Oh, they were the days.

In those days the Hume Highway, mostly a single lane road, with the occasional twin lanes on steep hills meandered through places like Liverpool, Campbelltown, Camden, Narellan, Picton, Yerrinbool and of course Mittagong and further on to the south.

Drivers thought they had won the lottery when the Camden bye-pass opened in the 1970s, from memory.

With Mittagong being about two and a half hours to three hours from Sydney at the time, Charlie's Cafe was a very popular place to stop for a meal, long before the arrival of fast-food restaurants.

On one occasion in 1977 I was driving/returning from Goulburn to my home at Earlwood in Sydney and it took me four and a half hours just to get from Mittagong to Liverpool.

You might ask why. I can remember it vividly, the answer is that I was studying for an exam and I had most of my study material on cassettes and that time gave me plenty of study revision, I can assure you.

Anyway, I digress - but Charlie's Cafe was always there for us and has been part of the furniture, as to say and I don't know how long that sign has been there, but I think it was there in the 1960s.

I don't think it was a 24-hour operation, but it catered for mostly the afternoon traffic I believe and you always got good tucker there, as with the Paragon Cafe at Goulburn which is still there and I often frequent.

The only other place I can remember for getting 24 hour petrol and tucker was at "Bimbo's" at Bargo - I remember pulling-up there for "crib" when I was on the NSW Government Railways as a Fireman and travelling from Sydney to Goulburn on a few occasions.

There was a Signalbox at Bargo at the time and nearly every other "whistle-stop" along the line for that matter and if OK by the Signalman at Bargo, you could pull-up for 10 minutes at "Bimbo's" to get some tucker there.

Yes, things have changed and unfortunately, Charlie's Cafe is a thing of the past, but I thought that the sign was a part of the Mittagong furniture/landscape and would have been there forever.

Sadly it will probably be auctioned to the highest bidder and eventually end up in a "Mancave" somewhere, where it will be a treasured item hopefully which may see it survive into the future as a prized possession, full of history.

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Across the River: Remembering a favourite 'tucker shop'

There is a lovely camping ground where, luckily, the owners leave the wombat burrows in among the camp sites and so in the evening many wombats come out to eat.

The campers, even in the winter when it's cold, also come out to watch. The kangaroos join them too.

A small bus rolls in a a group of people, well rugged up, also come to see leaving a wonderful collection of people, animals and torches flickering all around.

Luckily someone noticed that many of the wombats have mange so they asked for help.

Now the wombats are being treated.

The wombat carers tie a small tin on the end of a long pole and put medication in this tin.

Then they creep close to the wombats and pour the medication on the back of the animals..

As a result the incidence of mange is declining, and the wombats are happy and love.

What a camping ground.

If you would like to make a donation or provide assistance, call Tanya Clancy on 0429 042 721.

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For over four months now people of Valetta Street, Moss Vale, have been watching water run down the gutters from the water reservoir in Woodville Road.

Obviously phone calls and emails have not been enough to get Wingecarribee Shire Council to fix the problem. They obviously are unaware that there is a drought on in this country.

Perhaps John Hewson can explain why the politicians think that the banks can immediately pass on any rate cut announced by the Reserve Bank?

It seems to me that only if the banks borrowed from the Reserve sufficient amounts to fully fund residential mortgages could they implement an equal rate reduction.

I'm no expert at the banks' balance sheets, but I can't see any borrowing from the Reserve, so could we please have an enlightened explanation, instead of hearing politic spin?