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Published: October 27th 2011
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Sunday 23rd October – The night hadn’t been too bad - the late conversations diminished enough not to be a nuisance (eventually) although I could hear some city revellers making merry quite late on. Some kids were up and about early although we were ready to rise anyway so they didn’t really disturb us. We weren’t in any real hurry as our next destination was to be Orange – a journey of about 160 kilometers. It was slightly out of the obvious way back towards Melbourne but we had a particular reason for travelling to Orange. During their travels around Aus, Sarah and Darryl met up with and enjoyed the company of Jane and Tony who they first met on the very top of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and spent quite some time together. Later in their travels, they met up again in Tasmania where they explored much of Tassie travelling in tandem. Also, before their return to the UK, they made a special trip to Orange to stay with Jane and Tony at their home. We wondered if we might be able to catch up with them - we had their telephone number and hoped that they wouldn’t be busy or
away on another trip.
On our journey towards Orange we stopped at the small town of Molong for our mid-morning break, parking in front of the old railway station. It was an ideal stopping place although, actually, we had mistaken it for a picnic area which, according to a sign we had seen, was just “500 meters ahead”. We travelled well over 500 meters before reaching the station and assumed that to be the picnic area. However, on our way out of Molong, at least another 500 meters further on, we found the extremely pleasant looking picnic area which might have been marginally better to stop at. Still, we’d enjoyed our break and then carried on towards Orange which we reached in good time. As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we had given PIE a thorough wash while in Dubbo and she looked good. But on the outskirts of Orange we encountered some road-works and had to negotiate a fair distance of gravel road and, like a couple of weeks ago, the road-works had been “watered” – presumably to keep the dust down. It meant that both poor PIE and Sweetie were well and truly splashed so our cleaning
efforts had been a waste of time. We found our chosen caravan park – Colour City - and were surprised to find that they were virtually fully booked. We could not be guaranteed a site for more than just one night and if we really wanted to stay for two or more we would have to take a chance that a spare site became available and we would almost certainly have to re-locate to a different site. Disappointed, we chose to stay for just one night. It was a shame as the park looked lovely, overlooking the Showgrounds, and was ridiculously cheap at $21 per night. I had already begun to plan a few trips out and had even been idly daydreaming about a couple of days in Sydney and travelling there on the train. We have stayed in Sydney on numerous occasions in the past so it wasn’t on our ‘must do’ list. Our main concern was that the short stay would reduce our chances of meeting Jane and Tony. We had a quick lunch and then meandered into the centre of Orange.
It still being Sunday lunchtime, we were reluctant to ring until early afternoon so we
drove along the main streets of central Orange and then found a couple of parks to wander round. At the second one, the beautiful Cook Park, we had strolled until after 2:00pm and decided that that would be a reasonable time to ring. So, with fingers crossed I rang the number that Sarah had input into our mobile phone. To our great delight the number was correct, Jane answered and neither she nor Tony was otherwise engaged that afternoon. After a brief chat, which included some directions to their house, and armed with some fruity oat biscuits which I bought from the Arts and Craft Cottage in Cook Park, we found our way with the help of Sat-Nav. We had the most enjoyable afternoon in their company and it was easy to see why Sarah and Darryl found them to be such good travelling companions. We chatted excitedly about their and our adventures and they were able to show us two albums of photos commencing with their first meeting with S & D at the top of Ayers Rock. There is something very special about printed photos in an album – I am a great fan but have fallen into
the trap of only printing a very few photos. Just when we thought it might be time for us to leave, they offered to show us some of the highlights of Orange. It was a lovely gesture and we were thrilled to be taken to places we may not otherwise have found because of our short stay in the city. The first port of call was the magnificent golf club that both Jane and Tony play at. Ironically, had we been able to stay two nights at the caravan park, we might have left our efforts to contact them until the following day – Monday. On that day, Jane would have been playing in a golf tournament and Tony may have been doing some voluntary maintenance work at the club. How lucky were we that we chose to ring them today. Our drive around continued to Lake Canobolas, a beautiful leisure area where picnics, barbecues, walking and swimming were the order of the day. On we went to Mount Canobolas where a lookout gave us a magnificent view of the surrounding area. We were being spoilt but there was more to come. We then tackled a short but challenging walk
which involved a climb to The Pinnacle. It was yet another breathtaking location and was a brilliant finale to what had been a most enjoyable afternoon. Back at the house Jane and Tony were anxious for us to see a book they had bought showing photographs of a still growing number of remarkable wooden sculptures known as ‘The Wall’. This is being created by Greg Duncan in Derwent Bridge. It looked fabulous and we resolved to make a trip to see it a priority when we are in Tassie. We are so glad that everything came together to make it possible for us to spend time with Sarah and Darryl’s friends.
Later we were able to speak with and see S & D over “Skype” and they were as excited as us about our adventures. Sarah showed us a pair of shorts she was actually wearing, using her web-cam, which happened to be one of two pairs that Jane had kindly donated to her, after a few sewing adjustments!
Before speaking with S & D we had watched the Rugby World Cup Final which resulted in a very narrow win for NZ. The unpredictable French played pretty well
Duntryleague is also a guest house
what fantastic views there must be from these rooms but it made us wonder what might have happened if the Welsh had not shot themselves in the foot against France!! Our Skype chat lasted a whole hour and we were conscious that we needed to speak quite loudly to be easily heard even though it was well after the 10:00pm “noise watershed”. Fortunately we had no irate neighbours and, from our viewpoint, it makes up for the many times we’ve had to tolerate a bit of noise after 10:00pm. We’d had a pretty special day and slept well ahead of our departure for either Cowra or Yass tomorrow.
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Darryl and Sarah
Wallaby Wanderers
Beautiful in Orange!
How fab that you all managed to get together, that's great. We remember our walk up the mountain very well .... we also remember the other walk a couple of days later that nearly made me cry like a baby!!! I treasure the shorts - they're a great memory of very happy days! x x x