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Tocumwal Tourist Information Centre, NSW
We were surprised to see a full-sized glider on a pole as we entered the town We awoke to the invisible frogs calling again, which was lovely. It was so cold when I got out of the nice snugly bed that I could see my breath condensing. Brrrrr! Time for a very hot coffee.
After breakfast we made a beeline for Shepparton, just a few kilometres ahead, for a visit to the SPC/Ardmona Factory Outlet (this area grows a lot of fruit and SPC is a well known Aussie brand for canned fruits that has its cannery here.) We knew you could get their products by the carton or by the can, maybe slightly defective, but much cheaper than normal. We didn’t realise that they also imported goods from other countries and sold those very cheaply, too. I went in to buy a couple of cans of fruit and came out with three bags full of dried products, quick meals and drinks, too – all for $53! I would have bought a lot more but I have such limited space to store things and I’d already stocked up before starting. We were very tempted by a catering size slab of Hummingbird Cake for just $10 but I can’t fit it in anywhere, unfortunately. I need a
Sportaviation, Tocumwal
Among the gliders in the hangar I was happy to discover a Twin Astir. shop like this about a month up the road.
Next door was a “Cheap as Chips” store so we poked our noses in and found a fold up camp chair with its own table attached for $30. Mine, with no side table, was very wobbly and felt unsafe so we got one and immediately threw out the old chair. We were very happy with ourselves - until we got into the ute and turned on the engine. Nothing happened! We had only intended to be in the store a short time so Barry hadn’t disconnected the electrics between the RV and the ute. They have been wired up wrongly and the RV drains first from the ute cranking battery, which it shouldn’t do. We found this out early in our last trip and always made sure we separated them when we stopped. Barry thought he’d fixed the problem but there’s obviously still more to be done. Fortunately, a gentleman, from an electrical business right next to where we were parked, was kind enough to give us a jump start. We were finally on the way again.
As we entered Tocumwal, we noticed a glider on top of a pole above the Tourist Information Centre so we stopped in to have a quick look at the gliding centre, Sportaviation. We chatted to Eddie Madden, the owner, for a while and the men exchanged gliding stories. Barry decided not to go for a flight, though, as the day wasn’t very good for soaring. Instead, we had a look at some old gliders in the closest hangar (including a twin Astir that I haven’t seen since a new one arrived at Lasham, UK in 1977 – that brought back a few memories.
We moved on and got to Finley at 3.30pm. Wikicamps had shown us a camping area at the Showgrounds for only $10 so we decided to stop rather than risk not getting into the limited space freebie further along. We got set up on the lovely flat ground and went to check out the small township. Not much going on and most shops were closing so we thought we’d have a drink at one of the three pubs, the Albion Hotel (they’re about 1:3 with the shops!). There we were ushered into the general bar by the jovial bar keeper and introduced to the group of local men, who were obviously regulars. They seemed to greatly welcome new blood to talk to and quickly started finding out all about us and what we were doing. There was a lot of ribbing between them, too, and they enjoyed that we played along. We even had a bit of a competition to see who could answer the “Million Dollar Hot Seat” (showing on the TV) questions correctly. One of the group had lived in Darwin and was full of lots of places for us to visit (or avoid), which led to more ribbing by his mates. I wrote them all down for us to check out later. The barkeep tried to ply us with more drinks, (he did actually con Barry into having another earlier) but it was dinner time so we left. We’d enjoyed the interaction, unexpected as it was.
After dinner we watched a little TV and saw that the weather forecast was predicting very heavy storms for the whole region for the next two days. We don’t like the idea of towing in that so we may stay here a bit longer. At least we have power so we can use the heater and not freeze tonight!
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Snap Shot Stacey
Snap Shot Stacey
Hummingbird cake?
What's Hummingbird cake? Sounds interesting. Did you fly a twin Astir back when you were learning mum?