The Road North

Leaving Canberra, we headed north through sheep, cattle or farmers growing grains and the rain coming down is a "God send".  Stopping at the Ramage Park camp site for the night.  This is situated 2.3 kilometres outside of the township behind the Europa Park that has the history of Cowra.   POW camp during WWII, Immigrant camp 1949 to 1956.  It gave plenty of reading for us to take in the extend of the history here in this town.   So we got out the bikes and peddled into town to post correspondence then take a look at the World Peace Bell and the Monument in Memory of Australian and Italian service personnel who died during WWII and the Italian immigrants and families in the district.

A gift from the World Peace Bell Assoc Japan is a replica of the original World Peace Bell which is located in teh inner court of the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  Like the original, this bell is cast from melted down coins and medals of member countries of the United Nations in the hope that world peace will be realised.

After the ride back to our camp site, we realised we had to visit the Japanese Gardens before leaving Cowra the next morning.  We were not dissappointed as you can see by my photos of this beautifully presented garden.  Driving past the gardens we left Cowra via the remaining buildings at the Prison Of War Camp, the Avenue of Japanese Cherry Trees and the The Cemeteries where the Japanese POWs who died in the breakout were originally placed in mass graves.  On 5 August, 1944, the POW Camp became the site of the largest mass POW escape in British military history.  It was also the only such escape attempt to occur in Australia.  Once again, Wayne and I have learnt something new of the Australian history.

Japanese sculpture deplicting peace between the two countries

The garden was designed to reflect the total Japanese landscape.  Mountain with streams flowing down through a waterfall to a lagoon representing to the ocean.

A replica tower that stood within the POW camp