This post is about Rowan’s family and their hunt to find ancestors, please feel free to skip if it doesn’t interest you.

After two nights and a day in Sydney, the three of us head over the Blue Mountains to Mudgee. Mudgee is where Rowan’s maternal grandfather Peter is from. We are meeting Joanne’s cousins (Peter’s, brother Jack’s children), Kaye & Lynne. Kaye has come from Perth and Lynne from Stillwater, Auckland.

We leave Sydney around 11am. A late start because we want to eat breakfast before we go. Our first stop is a few op shops in Richmond. We end up buying a few goodies, some nice jewellery. On our way back to the car we pop into the antique shop. I fall in love with this 18kt gold necklace with carnelian and turquoise. It is a mere $6,800 and I am sorely tempted to buy it. It is worth half of that in material value. I want it so bad, but my better half tells me I am not earning any money and I don’t really get to spend $3k on a luxury. He is right if I had to sell it tomorrow quickly I can get hold back but I cannot really afford to lose that much money. Oh how nice is it to dream a little.

Our first chance to fly the drone is at a viewing platform once we are in the Blue Mountains. A pop into Kurrajong for a quick bite to eat. A quick stop in Bilpin for a cider tasting. Next on the agenda something sweet for an afternoon snack. Then another mandatory drone flight before heading down towards Lithgow. By the time we reached Lithgow the sun was setting, we rang the girls to let them know we will be in Mudgee late and not to wait for us to eat dinner.

We arrive in the dark at a wonderful historic bed and breakfast. This is run by Joanne’s childhood friend Robbie. Robbie purchased it 23 years ago, but it was built by her great grandfather. Robbie’s g/pa, son of a chemist was the first surgeon to practice in Mudgee. In 1900 he commissioned the house to be built by architect Harold Hardwick. Over the years he added dentistry to his tool belt. Forgandenny house was run as a doctors/surgery/midwifery/dentistry. In 1924 his wife became ill and they headed back to Scotland to see family. They put a locum in place to manage the patients while they were gone. Dr Lester was 6 days late from the contract he signed with the locum. Unfortunately the fine print was missed and this meant Dr Lester was to sell the practice and the building. Dr Lester moved out to Sydney and 5 years later his wife Mary died. He went on to work on ships as a surgeon. In 1930 at 65 he died just as the ship reached Wellington Harbour. His descendants stayed on in Mudgee. 76 years of being out of the family Forgandenny House came up for auction and Robbie & Errol purchased the home. Amazingly some of the furniture and equipment from the days of Dr Lester were kept on a family farm. So a lot of those things came back to Forgandenny House.

After a recommendation from Errol we head off the the pub for dinner. Lynne & Kaye meet us there for a drink and to watch us eat dinner. It is fantastic getting to know Kaye & Lynne, Rowan hadn’t met them before either. We say goodnight with a plan for tomorrow. Let’s see what we can find out!

Wednesday morning, wow the breakfasts here are fantastic. We started with poached pears in cinnamon and orange. Then scrambled eggs, avocado, tomato, asparagus and salmon. We have 3 more of these wonderful breakfasts coming. The first mission is the local Mudgee Museum, we start chatting to one of the volunteers and he tells us to come back on Friday, that is when one of the historians are around. With plans to come back we go house hunting. First to find is the house that Jack built (literally). Lynne & Kaye spent their early childhood in this home. Lynne remembers baby Kaye coming home from the hospital and holding her for the first time in this home. There is a wheelchair ramp that is not original, the front fence is missing, the garage is missing and the cladding is newer. The place looks near abandoned, we try knocking on the front door. Lynne tells me when she was last here the elderly lady who purchased it of her parents remembered her. Lynn was 5 when they left Mudgee, how on earth did she recognise her 50+ years later? Rowan noted a supermarket trolley inside the house and we took a good look around. The back door was ajar, don’t mind if I do! We all enter without breaking. The kitchen is absolutely original, it is rather remarkable. Actually the whole house is near original, the only change is an additional toilet with wheelchair access. It has commercial signs about, like exit, fire extinguisher etc. Rowan finds an exit plan from NALAG (National Association for Loss and Grief). We need to make our way around some ciggy butts and condoms, our guess is teenagers hangout. At least they are semi polite by putting them out on an upside down kitchen drawer. They also left a window open to air it out. A chat to the neighbour brings us to a conclusion we guessed, it hasn’t been used in months. The back of the property is missing, it is now overtaken by a large green fence. A sleuth around the block and we assume the property is owned by the nursing home. I think the only reason it is still standing is the house next to it is heritage listed so the land is rather useless to them. Rowan thinks the boundary fence has been put up with no actual subdividing. That is why the property is just sitting.

Next home, Lynne & Kaye’s maternal grandmothers home. Looks the same but it has had a freshen up and is currently for sale. For $790k this 2 bedroom cottage could be yours. Rowan takes the drone up for some pictures of the home.

Last on the list is Richo’s (Rowan’s great grandmas) second husbands home that they lived in for many years. This one is a lot harder to recognise as the home has had additions and changed quite a bit. A nice young man helps answer some questions and tell us it is okay to photograph.

With an appetite worked up we head out to a winery. There is a lot of them around to choose from. Joanne chooses Lowe Family Winery, her and I do a wine tasting. The others just eat food and Rowan tries a sip of mine so he can drive. Well the wine tasting goes on and on, we get forgotten a little and it ends up being a 3 hour event. I wasn’t complaining as it had beautiful views and the wine was very tasty.

With a boot full of chiming bottles we headed off back to Forgandenny House. Rowan and I had the car alone, of course we took a sneaky detour on the way back to the Salvos. Sallies had a nice silver and pearl necklace and a nice heavy silver chain we picked up. At the B&B we poured over the family tree, correcting mistakes and putting two and two together. This tree has been made by another branch of the family so quite a few details were incorrect.

Dinner was at a local restaurant. We walked back in the cold, I was just in a dress. The cousins had puffer jackets and beanies. It was hilarious. We have been having beautifully cold evenings and sunny warm days.

Thursday, off to the family plot. There is a large family plot in the Mudgee Cemetery. 6 people are there, with another 3 ashes to be put in soon. We end up wondering up and down getting ideas for the plot as it is looking rather neglected. They want something that looks good with low maintenance. There is an idea of what everyone wants so we head to the funeral stone mason to have a chat.

They tell us there can be 24 people in the plot. This is 6 bodies and the rest ashes. That doesn’t mean you can’t put more in on the down low, just 24 can be registered with the council. Which is a great idea for when someone a hundred years later comes to find you. We cannot find Lynne & Kaye’s family the Chambers that are here somewhere.

From there we head back to the cemetery as they told us where we can find Kaye & Lynne’s grandparents. We don’t spend that long this time and it is 1pm now. We make the trip to Gulgong for lunch and to visit the museums. Gulgong is a historic mining town. Nearly overnight it went from no one to 20,000 people. The famous Holtermann’s gold nugget was found here, the world’s largest specimen. 1.5m long and weighing 290kg, 93kg was gold the rest quartz. We went to the Holtermann Museum to see the photos taken by Beaufoy Merlin & Charles Bayliss. There are some 3,500 glass slides. They took a lot of these photos prior to Holtermann being their patron. Some of the slides are incredibly large. They documented the gold rush incredibly well. It is an incredibly interesting museum and I could write for several paragraphs but I won’t bore you.

From there we went to the most unmuseum I have ever been to. It is actually hilarious and we were in fits of laughter on the way back to Mudgee talking about it. If you can get past Margery’s collections of dolls and kitsch salt and pepper shakers you can find the odd museum worthy piece. There is a lot of crap in there and instead of one example there were several of each. The collection of someone’s old mobile phones was my favourite. Rowan liked the typewriters locked away in a cage so you can’t steal them. I think everyone just takes their old relics here so they can see their name on a piece of paper to say kindly donated by….

We visit an old commercial building where the family owned a jewellery store. Kaye & Lynne remember sleeping on the balcony and throwing water onto shoppers below. Peter, Rowan’s grandad also slept on the balcony as a kid. The owner Byrnes Jewellery was kind enough to take us down memory lane. Her mother purchased the story from the Richardsons.

Off to dinner at a place called Cade. It is quite a late dinner compared to normal and Kaye doesn’t join us, she would like to rest. We go upstairs and we end up with a really funny waiter. Tom and I start a banter straight away, he apologises for interrupting and I make him go onto his knees to take our order. Before we know it we have him bowing constantly while he takes our order. For the rest of the evening we had a bowing waiter. We were in hysterics, the food was delicious and we were well entertained.

Friday – Back at the Mudgee Museum as soon as it opened. Unfortunately the genealogy lady wasn’t there but we had a nice man John help us find all sorts of files. We even found an original gold claim, unfortunately it ran out in 1973 so we were a bit late. It turns out the Lovetts line that is still in Mudgee are related to them. We dug out some good photos of the original plot of land in Grattai. The lovely John allowed us to go get the files scanned so we took them to the local print shop to be put on USB sticks. While we waited for that to happen, we ate lunch and checked out the town hall. This is now the local library but a long time ago it had the Richardson Jewellery store started by John Kaye Richardson which was started by Rowan’s great great grandfather. It was carried on by Rowan’s great grandparents and eventually sold it in the 70’s. I am not sure what year they moved from the town hall to the location across the street with the balcony.

Joanne calls the retirement place and talks to the manager. The manager has agreed if the property is going to be taken down that Lynne & Kaye can take any original fixtures they want. She also confirms Rowans guess about the property boundary.

After we picked up the files and got them back to their folders in the museum we headed out to Grattai. We found or think we found the land that they owned. Back then they just went to local council and said I want this plot and it was granted to you. Hundreds of aboriginals were shot when the white settlers arrived, it is pretty horrific what was done. Not one of the museums had any of that history about. Also in Grattai we found the local CWA (Country Women’s Association). The first treasurer was Rosa (Lovett) Nicholls, who helped start the local Grattai club. That is Rowan’s great great grandmother.

From Grattai we head to Hargraves in search of a church. This church was in Grattai but was moved in the 90s to Hargraves. Rowan’s great grandparents Edith & Harold got married in the church. They are the only known couple to be married in that church. We find the church it is right next to the school. We take lots of photos and ringing the church bell. We see an old sign and ring the Anglican Church number to see if we can see inside. Then Rowan pull out his phone and tells us it can’t be this church it doesn’t look like the one in the photo. Off we go in the car and find a second church. We look at it and Rowan and I think it can’t be that church. The neighbour comes out and asks us if she can help. We get chatting to Judy and she explains how she went to the church as a kid and it was definitely moved to back at the school. A little confused but we accepted her explanation. It wasn’t until we chatted for several minutes and came back to the subject that she realised we were talking about two different churches. Judy explained that the church is in the school grounds not next to the school, it has been turned into a home economics room/teachers lounge. Judy is president of the historical society in Hargraves, we are lucky to have run into her.

We head back to the school, it currently has no one there. We find out from one of the parents that they have had an excursion which they do most Fridays. The school is only 13 students so they all go together on Fridays. The rest of the week they are split in two. We sleuth around and realise that the church is unlocked. We let ourselves in and take photos. Just as we decide to leave the bus pulls up with the principal in tow. We explain who we are and what we have been doing. She takes our details to pass on to the old principal who put the church there. A good success.

On the way into town I noticed a cemetery sign and said we should go there on the way back. After talking to Judy who confirmed some Lovetts are in there, we decided it was well worth taking a look. What we weren’t expecting was to find Rowan’s great, great, great grandparents plot. What a find! Frederick & Elizabeth Lovett just there waiting for us to find them.

We booked back in to Cade’s for dinner so we could get another round of bowing from Tom. Well it turns out we got every staff member taking bows and curtseys when greeting us. We are all buzzed and excited from our day. It was the perfect ending for the trip. We made plans to meet up for a quick coffee before heading our seperate ways.

Saturday, our final big breakfast. The stay at Forgandenny House has been spectacular. Big hugs for Robbie as we leave.

A quick coffee with Lynne & Kaye so we can say goodbye. Rowan and I will go see Lynne next time we are in Auckland as she lives close to my Nana. We think it is a good idea to come back and do this again some time soon. We go off to the Saturday market and don’t find much. From there we head out of town and see a beautiful old church. It appears to be a part of a large estate called the Havilah House. It has been in the same family for 150 years.

We went back to Sydney via the Capertee Valley. Which is a really scenic drive through the worlds second largest canyon. It is quite wide. We took a good look around and found an old abandoned town. It was a really interesting drive. We also went past the Three Sisters at Katoomba. Rowan sent the drone up and got some awesome footage. I was nervous as there is no way you would get it back if it crashed.