Wow, time has really gotten away from me. I write journal notes most days about our experiences, but I have truly fallen behind in blogging about them. So this post, I am determined to catch up and give you a helicopter view of what’s happened. There have been moments of absolute gold in our learning, and so many moments, when we’ve said to each other “We’re really doing this.” Yep, we are – here’s our personal Family Tour Diary Weeks 5 to 7.
Home is where we park – Orange, Parkes, Dubbo, Merriwa, and Denman.
In 3 weeks, all these amazing towns have been our backyard and home. Each one of them have been amazing in their own right.
Orange
Our drive from Bathurst to Orange should have been about 1 hour but as we are becoming accustomed to, we experienced a few mechanical issues. Israel noticed as he was driving that one of the wheels on the trailer was looking very wobbly. We immediately pulled over to investigate it. When Israel was checking it out, we also noticed a few of the pop rivets from the trailer panels had popped off and one panel of the trailer was now quite warped. Oh, and I discovered the radiator header tank had split again – this was the new one we purchased before setting off. I tiptoed over to tell Israel about this. You can imagine his response!
Fun times – lucky my trusty photographer now has a pretty well equipped tool box. Whilst Israel was busy looking at all of these ‘issues’ (say it like Kath Day Knight from Kath n Kim because it makes it funny even though it wasn’t), the kids were getting bored, bored, bored – that is, until this happened.
I wish I had of photographed what they ended up like and how this clay turned to cement on their legs. Suffice to say it took a long while to get them clean. Israel did manage to fix the trailer panel and the radiator but not the wheel, so we drove very slowly to Orange.
We found a quiet street to park, right alongside the velodrome and not too far from the skate park. This remained our home for 4 days. In the morning, Indrani and I would walk then run, then walk the velodrome for some exercise (1.2kms in total), and Israel and Rilien would invariably have a stint at the skate park during the day. Have we told you our little guy has his own website (riliensmith.com) where he reviews skate parks? Check out his review of Orange Skate Park.
Now what about Orange town itself you ask? It’s a really really leafy town with wide streets and original homes. It felt so old wordly because they had beautiful old street lights hanging in the middle of the streets. For the most part, houses have not been knocked down and replaced with the modern homes which take up the full block. There are beautiful lush parks – this one is Cooks Park. It had the most magnificent Rose Garden and some of the biggest trees we’ve seen yet. Check out the size of this one below.
Whilst we were in Orange, we also went for a drive out to Huntley Berry Farm. This is the most amazing place, I loved it so much that I took lots of photos and interviewed the owners. I will write about it’s magnificence in a dedicated blog post.
Whilst we were at Orange we also got the wheel fixed on the trailer and got ourselves another spare just to be on the safe side.
Parkes
Our drive to Parkes was uneventful compared to our drive to Orange. On the way, we called into a town called Manildra to see Australia’s oldest running movie theatre except it wasn’t running when we got there. We did call in to the local CWA craft shop and purchased good ole fashioned lemonade syrup for just $1.60 – the stuff is potent and you only need a dribble in a glass of soda.
One of the biggest things we noticed on this drive was the vastness of the land. Such big wide open spaces. After growing up in coastal suburbs and living our adult lives in the city, this vastness was mind-blowing, yet we know we haven’t seen anything yet.
Of course, no visit to Parkes is complete without a visit to the Tourist Information Centre to visit the Elvis Museum and The Dish. When at the visitors information centre, we also learnt so much about Sir Henry Parkes – he was the father of Australian Federation but also had a role to play in making education free and available to all, including women.
The Dish at Parkes started operating in 1961. It is 64 metres wide and it’s one of the largest operational single dish telescopes operational in the Southern Hemisphere. This dish played a critical role in capturing the first ever moon landing and walk in 1969. The dish has played critical roles in many of NASA’s exploration activities since 1962 actually. Pretty amazing to think the role our little Australia plays is so important to the world’s space activities.
Dubbo
There was much excitement on our drive to Dubbo because we were meeting up with a beautiful family we met in our very first week of travels. They are at the tail end of a 13 month trip around Australia and our kids just adored their 2. In fact, they have been a constant source of discussion in the bus ever since we met them. We were meeting them at Red Earth Estate Vineyards, where we camped for a few days. No stay at a vineyard is complete without wine tasting and we stocked up our cupboard with a few bottles.
We had 2 fantastic days of trekking around Taronga Western Plains Zoo. This zoo is by far the most amazing zoo we’ve ever visited. The way the grounds have been designed makes you feel like you are actually walking amongst the animals – so cleverly designed.
I took so many photos but none of them do this zoo justice (although I am sure Israel’s photos on his real camera do and he will do a photo essay soon). But this was by far one of our biggest moments – Indrani and Israel both fed the Sumatran Tiger. His name was Sakti ( beautiful to fit his looks! ) – that little bit was typed by Indrani. Rilien and I fed the giraffes which was pretty special too.
It was close to 40 degrees the last few days we were in Dubbo, and we discovered their local swimming pool with awesome dual water slides into the pool. We also discovered that our beloved Kaley retains all the heat she gathers during the day, making the nights almost unbearable. She is carrying up to 800 litres of fresh water in steel tanks underneath, plus she’s got a metal frame and she’s The Root Cause green in colour. All of these things are not conducive to deflecting heat. We begin to question whether we will be able to cope in the heat of Bourke and Broken Hill during December heat. We remain undecided at this point, although several people have told us we are mad if we head out there at that time.
And just because this part of the trip has been free from any mechanical adventure, Kaley throws us another curve ball with her ignition cut out switch (ie. the turn off button) ceasing to work – in other words, we couldn’t turn her off. The only way Israel can get her to stop is by putting her into 6th gear and stalling her. A cheap workable solution we will live with.
Merriwa
Merriwa is a beautiful rural town with a population of about 1800. We’re heading out here to visit some family of our dearest friends.
The drive from Dubbo to Merriwa was a big one – about 3 hours in 37 degree heat. We don’t have air conditioning whilst driving but we do have plenty of windows, but they were just blowing in hot air. Man oh Man, it was a hot drive. We made a stop at a town called Dunedoo for a bite to eat and some reprieve from the heat in the bus, except there wasn’t any reprieve outside. Us city slickers who have always lived near the beach were really starting to feel the heat.
A friend’s brother lives in Dunedoo and he was in full swing of harvesting his barley crop. We visited his property and learnt all about the harvesting process. Absolutely amazing. The kids were beyond excited because we got to drive in a paddock in a ute, without having to wear a seat belt. They thought this was awesome. Me, I was inwardly freaking – all my mother sensibilities were throwing up crazy scenarios in my head.
From Dunedoo we drove to another of our friends brother’s property. Here at this property they harvest canola, barley, wheat and they have cattle too. It’s a massive operation. We stayed at their lovely property for 2 full days – the kids had a blast because this family not only had children to play with, but cats, chickens, dogs and a pool. It was here I think we all first got the taste of what true farm country life was like – beautiful surrounds, room to move, nature roaming freely around and the incredible colours of the land. We were so overwhelmed with this family’s incredible hospitality – it is their busiest time of year, with harvesting going on around the clock, yet they still managed to share so much of their lives and their home with us. Very blessed. Of course, now the kids want to live on a farm when we get back, with the pre-requisite of it also being near the beach. Mmmm, will have to keep an eye out for that as we travel around – lol.
Denman
Denman is a beautiful town with approximately 1800 in population too. We’re heading here to run a parent seminar and a pop up event for 80 children at St Joseph’s Primary School. The principal of the school Aaron, has been friends with Israel since kindergarten. This was meant to be a 2 day stop but ending up being almost 4 days – why? Because that blasted radiator header tank had sprung a leak again. The fix basically meant Israel needed to buy the equipment necessary and solder all 4 sides of the tank to seal it up entirely.
Aaron has 4 kids so once again Indrani and Rilien were stoked to have kids to play with. Rilien was enthralled watching the boys riding their bikes – fast – and over mounds of dirt and a ramp in the yard. It was here he asked Israel to take off his training wheels on his bike, and he has never looked back. Super speedy. Here’s what I captured on video
Learnings
1. Letting go. We are still learning to let go on so many fronts. Letting go of the frustration, anger and fear that comes with mechanical issues we’re encountering. We’re learning just to roll with these, fix them and move on.
2. Just Do It. We didn’t end up running a pop up event in Orange because when we visited Council about it, they informed us of state regulations which require us to submit an application and pay a fee to park on council property for 2 hours to hand out smoothies. After much discussion, we decided to take the approach in other towns, of just put it out there to our supporters to get help. This worked a treat with a tip off coming for where we could set up in Dubbo, and this worked really well.
3. Kaley (& us) don’t deal with 40 deg temps well. Our discovery of this in Dubbo’s hot days and nights has seen us change out route. We will now visit far west and north west NSW mid to late next year. Instead we’ve rerouted our tour and are heading to the coast before heading to Wagga Wagga for Xmas.
4. We really are doing this. No matter what challenges we face, we are doing this. I think this picture of Charlie Brown sums it up well.
Next instalment
Onwards to Wallabadah, Tamworth, Barraba, Bingara and more!