Hog Burn

Jam-packed day with crazy scenery.  More cute towns...Ophir has the oldest working post office in the country. The town has 58 residents...3 are Canadian 🇨🇦...what are they doing way down here??) People generally pick up their mail at the post office but the postmaster will deliver along her way home too. Except that time the cabbage wouldn't fit in the mailbox and it had to wait for pickup...true story! 🤣.

Hayes engineering works...amazing inventions, nine children raised in  a three room cottage, then a grand house built with fortunes made. You have to see this place. Some of it reminds me of Grampa Brown's workshop 🔧🔧🔧🔧🛠️🛠️🛠️🛠️🛠️🔧🔧.

Fairly long uphill trek, to be rewarded with a 4 km downhill where Kirsten didn't peddle once!  

A van tour at the end of day to St. Bathans..old Irish mining town. Explore the old buildings, relive the times thru photos and stories.  Terry, our driver, has the local knowledge...the Angus cattle do well in the highlands...that sheep herd has the best merino wool bound for Italian tailors.  Then Cambria...just down the road.. a Welsh mining town. (Why couldn't the Irish and Welsh have got together here, so far away from home?)  Cambria has 6 full time residents. Bob is one....and one of a kind. A totally entertaining walk around his property.  Sequoia-ringed meadow. Student woofers that help out in return for room and board. Feeding the ducks. History, ecology, warmth, humour.. a lovable, unique character.

51 km later, add-on tour, dinner out... we'll sleep well...Read more