Been away to Binnaway

When we were up at the farm  a couple of times ago I went for a drive into Binnaway ,our soon to be local town and took some photos through a tourists eyes. Binnaway is located about 460 klms west of Sydney. It was founded in around 1876 . I grew up  on a large farm near  this town which then was a thriving  little railway town with a population of about 1500 for town and surrounding area.
 We had a  busy railway, hospital, 4 grocery shops, butcher, 2 bakers, 3  garages, a couple of cafes, a movie theatre and various other  shops and businesses.
When the railway service was down graded, we also lost our local hospital and many other bussinesses and services  went by the way.
Now Binnaway has a smaller population of about 500 people.

 This is an aerial photograph of the township, I didn't take this but thought I would include it in this post.

The road into town from our direction  is quite pretty, efforts have been made to plant  lovely deciduous trees either side of the road, and as they grow they are starting to give a wonderful display as the seasons change.
You enter town from this direction over the Castlereagh River, a lovely meandering river most of the time with great fishing spots along its banks but it can at time of heavy rain be a threatening raging torrent The view up and down the river off the bridge is beautiful, a lovely place to spend a lazy afternoon.

.Just over Corry Bridge(named after a wonderful Doctor who spent his life time  as our greatly valued GP) is a lovely little picnic area, one of a few in the township.

Directly across the road  from the  river is the Binnaway  Central School. It has classes from Kindergarten up to year 12 senior High School and has a wonderful reputation and  excellent staff.

Binnaway has a pretty tree lined main street where most of the shops and businesses are located.The Railway signals,clock  and station signs were placed here to acknowledge  the great part the railway played in Binnaway's history.This is maintained  by dedicated local volunteers.
Also along the river is a wonderful caravan park/camping grounds.It is known as the Pump House camping grounds..This is the old pump house that used to supply the township with water in days gone by.

This is a free camping site beautifully maintained by the Binnaway Progress Association and the Lions club, a very  dedicated group of volunteers.,  there are free unpowered sites available as well as powered sites for a small fee. The only cost is for hot water( $2 per 5  min) and power if needed .There are plenty of shaded area ,BBQ's and facilities, a really pretty spot to spend a few days.Contact number for this facility is  02  68492144.
Binnaway  has  two Hotels, The Royal and The Exchange, both excellent watering holes, offering meals on certain days and regular raffle draws, usually as fund raisers for local groups of volunteers.

We also have a local police station to keep law and order, not that ,that is a big problem.

 Across the road from the Police Station is the little church that  we got married in, now no longer in service  and has been  converted into a residence.

Binnaway also supports a local Bowling club,

Golf club,tennis club,

Small bore target  rifle club, and a very good and successful  junior sports club and a beautifully maintained stadium and sports oval.

Binnaway main street is at times quiet and slow but at other times busy and really alive.

There is a newsagents/ post office/rural transaction centre, and a rural supply shop.

There is also a local craft shop,ran by volunteers, and a local supermarket and garage.

Across the road from the supermarket is "Len Guy Park" so named after a very dedicated man who still lives in Binnaway, that while running a local business and raising a family still gave many,many countless hours to the town in many volunteer positions.I think this park is maintained by the "Lions" club volunteers and is a credit to them.

Also in the main street is the place where I first worked upon leaving school, The bank !

Also nearby is the local council swimming bathes , many an afternoon was spent there with friends  and is still a very popular place in summer for children and adults alike.
With such a large rail history ,when it was downsized the  local  people organized a volunter group called the "Rail Heritage Society" and raised money to convert the old  Railway mens barracks to  more up dated accommodation. They restored the old building and now maintain it as excellent  visitors accommodation, which is regularly booked for  local functions.

It supplies 11 rooms(twin singles) at very reasonable overnight rates. It has disables access both entry and bathrooms and  has communal, breakfast  and lounge rooms on a help yourself basis.There is an onsite caretaker  and has had excellent feedback from past visitors. For anyone interested in booking accomodation at the barracks the contact number is :  0400477355 .Also nearby of interest is the old water tank towers, they were used in the old steam train days for  refilling the water in the steam engines.

Binnaway is in a rural area, well known in the past as a big wheat growing are, and now mixed crops,cattle and sheep. The photo below is one of two  grain storage silos that operated  along side  the railway.Also  a big part of the rural sector is the sale yards which  still have regular  cattle sales.

One of the other wonderful volunteer groups that we have in town is "The Men's Shed", it gives local men a place to meet and share  talents and stories and  work together doing joint  works to enhance their skills and friendships.As well the town benefits from many of their projects. They use the  building that used to house the local fire Brigade ,which now has a newer home.

As we leave Binnaway by another  direction we cross a lovely old low level cement bridge. When I was a child this was our only way into town and when the Castlereagh was in flood  it was usually impassable. It was replaced with Corry bridge  in  the late 60's or early 70's.

The above photo shows the same location during a flood a few years ago.

 This is a very picturesque  spot on the river that is always changing after each and every  flood that passes down it and  it  always hold very special childhood memories for me.
 I know , there are many more  places, groups and area that I have not mentioned  or photographed in this post and that is not to say what a great part they play in this wonderful  small town.A small town like this these days needs all the support and  help it can get. Times are hard everywhere and many small towns like this are suffering  and they  rely more and more on the tourists dollars. If ever you are passing by this way, stay a day or two and relax, you won't be sorry.I'll keep a lookout for you !.
So until we meet again
Cheers to all,
Jane.

The progression of Power.

Ten years have passed  since we decided that we would buy our off grid property.
We had no idea what that would really entail. We knew what was already set up there would not  be appropriate for what we  would need power wise in the future,and that we would have to in reality start from scratch.

The only solar panels  on the house were 6 x30 watt old 1970's  solarex  brand. This was combined with 2 x car 12 volt batteries without an inverter or any other safety equipment. On taking possession of the house  Our Uncle ,who was a retired electrician came with us and quickly modified the setup to get us through the first year  so that we could assess what we would need.
We then purchased after time 8 X 200 watt solar panels ,an  inverter and a controller and 12 X 2 volt ,1000 amp hour batteries to give us a reasonably good 12 volt system.These were all chinese produced bought on ebay..

We kept the original 6 small panels and  set up the  older  batteries as a separate small grid to run our back-up12 volt  lighting system that is installed  throughout the house.

As time when on, and we needed to upgrade even more we decided with advice from our local solar place that we would change our system over to  24 volt instead of 12 volt.
 One day,we had arrived up at the farm  to  find our fridge and freezer  shut down and all the contents spoiled  as our wonderful chinese inverter had died. ,Oh what a smell and mess, took ages to be rid of it,e buried the meat in a big  hole and had to spend weeks de-smelling the appliances.

We invested in a good quality 2400 watt xtender brand inverter, and changed things over.
Best move we ever made, everything has been running like a dream ever since.
We have since purchased 6 more of the big blue batteries, but need still another 6  so that we will have two 24 volt battery banks.

The photo above shows my husband and his beautiful Uncle Ernie ,who was such a wonderful help to us, and teaching my husband  how to  work with the solar power.
Sadly  Uncle Ernie passed away last year after a very long battle with prostate cancer. He is greatly missed. RIP Ernie.
While we were on a roll with the solar stuff, we decided to add a solar panel to the roof ,controller inside and batteries under the seat of our caravan so that we can travel and be independent  of caravan parks and electricity.This works brilliantly.

I am sure  there will be many more modifications to the house solar system  as time goes by.
We intend to add a cool room later on,which will probably require  a seperate inverter and battery bank of it's own, so that it is isolated from the house grid .
We find that living off the grid is wonderful, our battery bank allows us to run, fridge ,freezer,tv, dvd,computer,lights,microwave,washing machine  ect.
If we want to run heavier power draw items like irons, toaster, hairdryers,vacumn cleaners and other things like that, we start up our back up generator for these.
Living off grid is wonderful, it is great knowing  that we are producing all our own power are are not reliant on the electricity  grid for anything.
So if you are sitting on the fence trying to decide wether  to try off grid living  or not ,then all I can say is do it !! you will never be sorry.
So folks, until we meet again,
Cheers to everyone,
Jane.

P.S. Just wanted to add an update to this. Since writing this  blog entry we have  added again to our battery bank. We Travelled to Sydney last week and purchased 7 more batteries to add to our grid.(6 plus a spare)

Brian spent the best part of the day rearranging all the batteries and re-connecting  them up to run this as a 1000 amphours.  A huge job as each of these big blue batteries weighs about 75 kilograms.
Every little step we take now will make a huge difference to our lifestyle down the line.
Must move on.
Cheers to everyone once again,
Jane.

Camping

Last month, we headed out for a few days R and R with our caravan (on it's maiden trip with us) .We met up with my brother and sister in law and set up camp not far from the Warrumbungle mountains(about an hour and a half from our place.)

We set up camp and within minutes my husband and brother discovered we had a friend in the old shed beside us. It was a beautiful carpet snake,although i am not a snake lover I could see her beauty and we agreed to leave her alone, and hoped she would leave us alone. I have to admit though I did enter the outside bathroom with trepidation in the middle of the night and had a good scout around  with the light   to make sure she wasn't lurking around up in the rafters.

We had a good spot, light a good fire(luckily it rained after we arrived and were able to light the fire as until then we thought it was too dry)
My brother had bought his camp ovens and we had a lovely dinner of lamb stew and damper.There Was  even left over stew  to have on toast the next morning.
We love to sit around a good fire and relax,tell stories,eat and have a few drinks.

Looking towards the Warrumbungle mountains  ,we were fortunate to see a wonderful sunset with Mt Exmouth in the distance.

We had a lovely couple of days, and the wildlife was abundant, we found a very friendly frilled neck lizard,a pair of top not pigeons with their mum in the nest and a large group of kangaroos happily grazing in a nearby paddock.

We thoroughly enjoyed our little excursion and hope to do many more in the future. Our little  caravan is wonderful and will be truly loved,it previously belonged to our lovely uncle who passed away, and it was offered to us to purchase it.We will always have him with us on our travels.
So until the next adventure, whether it be here,at the farm or on the road, we wish you well,
Cheers,
Jane .