Listen, time passes.

Here we are in Adelaide, weeks after the last blog entry, winding down after a hard day's wine tasting in the Barossa valley! Not only that, we've spent a gorgeous weekend on a houseboat on the Murray River, stroked a possum's tail and watched SouthernRight Whales lolling 50 metres offshore with their calves. All this thanks to the hospitality of family that we've hardly met over the years but who are, nevertheless, welcoming us into their homes and treating us like the closest of friends. But, I hear you say, "You're my eyes and ears there, what's happened, give me details." Well, dear reader (if indeed anyone still bothers to log on to this sadly neglected site), it's been thrills and spills all the way.
Let me enlarge ...

The Streets of Forbes.
Forbes is a small town in New South Wales, not a million miles away from Parkes where the famous radio telescope is housed. People in Parkes will tell you that Forbes is a rough sort of town, the kind of place that your in-laws might come from, but not a place to be born in yourself. I'll have none of that. Forbes is a fine place that deserves at least one whole day of any traveller's time. We started at the tourist information office where we were able to pick up plenty of information about Ben Hall(of whom more in a moment) and also some of the more interesting souvenirs that I've found since we've been here. For example, the women's institute here seem to turn out not only the usual woollen dolls, painted plant pots and padded clothes hangers, they also have a sideline of very tasteful dinky lingerie bags decorated with applique Victorian foundation wear. We bought one and were mightily delighted. Across the way from the tourist information centre is the Forbes Olympic Swimming Pool. Sadly, this fine facility was closed and so we made our way directly to the cemetery, a mile or so out of town, where we found the graves of Ned Kelly's sister, Captain Cook's great great grandniece and Ben Hall. A walk back into town took us past the Gaggin Oval (we'd seen the Gaggin graves in the cemetery, incidentally) and the to the splendidly veranda'd Albion Hotelwhere we had lunch. As we ate, the police surrounded the table next to us and quizzed the man sitting there. As they walked away he muttered, "You'll never take me alive!", but they heard him and told him that if he didn't come to the station with some haste, he'd be in trouble! A notice told us that the Albion Hotel was the venue for a Hall family gathering some years ago; still some of them around by the sound of things. The Forbes museum is a magpie's nest of all sorts of memorabilia and bric-a-brac, housed in the old town theatre (the bordello actually, so the curator told us). Here we found a display about Ben Hall, a collecion of Victorian ladies' underwear, a piece of a space vehicle that had landed in a local garden and a photo of Mrs Onions, one of the earliest female settlers of the Lachlan River hereabouts and not a woman you'd like to cross. Back at the car park outside the visitors' centre there's a wishing well that seemed to make the final statement about the legacy of Ben Hall in the town. A notice said, "Due to constant thieving, please make a wish at the store across the the road."
So then, who is this Ben Hall?
What better way to tell the story than in song:
Come all you Lachlan men and a sorrowful tale I'll tell,
The story of a decent man who through misfortune fell,
His name it was Ben Hall, a man of high renown,
Who was hunted from his station, and was like a dog shot down.
For years he roamed the roads, and he showed the traps some fun,
One thousand pounds was on his head, with Gilbert and John Dunn.
Ben parted from his comrades, the outlaws did agree,
To give away bushranging and to cross the briny sea.
Ben went to Goobang Creek, and that was his downfall
For riddled like a sieve was the valiant Ben Hall,
'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
That the seven police surrounded him as fast asleep they lay.
Billy Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead,
The troopers then fired madly and they filled him full of lead,
They rolled him in his blanket and strapped him to prad,
And they led him through the streets of Forbes, to show the prize they had.

Tragic stuff, you'll agree!