Texas Hill Country and beyond

15th – 20th Nov

With slightly heavy hearts we extracted ourselves from our Austin oasis and continued west, further into Texas Hill Country and to our next stop, Fredericksburg.  The hills in question are very modest, but after the flatlands of eastern Texas they completely change the flavour of this vast state.  Texas is huge. It is, to be fair, not the largest state. That accolade goes to Alaska, which is more than twice it’s size, but let’s put that to one side as an incomprehensible vastness more like the moon. (Isn’t that right, McWillies?!) If Texas was a country, it would be the 40th largest in the world, being about the same land area as France.

The Hill Country felt a lot like South Australia: dry, scrubby and undulating, and the area around Fredericksburg is gathering vineyards at such a pace that it will be a Texan Barossa before you know it.  The town itself was originally settled by German immigrants and has lots of residual influences. There are strasse where there would normally be streets, wurst where sausages should be and there is a kirche in the marktplatz.  The town has one wide main street lined with businesses catering to mainly one type of customer: the ‘weekender’.  People come here from the cities in their hoards for this 48 hour excursion of eating, wine ‘tasting’ (in large quantities), and shopping (if they are in the market for leather goods, cowboy boots and hats, home decor items and general kitch).  It is land of the wedding, the hen weekend and the romantic getaway. It was charming, but the locals say it is being taken over by Californians who have moved in and turned all the smaller homes into Air B&Bs, catering to the tourists, but pushing out the young families. Such is the familiar story of progress.

Fredericksburg also has the highly renowned National Museum of the Pacific War full of WWII exhibits and an area outside with a recreated combat war zone. We were wandering the streets on Veterans Day to the soundtrack of a re-enactment: gunfire and shells, with a vintage P-51 Mustang fighter plane doing laps around the town and doing fly-overs of the museum. Tragically we learnt that the loud bang that we had heard a short while later was not another part of the show, but the plane crashing, killing both veteran pilot and 93 year old passenger. Very sad, but miraculously it went down in an apartment block car park in town, avoiding  anyone else.

Our camp was a lovely park about 1 mile out of town, so an easy walk or cycle to get around.  There was an nice ride out to the other side of town and a short hike up a hillock, called Cross Mountain, for obvious reasons. Good view from the top. We were again, the only people travelling by  bike.

Our 4 days in Fredericksburg was very serene, but slightly marred by snot and coughing. The cold snap had brought me a cold virus. This is the first winter we are having since 2015, and I have avoided getting sick for a few years. I guess you can’t dodge the bullets for ever. Hampson, however, despite being stuck in a small tin can with me and my affliction, has dodged it so far. I am taking note of his sympathy levels for future reference… We met some interesting park residents, including a couple who were off to NZ a few days later for a 6 week trip to see family. Earlier this year they had cycled 4400miles coast to coast, tent camping along the way. Now THAT is travelling (or madness. One or the other!)

From Fredericksburg we drove miles and miles through the unchanging landscape of West Texas to where the Hill Country comes to an end and the flats and oil fields begin again, at Fort Stockton. This was just an overnight stop for us on our way to Big Bend National park. The town is full of RV parks along the highway corridor but this is not a holiday destination. The vast majority of people here are either passing through or are oilfield workers. It seemed a strange place, but our park was lovely. It had a small cafe that was open from 5-7.30pm, and we couldn’t resist having our dinner there. It was perfect: catfish for me, deep fried steak (with a fried chicken style crispy coating) for Hampson, both served with overcooked green beans, mashed potato, gravy and a biscuit each. (Biscuit = savoury scone in this part of the world). True Texan fayre.

The next day we continued our ‘wilds of Texas’ drive down to the inland edge of this vast land, Big Bend National Park and our stop, Terlingua.