A Mini Central NSW Odyssey

After the stress and effort around our house project, we'd been looking forward to this holiday for a while. So it felt like a fitting start when James spewed on the verandah as Flick and the boys were about to leave to pick me up from work and drive to Orange last Friday afternoon. The poor little chap had a fever to boot so we postponed our departure and endured a somewhat interrupted night, eventually hitting the road around 5:40 on Saturday morning.  So began our first Australian driving holiday as a family of four, concluding with:

• 9 playgrounds visited - a very important consideration these days.  Charlie's favourite was one in Orange with a rope jungle gym that reminded him of the Octopod in the Octonauts kid's TV show.  I think James was pretty keen on the one at the Western Plains Zoo, which had a very cool rope bridge and a flying fox.  We all enjoyed one at Mudgee in a lovely setting by the river.
• Around 1,100 km driven over five days on just over one tank of diesel.
• About 7 km cycled around the Western Plains Zoo, with the kids in a two seater caboose behind my rental bike.  Luckily it is fairly flat.
• Day time temperatures from 7.5 to 31.5 degrees (particularly when we were riding round the zoo) and a fairly spectacular (though brief) storm in Mudgee.
• One Rugby World Cup won by the mighty All Blacks!

In Orange we stayed with our friends Pam and Mark who staged a "tree change" last year and quit the Sydney rat race.  Orange is growing rapidly on the back of a modern day gold rush and seemed like a vibrant small city with plenty of heritage. On the Saturday after our late arrival, Flick and Pam enjoyed some girl bonding time in the antique stores while Dave, Mark & the boys checked out another of Mudgee's fine playgrounds, this one featuring a castle and rocket.   Nights were a little difficult given Jamie's discontent, but Dave joined Pam & Mark at a friend's place for the RWC final on Sunday night, making an early exit just after the final whistle to assist in the clean up of more spew.

Monday saw Pam & Mark back at work so we headed further West to Parkes to visit "the Dish", the radio observatory made famous in the film of the same name and earlier by its part (only slightly exaggerated in the movie) in relaying TV signals from the original Apollo 11 moon landing.

By mid afternoon we were in Dubbo, in time for a swim and ready for our animal encounter the next day.

Western Plains is an extension of Sydney's Taronga Park Zoo and takes advantage of Australia's wide open spaces to showcase animals in as close to their natural habitat as is possible in captivity, with minimal visible enclosures.

Travelling in style

Willaby Wallaby

Cheetahs

African savannah

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight."

 We carried on for photo opp (plus lunch and a playground) in Wellington, NSW, a farming town.  When we first moved to Sydney I sat in Macquarie Bank's dealing room next to a chap who was a wool futures trader hailing from Wellington NSW - a delicious irony I always thought.  Perfectly pleasant it was too, in a farming town sort of a way.

Lunch in the Wellington rotunda.

We over-nighted in Mudgee, another vibrant community steeped in history and milking the tourist dollar.  With the boys having recently seen The Bee Movie they were quite excited to see real "pollen jocks" at the local honey place.  In the morning the boys were entertained and entranced by a pet sheep in the field next to our motel.

The boys enjoyed the novelty of a shower bath.

The cold front had come through and we rugged up for our return journey through the Blue Mountains under grey and drizzly skies.  The main road back was detoured over some distance so we were able to experience several more remote communities in the western foothills.  And the uniquely Australian sight of not one but three grey kangaroos at once hopping across the road a safe distance in front of the car.  Unfortunately the kids were both asleep at the time.

Our final adventure was the Zig Zag railway for a real steam train ride along an engineering marvel, which helped open up the western plains to the markets of Sydney and beyond.  The route literally does a series of switchbacks along the valley side, with sidings allowing the engine to change ends at each point.

Three levels of track.

Our engine changes direction at Top Points

Just add water!

After that it was a slightly too long drive to fulfill James' nagging request for most of the trip: "I want to go home to our new house!"  All in all, though I think a fair amount of enjoyment was had by all.