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It's always salutary to ramble through a town you think you're familiar with. We had plenty of time after booking into the motel, and an urge to eat olives and artichoke hearts with our dinner hummus. So we set out, excessively clothed, just in case, to cross the bridge into town, passing a tall guardian bird and then discovering a reason to make Cowra too a waystation: vast beds of heritage roses at the junction of three mid-western highways. They were piled deep with mulch and expertly pruned to encourage abundant flowering. Each one had a stone plaque recording its name.

 

 

 

The Lachlan River flowed calmly under the bridge in the late afternoon light, long shadows falling.

 

 

An impressive brick church called the camera, but the need for signs and lamp-posts and advertisements and cars obscured it, calling for a bit of savage cropping. I longed for the spaciousness of a square or parkland like those in front of grand buildings in Poznań.

 

 

Shopping done, we found that the old low-lying bridge, built like the one over the Tuross on the mountain road to Nerrigundah, was still in service, so we crossed the river that way, looking down into submerged shopping trolleys. That was when we discovered the unexpected. The vast concrete pylons of the big bridge were painted, mainly with Aboriginal designs, although big rigs also featured.

 

 

 

We sat at the table outside our room in the last of the sun and feasted on our spoils. Then we retired for our last night cohabiting and away from home in this lengthy three-month stint at opposite ends of the world.