Hassan Lookout Lithgow & Lithgow Arms Factory

Hassan Lookout Lithgow
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RAIN and a bit cooler than normal. The worst thing though is the rain. We aren't really geared up for rain. So what do you do. Well on the 8th we slept in and rose at 10am, not like us at all and were showered and had breakfast by about 11am then decided on what we could do for the day. We decided to visit the Lithgow Arms Museum and what a brilliant collection they have there. One thing that I was unaware of was that the factory manufactured Sunbeam Mixmasters and shearing hand pieces plus all the combs. Ring spanners, specialised engineering gears and tools, dies and calipers. The pictures of the old factory looked like a gigantic shearing shed in the old days. Hundreds of pulley belts and drive shafts dropping from the ceiling and row upon row of lathes and tooling machines. The noise would have been incredible. On to the collection. Lithgow was world known for it's Arms manufacturing and I remember from my past that my father's single shot .22 was made at Lithgow and hanging on the wall was one just like it. The display continued from there, row upon row of firearms not all made at Lithgow, but an incredible display. To top things off upstairs will be a display of 1400 handguns from a collector in Queensland. Not open yet due to Weapons Licensing regulations which was very unfortunate but when it comes to Weapons Licensing, rules are rules and not to be broken. So in today's photos will be some of the more well known specimens. In a glass display were the very first made of each of the major rifles. Like a SMLE .303 with a serial number of AA00001. Also in a glass case out the front was a Brown Bess or a flint lock rifle. There were approx 20 made especially for the re-enactment of Australia's Bi Centennial. They were not made to be fired, just for show. There is no striker rasp for the flint and no hole from the pan to the barrel, but who would know at a distance. Then we toured around town looking for the pottery, the foundry and looked at some of the old houses and found a shopping centre to get out of the rain and visit. On the 7th we drove up to Hassan Lookout. A long winding unsealed road up through some beautiful vegetation and huge trees, huge rock formations and areas devastated by fire. Very little signage and no information at the top, just a disgraceful mess of broken bottles, graffiti and burnt rubbish bins. No plaques or anything to tell you what you were looking at. Luckily for us an older gentleman and his pet Dingo were there at the time and he was able to give us the run down on the history and points of interest. We then took a punt and continued down a bush track to see were it went and it came out in a valley somewhere else just outside Lithgow. I don't think the Council nor the National Parks in this area do enough to promote what they have to offer. It is a shame and an untapped area when you compare some of the other National Parks we have visited. I read the last of the Jacob Kovco saga in the Sydney Morning Hearld. A story put together by Leigh Sales who sat through the whole sordid affair. Kovcos mother wanted her boy back and the court couldn't do that. To her he was a "perfect" son. But at the hearing all the mud was raked from the family background, both of Jake, his father and his mother's past life. Jakes wife was ready to let it all go after the first hearing , but Jake's mother wanted more. The last two sentences from Leigh were "In the end, what has this all achieved? Kovco (refering to the mother) has gone home and unpacked her bags and her son is stll gone." Sad occasion in any family with the loss, but to rake it out in two huge court inquiries is just as bad as the Dianna & Dodi enquiry in France. Today we are going to the Zig Zag Railway and the Jenolan Caves for a look. Leave at 10:30 on a bus tour. My bigpond gripe isn't over. I'm now down to 1 minute and 14 seconds and into the 39th day of the first month. 10 hours a month is ample for email, but not when it is taken over a 43+ day month. The 11th of April is not for another two days, hence the decline in Emails.