I knew about Moss Vale was that it is quite close to Bowral.  The only thing I know about Bowral is that there is a Don Bradman museum there.  It is an indication of the level of preparation they put into this trip that neither of my parents could actually come up with a better idea so we headed to Bowral and all things Bradman.

The Bradman Museum (and Cricket Hall of Fame) was located inside and was heated thus proving an immediate hit with all three of us.  It got even more interesting once we finally managed to wrestle some tickets from the geriatric oxygen sink behind the counter and could get in to see the displays.  We had a not completely unenjoyable time wandering around this shrine to cricket generally and Bradman in particular.  My takeaway from the experience?  Bradman played cricket, rather well.  King George VI made him a Knight Batchelor despite the fact that he was possessed of a wife at the time.

After our cultural experience (it was a museum!  It counts!) my mother noted that there were various lookouts on nearby Mt Gibraltar that would enable us to experience much more wind and cold than we could in the relatively temperate lowlands of Bowral.  Immediately we piled into the car and headed for the mountain.  The first lookout threatened to be a disappointment.  By standing on a fence we had a great view of the trees that were blocking our view.  Then my father discovered the actual lookout (I think he was looking for a train station) and we traipsed down a path getting colder and windier by the moment until we arrived and were rewarded with the magnificent panorama of Bowral spread out beneath us.

But this wasn't enough, oh no.  We headed for the second lookout and the views from that one made the first look like a small and not particularly interesting town.  A vast stretch of valley, hills, bush and totally inappropriate development stretched out before us for our viewing pleasure.  It wasn't really the fault of the view that the wind here had blasted our eyeballs into the back of our skulls so we couldn't see it.  Stumbling blindly away we decided the time had come to head for Bundanoon our place of abode for the next couple of days.

Every year Bundanoon hosts Brigadoon a festival of all things Scottish, fortunately that happens at a different time of year.  It was however the Southern Highlands Pie Festival which sounded far more appealing.  We arrived at our guest house to find the reception deserted apart from some other guests who arrived just before us and were still waiting for service, acknowledgement or a simple sign of human life.  After we'd waited for a while (and my thoroughly sensible suggestion that we start stealing things had been shouted down) we sent the most visibly disabled of our party off to find a staff member.  In fact we would probably have been happy with a casual passerby.

She hobbled back to us in triumph accompanied by someone who turned out to be the owner and who apologised for the lack of service.  His wife was sick and they were short staffed.  We all nodded approvingly.  This is an absolutely essential part of the service industry.  No matter when people turn up you have to inform them that someone is ill and that you're short staffed.  This makes anything you achieve all the more impressive while simultaneously dissuading your customers from complaining when you cock something up.

Dinner, at the guest house, was absolutely delicious and was only mildly spoiled when one of the partners from the firm I work for walked in in the middle of our meal.  I was afraid he had work for me but fortunately he'd just turned up for dinner as well.  After which, thoroughly replete there was nothing left to do but shiver until morning.