If you have the time, the best way back from the Hunter Valley is through the great north road, the so-called "convict trail" or "Settlers' Road". It beats the freeway hands down for scenery, atmosphere and history. The problem is, we don't have the time. I have a haircut booked this afternoon, we need to get back to the city.
The trip begins on the 15km route out to Broke and continues on to Wollombi. The road between them is dotted with homesteads and farms, weatherboard houses, burnt-out 1950's cars, houses made from corrugated iron, old men in braces feeding chooks outside their caravans. Most places have the owner's name hung out the front of the property, Kate's Farm, Jim's Creek, Thompson's Bridge. It has an air of being half-settled, like you could snap up a plot of land and stick an oil drum or milk churn out front as a postbox.
The village of Wollombi is the sort of place where men in hats walk their dogs on a rope; a million miles from the diamond-studded collars of the pooches back in Sydney. We stopped for breakfast at the local tavern; the waitress sporting a two-tone hair do, the coffee served in an empty cup with directions to "help yourself" at the machine. I think they are having a scarecrow competition because there are creepy guy-fawkes type fellas tied to lamp posts all over the place, some without heads.
Either that or they're doing it to scare outsiders, which doesn't work, because at Wollombi, there's still a signal on my mobile phone. I know, because when I saw the scarecrows, I checked.
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