Cowra

I left Katoomba and entered the Australian heartland where there were neat and trim farms, and the whole area felt drastically different from Sydney. The gas stations had old-timey pumps and no canopy over their heads, and it felt as though I was back in the American Midwest from long ago. I realized that outside of the cities I just entered into an Australia that was still stuck in the 1950s. I got a great feeling from it because I could just cruise like I used to when I was a kid and driving on a trip was fun again. I even found that the radio stations in the area played songs from the 40s and 50s and hardly ever played a song any newer than those. So I made my way through the countryside to end up in a small town called Cowra. The town, unbeknownst to me was famous for a WWII prisoner of war camp for that held Italians and Japanese soldiers. The Italians almost seemed welcoming of their situation and needed very few guards to watch over them. On the other hand, the Japanese thought of capture as a disgrace and staged a mass breakout that failed miserably. After the visit to the museum I stayed in a motel just outside the town.