Day 66 - Narrandera

After a very unsettled nights sleep, the morning was still as it had been for most of this trip - sensational. Our host the farmer works from dawn till dusk ploughing his fields, which is the likely candidate for my weezy, hard to breath and eye scratching symptoms.

In to town for the usual snack and coffee before a look around town. Some amazing architecture here. One item of interest was a porcelain Royal Doulton water fountain. One of only 2 in existence.

Shopping requires a co-ordinated effort managing the dogs. Today I did a stint of dog sitting. It’s amazing the attention paid by locals to the dogs and their handlers. Today I got into some small talk with a couple who amongst their 3 dogs had a Curly Coated Retriever, a breed once belonging to the Wimbridge family. For those that remember, quite a few years back, our Sally and then Saba were Curlies.

The lovely couple went home, got their dog, came back to town, tracked me down and introduced me to her. That’s country hospitality for you.

We didn’t stay too long, but long enough for Graham and I to visit a Tiger Moth memorial. Narrandera was a pilot training base during the Second World War. Many of the pilots who trained here went on to command much larger air craft such as the Lancaster bomber out of England.

The visitor centre, as expected, had a wealth of knowledge of local history and places to see. For something different though, this visitor centre had displays in its own right. Of significance was the world’s largest playable guitar. The answer is, yes I did.

Given I was still suffering, and Peter started feeling a little unwell we all headed back home early afternoon. Peter and I both had naps while everyone else prepared tonight’s gourmet delight. Beef stew cooked in the camp oven. A very technical process that resulted in an awesome meal. The camp oven was also used to cook damper to accompany our meal.

Unfortunately Ruby appeared to have ingested something she was unable to expel. Chewing grass, the normal way for canines to rid any foreign object simply didn’t work.

Graham and Karen took off to a local after hours VET. They returned not long later after the VET gave her an anti nausea and pain relief injection.

One of the interesting facts about both here and at Parkes was our proximity to major flight paths. There are very few, if any, planes that fly over Perth, so jet streams are very very rare.
Here, they are as common as mud.

We thought we’d seen all types of mobile accommodation. Vans, campers, buses, yachts (back at Dunedoo), but a long wheel base prime mover with a caravan attached to the chassis was next level.Read more