Left Junee and travelled 372 kms NE to Dubbo to stay with Scott, Joanne, Briette and Alec. We haven’t seen them since last June so looking forward to catching up. They have finished their travels and back home into the grind. We stopped along the way at the Temora Aviation Museum in Temora. They were having a meet over the Easter weekend for all flying enthusiasts including light aircraft and microlights, etc. There was guy on our tour from Busselton Aero Club, small world. It was an interesting museum with old military planes on display including a vampire, tiger moth, Sabre, dragon fly, Canberra bomber, a lynx and spitfire to name a few. They fly the collection aircraft on various weekends during the year. They attract huge crowds from far afield. They have 9 aircraft engineers, 6 local volunteers and over 30 volunteers who help out on the flying weekends, some of these vollies travel quite a distance to help out.
From there we continued onto Dubbo and the weather started to cloud over and we did get caught in some very heavy rain. By the time we got to Dubbo it had already been and gone. Along the way we hit a couple of locust swarms. They seem to lie on the warm road and then get sucked up by the car. Quite a few bit splats on the windscreen. Scott and Joanne have a 30 acre property about 7kms east of Dubbo. It is a really nice area and so very quiet. They are still getting organised and unpacking after having the tenants from hell! We don’t want to hear these kind of stories! They recently acquired the cutest border collie pup named Ozzie. Dubbo is a rural town with a population of about 40,000. Properties are very well priced and the town has all the facilities that you need with two shopping centres, hospital and community health centres. Joanne and I went to the Saturday morning markets. All local produce, olive oils, the best sourdough bread with so many variations. It was delicious. Eggs, cakes, biscuits, free range coffee? (cant’ say I noticed a difference); chickens, meat, veges, fruit. You name if it could be made or grown it was there. Just a shame I am so limited on space to buy anything. Easter was fun with the kids having so many easter eggs and a couple of egg hunts. They joy on faces is great to see. We pretty much chilled out for the few days we were there. The boys set some yabby nets in the properties dam and caught enough for us all to have a good taste. They were very nice – bit like crabs bit of work to get a small amount of yabby meat but very tasty. The kids had a great time sloshing around in the mud on the edge of the dam. Billy and Cobber the horses often cool off in the dam. Scott kindly organised a complimentary pass for us to go to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo where he works as a zookeeper caring for the elephants. The park is very open and the animals generally have a wide range in which to roam. In some cases you can get quite close to the animals as they are only fenced by a moat. We were up at 5.30am (yes John as well) to go on an early morning Zoorise walk with a volunteer tour guide. It lasted two hours and we got an insight into the ‘behind the scenes’ of a few of the animals. It was very good. Scott organised for us to go in the elephant enclosure (yes right in there with him) to watch the morning rituals of the elephants. In total there are five elephants, YumYum and Cuddles who are African elephants, Burma, Arna and Gigi who are Asian elephants. Arna and Gigi used to belong to the Stardust Circus and Arna was the elephant who killed a circus trainer. Although she is the kindest and gentlest ellie. The story is that she and Gigi were very close and Gigi’s trainer was being rough with her and Arna stepped in to help her friend and the trainer died as a consequence. Very sad and a one off. Cuddles gave us an ellie kiss (she grabs your arm with the end of her trunk and sucks your arm) it was a great sensation. YumYum shakes herself like a dog, funny to see. We watched while Scott gave Burma her morning bath (a hose down – they have cold and warm water washes) and we watched Arna have a pedicure. When Arna and Gigi arrived they had exceptionally long toenails that needed some major attention. It would have been very painful for them and two years later Gigi still needs a lot of foot work. Each morning she has a Epsom salt foot bath and a clean out of her toes. Treats for the girls is bread and veges. We were so fortunate to be able to see this and it was great that Scott could arrange it for us. The rest of the time we chilled out with the Smiths and met Joanne’s parents and two of Scott’s brothers on Good Friday. We would loved to have stayed longer in Dubbo but we are on a time limit to get to Queensland to start our housesit in Glass House Mountains. We will definitely be back Scott and Joanne.
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