{"id":797,"date":"2020-08-30T21:40:09","date_gmt":"2020-08-30T11:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arnobrok.com\/blog\/?p=797"},"modified":"2020-12-30T14:17:27","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T03:17:27","slug":"thursday-27-monday-31-august-wentworth-gol-gol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arnobrok.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/08\/30\/thursday-27-monday-31-august-wentworth-gol-gol\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW Country trip: 27 \u2013 31 August"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wentworth\/Gol Gol<\/strong>
Thursday<\/strong>
Left Broken Hill reasonably early, as we would be travelling for around 3.5 hours to the next stop, Wentworth<\/strong>, where we wanted to spend the afternoon and most of the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wentworth is a lovely little town that used to be quite busy due to its strategic location – it is where the Darling <\/strong>river ends, and meets up with the mighty Murray <\/strong>(at 2500km it is the 3rd longest in the world).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Murray and Darling junction (circle)<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first settlers came in 1829 (Charles Sturt\u2019s exploration). A lot of trade took place on the rivers, especially after the arrival of steamers (1853), and Wentworth was a thriving port, second only to Sydney in NSW. Over the years many steam paddle boats were used on the Murray, and if it weren’t for the pandemic, we’d have taken a tour on one of them (now moored along the banks).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Modern paddle boat<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wentworth also housed the only jail (Old Wentworth Gaol<\/a><\/strong>) in the area (ie radius of around 300km), so that is now a (heritage listed) attraction, and an interesting piece of architecture for its time. \u00a0Some modifications were made over time, as it served as a school once more jails were built in the other nearby towns and it was no longer really needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This location is also the closest we\u2019ve come to the Victorian border, as the Murray separates it from NSW.\u00a0 Normally this would not be noteworthy, but Victoria has been in (COVID-19) lockdown over the past 5 weeks or so, and if we were to cross, we\u2019d have to go into a 2-week hotel quarantine upon our return into NSW. Or we could opt to stay there until the borders opened again, but we don\u2019t know when that will be, so we will stay in NSW for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we visited the gaol, which was interesting – 2 cells for women vs 12 for men… Most of the women prisoners were Salvation Army workers who were arrested for singing their psalms (and thus trying to convert the uninitiated I think!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n