Emu Kiev!

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DAY 385



Firstly, Happy Birthday Gary Barber, 46 today, hope you have a good day, matey, back home in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

This morning I was up before the sun, I guess that it wasn’t being lazy, I just suppose it wanted an extra half an hour in bed, which is possibly fair and reasonable, but it left us with a cloudy and cool morning.

This is one of those mornings that we need the sun after our mega rain, which was fairly constant for about 18 hours, the tent needs to dry out as we will need to be packing away the Wendy House this morning to head to Temora, to see our friends Lee and Marilyn Harris, they live in Bathurst but we have arranged to meet them in Temora for an air show.

Caroline goes off to have her shower, but I insist that she takes more care than yesterday, with that promise off she goes and I start wiping the canvas down with a chamois leather to get rid of the excess moisture to help the drying out process.

We chat to our neighbours Chris and Toni, they are up here from Melbourne also to go to Temora, but they will stay in Wagga Wagga tonight then will travel up in the morning.

They have a camper trailer, which has been made out of the back end of a car, they only bought it recently, they are thrilled to bits with it, it did let in a little bit of rain but they worked out why when they found some extra canvas that should have been draped over the windows, but as it is only the second time they have used it you can understand it, we all have a learning curve when it comes to camping and we usually find things out the hard way.

While we were packing away, we received a telephone call from Jason, he tells us that he is popping into Wagga and would we like to meet for coffee, we agree and arrange a time, we are not in any hurry to get to Temora, although we do need to be off site by 10.00 the usual time for vacating ones camp site, we actually did not get away until 10.20, too much talking with the neighbours!

By 11.00 we are sat in the car park for the Golden Arches and head in to get a couple of skinny lattes while we wait for Jason. A different man appears to the one on the farm, this one is not only clean shaven, but he is wearing clean clothes and has half the tan that he usually has!

The one rare occasion that he ventures away from the farm, he has been to see the doctor about the injuries he is still trying to recover from, so of course for such an occasion Jason has the time to clean up.

We have a long natter but by 12.30 we need to get moving, as we don’t have a campsite booked, we need to be sure that we can find somewhere fairly close by to stay.

When we arrive in Temora we look at the showground, which is listed in Camps 5, it is a huge site but has capacity for about 30 powered sites and more if you don’t want power. I knew this guy was not going to be around until this evening, but there were no other campers, $15 per night with power, there are toilet and shower facilities, but they are very dark and dingy. With no hurry we check out tourist information, where I am piled up with maps, information and brochures.

She tells me about a caravan park down at the airfield and then gave me a list of prices. We decide to check it out as we are going to the air show thought being nearby might be a good idea (remind me that tomorrow when I want some peace and quiet and all we can hear are the sound of aeroplanes over head).

We drive into the Temora Airport where the caravan park is located, there is no office, but a sign says “find a site then someone will appear later to collect money”, here it is $25 for a powered site and $15 for an unpowered site. Having a drive round we see that all the powered sites are reserved, no problem because we should be ok without power for a couple of nights so find a nice camping spot that is not reserved, we unhook, pitch up and then head into town to get a few groceries from Woolworths.

Back at camp, no sooner than we arrive I see someone heading in our direction, a woman on a mission, I think she is after the camping money. Wrong! She tells us that we cannot pitch here. “Why?” we ask, “I have to fit 28 tents in here and have already had to ask someone to move.” I respond “where is the reserve sign? We pitched here as it is not reserved.” She explains that she has only been here a week, Andy is not amused as we have to pack everything up and move it all to a new site.

The attendant tells us where we are able to go, which is a nice green grassy cordoned off area right next to the airfield. We had already driven past that piece and thought it was all reserved because of the powered sites, but no, we can pitch up around the edge. Apart from the nuisance of having to move, I think that it is a better site, we find a nice corner with a good view of the airfield and soon re pitch. By now it is way past lunchtime but I put together a spam sandwich with some salad.

The afternoon is very hot, the sunshine is blazing, we sit inside the tent for some shade, opening the flaps up so that we can take advantage of some breeze. While I type the blog up, Andy lies on the bed with his book, he seems unable to put it down, while he reads I cannot get a lot of sense out of him, but then I am pleased that he is reading, it takes a good book to keep Andy interested, he is still reading Sheryl McCorry’s Stars Over Shiralee.

There is a lot of activity here on the airfield at Temora, we see lots of aircraft flying in and out, even an aerobatic display team; some older aircraft which I am sure are here for the airshow tomorrow and are just practising. People are busy doing safety checks on their aircraft, and then they take off and vanish beyond the clouds. I conclude that we have a great view here and am glad that we had to move.

By late afternoon, I managed to get hold of Lee and Marilyn and tell them that we are here, they are in a hotel in Ariah Park which is only about 35 kilometres down the road towards Griffiths, so we make arrangements to meet for dinner. We don’t often treat ourselves to a dinner out so this we are looking forward to.

It is a lot quieter here than I thought, the way everyone was talking I thought the campsites would be packed, but they are not, perhaps people will come in while we are out.

We take a nice drive back through Temora and out toward Griffiths, we see a couple of lovely churches on the way out, the sun is beginning to go down, the scenery is golden with sheep dotted around we see some dams, which for the first time in a long while we see that they are actually full of water! They must have had a lot of rain here and the sheep seem to be enjoying it.

We find Ariah Park, a lovely little town and the home of Australian Bulk Grain, there is one main street, a population of 500, and one hotel where we hope to find Lee and Marilyn. The street is almost empty apart from a guy sat on a bench outside the hotel on a mobile phone. Down the centre of the street are lots of beautiful peppercorn trees, I am sure they provide ample and much needed shade during the day, not just a pretty scene, we park in one of the bays underneath a peppercorn tree. The sun is shining just right on the hotel where we are meeting with Lee and Marilyn.

The Ariah Park hotel is really a traditional Australian Hotel, built in 1914, inside we find them at the bar, it is great to see them again, soon we all have a cool drink in hand and find a spot outside in the beer garden, I never quite understand why they call them beer gardens, there is never any beer growing out in the garden and the pubs sell a lot more than just beer!

After a while the mosquito’s appear, intent on having their own feast we decide to decamp indoors to order dinner. We find ourselves chatting to some of the locals while ordering dinner, they seem very friendly here, once ordered we head to the dining room.

The dining room is a fairly large room, with very high ceilings and extremely tall windows, the top part of the windows open, Lee tells us that this is to let the warm air out and the cool air in for when they used to have the old gas lighting, you can still see the remnants of those days gone by.

A bowl of chips garnished with spring onion, arrives in the centre of the table, we all tuck in completely unaware of the size of the dinner that is coming.

My Chicken Kiev arrives, the plate is stacked with vegetables, more chips, gravy and with the size of the Kiev I wonder how big the chicken actually was, in fact perhaps it is more like “Emu Kiev.”

Dinner goes down well, my plate beats me into submission, I cannot clear it, oops perhaps too many chips to start with.

We go upstairs to a lounge room, a couple are sat in there watching a Will Smith movie on TV.

There is a little side room which appears to be a kitchen, apart from the original dumb waiter that has been restored to working order, alongside are modern kitchen units with stainless steel appliances it all looks very new and very modern. Marilyn tells me this is where they come and do their breakfast, a selection of cereal boxes are on the table, in the fridge is plenty of yoghurt and milk.

Marilyn makes us a cup of coffee and we settle down for a while longer, but the day is catching up with me and we have a 25 minute drive back so once the coffee is finished we set off back to Temora.

We see the runway lights on the way back into Temora, we could almost drive in a straight line down the runway to get to our campsite, however we need to follow the road, which of course is the long way round.

Back at camp, all is quiet, the runway lights are still lit up, they look pretty impressive, with green, red, blue and white lights, the windsock is wrapped around a pole, with the red and the white lights on it, it looks like a Santa hat the wrong way up.

The camp is quiet, we park outside the compound right next to the trailer, so we don’t disturb anyone, it seems to be a pleasant night out there, sleep comes easily tonight.

Until our exciting day at the Temora air show tomorrow, goodnight.

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Photos

Ariah Park Hotel
Temora

Stained Glass Window
This lovely ornate building is in such good condition.

Dumb Waiter
No, thats Lee on the left silly, the dumb waiter is the hole in the wall.