Well the first one is to check out Thunderbolts Cave. Everyone knows who he was, don’t they? Bush ranger Fred Ward rampaged around New England in the mid 1850-60s. He had originally escaped from the penal colony on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour, the only one to ever do that.

He had lots of hideouts in the New England region, we have already seen one whilst in Glen Innes, a rocky cave near the road.

The one here at Guyra though is away in the bush about 2 km from the highway down a gravel road.

The walk to the cave from the car park is about 500 metres into the scrub.

The reason for the cave’s distance from the highway is that modern day man moved the New England Hwy about two km west from the old 1800s route that went past the cave’s location. The gravel road to the cave is in part a section of the old 1800s route. An interesting historical spot to visit.

The second must do is to have a look at the two massive tomato growing complexes on the town’s outskirts, 40 hectares in total. Hydroponic tomatoes on a grand scale. Guyra is ideally located for the project. It has clear sunny days for much of the year that are ideal for solar power. Cool rather than hot summers minimise the air conditioning cooling needs. In the cold of winter it is, in comparison to cooling in summer, more efficient to warm.

The two industrial scale complexes employ around 800 people, 200 locals, casual workers on holidays and another 600 Pacific Islanders on working visas schemes. Rotating teams come from all over the Pacific islands to work here year round.

There is an annual production capacity of around 20 million kilos of truss tomatoes and smaller specialist tomatoes for our supermarkets.

The complex’s roof captures rain water that is stored in a dam and then cycled and recycled through the hydroponic system, the site is completely water self sufficient. The complexes also generate their own electricity and manufacture gas used on site. A must see!

After the Tomato visit we stopped for that lunch snack at the Blind Chef. Intention was to try their pies, but alas they had sold out. Settled for a slow cooked lamb shank and a beef burger.

After lunch it was off to the nearby third must do, a visit to the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame. I think it is a self proclaimed name!

The revitalised 1920s Arcadia Picture Theatre and Dance Hall that closed in the 1970s is worth a long look see.

The current owner has adorned the walls with his caricatures of numerous Australian poets from Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson to modern day legends like Les Murray.

There is a large library of poetry books and donations of these are gratefully received. The venue also hosts poetry recitals and a weekly open mike event Wednesday Words, a cafe and Saturday morning markets. A big selection of second hand vinyls is also available for purchase.

We were fortunate in that while we were here they had a musical duo perform in the evening.

Tickets for the show were $15 and we also had a sausage with onion on a slice of bread for a pre show snack! There were 10 of us in the audience including the sound man and the proprietor!

The guys weren’t bad, Tana-Rua an interesting voice. Briar a little hard to hear, maybe the mike was a bit sus. Show went for a couple of hours. They were on the road back from shows in Newcastle to home in Brisbane, perhaps the performance was a favour for the Poetry Hall of Fame. Bit of unexpected fun anyway!

If there is a fourth must do it would have to be the annual Lamb & Potato Festival held over the last two weeks of January. Maybe we will be there sometime.

But now it is off a bit east, away from the New England Highway, to Ebor on the Waterfall Way.