28th November 2020–Wandering Orange

Distance: 23Km
Fuel: 38L

The temperature was 35’C today but nothing like those temperatures at Lake Cargelligo, Broken Hill or even Sydney where it got into the mid 40s. As I write this in the evening there are three severe weather warnings for Orange. Thunderstorms and hail, high winds and extreme fire danger.

Anyway back to this morning…

Just after 9am I drove to the tourist information office to obtain some brochures, one was called Orange Heritage Walk so decided to try that as it started nearby. It was quite interesting, personally I thought it included far too many Federation style houses of the important citizens for my taste. Orange has a lot of federation style houses. Anyway here is some of what I saw.

Sat in the park for a while watching people walk by. Afterwards I drove a few km out of town to see the memorial to the birthplace of Banjo Patterson.

It is not often that power poles get mentioned in a tourist guide but this one did:

That is not just any pole, this is the first pole put up for the new fangled electricity when it came to Orange. This is not a reproduction nor a replica pole, this is it! How’s that for heritage?

Went back to the caravan park for lunch and a chance to sit in the shade as the day was getting very hot.

Mid/late afternoon drove to get fuel, the cheapest since leaving home at only $1.07 a litre! Looked for a coffee place but Saturday afternoon seems to fill up all the parking places. So returned to the caravan park again and made tea.

There was a Foodworks Supermarket just over half a km from the park so went for a walk to that. I bought mushrooms, tomato and soy sauce to add to my evening meal.

According to the ABC News many temperature records were broken and it is not even summer yet. Next week is looking hot too so it is a bit disappointing. I am good up to abut 32’ but once it gets over that I am not a happy bunny.

27th November 2020–A Bit of Colour

Distance: 299Km

Not much to report today. Up at 6am, showered and breakfasted by 7am, read my book for a while before packing every thing up and yet more reading before connecting up the camper. Didn’t leave until 9.30 am otherwise I would arrive at the next park too early too early.

Headed north to Condobolin where I stopped to admire the “Utes in a Paddock” exhibit. Boy was it hot!

The rest of the journey was just driving east with no hold ups.

Even got into a traffic jam as I got nearer to Orange.

It was a bit of a shock when the gearbox changed down going up hill because the central west is so flat and I was approaching the Great Dividing Range. It was noticeably cooler in Orange though that is relative it was still 30’

I have been to this park before under very different conditions when I was returning from Queensland – it was cold and wet on that occasion.

27th May 2019–Orange

Distance 526km
Fuel: 38L

This morning was an early start, I had a shower just as the sun was coming up followed by breakfast and coffee. Didn’t hang about and packed the camper up and was ready to leave by about 8am.

Stopped briefly at Girilambone for a bit of a break. The railway line and station has been abandoned, the platform and buildings slowly going back to nature.

The journey started off in bright sunshine but as I headed further south the wind picked up and caused dust storms in places so thick that I could hardly see past the bull bar.

The skies got darker and became showers of rain which laid the dust at least and by Dubbo it was raining quite frequently – I won’t say heavily except for very brief flurries.

I had originally intended to stop at Wellington for the night but it was still raining when I arrived and the skies looked brighter further south. I ended up driving an extra 100km and checking in at a caravan park in Orange – probably a mistake because it was much colder here than in the Dubbo/Wellington area. As I was parking the camper there was hail, very small hail but nonetheless hail! In better weather the park would be very nice, it is run by the council and the facilities are very good, however it is a bit desolate in this cold. The big advantage is that it is 100km less driving tomorrow.

Rather than get in the camper, as the sun went down, I sat in the car and discovered the car internal light has stopped working – it was OK yesterday. The temperature in the camper was 7’C.