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With no visa (and hence no passport), we were resigned to the fact that we would be remaining in Australia.....for now. Soooo, with a regional TravelPass, courtesy of State Transit, we set off on a countrylink train.
Orange
Orange
Upon arrival in Orange, we were suprised to discover that the Tourist Information office were reluctant to provide advice on what to do or where to stay, for fear of complaints!! Is this the way our country is headed? We were always of the impression that feedback was useful, as surely this determines the advice for the next questioning soul.
Lucky we had only one thing in mind for sightseeing in Orange - visiting the wineries - Is there anything else? - so we hired a car and set off to find some.
Upon recommedation from our wine conniosseur friends, Katie and Keith (thanks guys), our first winery - Ross Hill - would have had the gunzels drooling. Tastings were done in a 1950s train carriage, converted into a kitchen and living area! We sat on it's little balcony in the afternoon sun, chatting to the owner about his rabbit problems and the ferret man who was solving this for him......and drinking wine of course!
The next winery - Bloodwood - was possibly more interesting - a husband and wife act who seemed to enjoy annoying each other as much as we did! We spent hours with them trying their bottled and unbottled wines and swapping stories about life...nice!
Dubbo
Dubbo
Next stop was Dubbo, where the Information Centre was as helpful as the last....we were beginning to see a pattern....
We stayed in the cheapest hotel we could find (McCabe, you would have been proud), an old, typically Australian pub run by an elderly couple.
Hiring pushies in town, we rode the few k's out to the Western Plains Zoo for two days in a row.
So here's Mark in the cafeteria overlooking a few man-made islands of species of monkeys...."Having recycled my Devonshire teabag for three full cups, yep three (we are unemployed you know!). On my left are the spider monkeys, a species I have had an instinctive understanding of for most of my life... did someone say Monkey Mark? It is approaching dusk, so they are starting to be more interesting than the tree stumps most animals impersonate during a good part of the day... Boring big cats - somebody please put a rabbit in their cage - I see a monkey try to run down the rope while holding a tree branch in its tail, only to fall just before the end and shrug it off like it was intentional. I know I share some DNA with that bored little show-off primate... I bet I could have made the full distance, if I had a tail...
The other immediate entertainment is the peacock attempting to eat off the tables. If we are quick, we can try to sit at the recently abandoned table being pillaged by the birds for a photo, before the cafe staff run out and shoo the birds away... Damn fun police."
Wagga Wagga
Wagga Wagga
We then went to visit a friend in Wagga Wagga Wagga Wagga. This place was so good, they had to name it twice.....haha!
Went to Wagga "Beach" - careful of that wave.....and visited the Royal Botanic Gardens that had a great little zoo - for free!
That pretty much covered Wagga, so next we headed to the Charles Sturt University for some free wine and cheese tasting before starting to plan dinner....mmmm BBQ roast pork....
Albury
Albury
Our last stop was Albury where the biggest tourist attraction was the platform we arrived on!! The platform is one of the longest in Australia as it was built when NSW and Victoria were using different gauges so passengers had to change trains at Albury when travelling interstate!
We stayed at another great Aussie pub boasting memorabilia of famous visitors on its walls including Pharlap in the 1930's! Our room was overlooking a cute-looking beer garden in the centre of the pub.
After a big night with Gibbo, we were due for an early night so we headed out for a cheap meal. To our horror upon return, we realised it was Saturday night and that our cute little beer garden was no longer cute, rather full of drunken locals selecting from the limited selection of typical pub songs on the duke box. Well, at least we would sleep on the overnight train the following night....
We walked across the border to Victoria to ask the the tourist info whether Albury or Wadonga was better....I don't think he got it. So we asked what we could do or see and obviously not used to seeing tourists without a car, he proceeded to advise of all the places we could 'drive' to. We're beginning to realise why the trains are so empty!
We spent the evening in the local RSL, waiting for our 11pm train and gorging ourselves on the all-you-can-eat-buffet which always sounds so tempting at the time, until you realise that the food is average and you waste enough food to feed a small nation.
The overnight train back to Sydney was hell. The carriage rattled, the temperature was soaring and the seats barely reclined so that upon arrival at 7.15am, my neck was sore, I was tired and hungry and as soon as we stepped outside we were freezing.
But at least we could go back to bed.....
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