Dad’s 80th in Orange

by Miss Penny Black

Aside from just seeing family before I go away (and leaving my car with Dad so the battery won’t go flat while I’m overseas), the main purpose of the trip is celebrating Dad’s 80th.

We had the family dinner at Michael’s place and I completely forgot to take a nice group photo on the day.

I took this photo just before I left for the airport two days later and this is what I get for not checking the photo before I leave Orange🙄.

I provided oysters for the entree although I didn’t have any (blurgh).

Michael cooked a delicious pork roast with possibly his best crackling yet, although I thought the honey carrots were also a highlight.

I entertained Izaac with a game I invented called Conversation Bingo, which is where we both picked a person at the table and had to guess nine topics for a grid, first person to tick off three topics in a row was the winner. Izaac chose Mum so he won, since Dad barely said anything. I think he was too focused on the excellent food.

Izaac also enjoyed using a wine glass to pretend his soft drink was a cocktail.

Michael picked up a fancy cheese box to finish the meal.

That was three nights ago. Since then I’ve caught up with Nikki for brunch before she came back to Michael’s to pick up Izaac. Both she and Izaac kindly helped me get a bunch of ebooks onto the kindle Jess lent me.

Today I’ve been out for several walks in the rain, one with Lexi, the dog Michael is minding.

On the plus side, I walked 10km and only saw one other person.

My brother’s friend Matt lives next door and so when he goes away they leave the gate between the properties open and Lexi comes around to sleep on the chair outside the back door. She seems like a huge dog to me, probably weighing three times as much as Bonnie. She’s a lot calmer too, although she was pretty excited when the leash came out.

After being so keen to walk her I got a bit worried that, being so huge, if she suddenly lunged I’d let her go or fall over and hurt myself (I knew someone who broke their wrist walking a Labrador) but Lexi was very well behaved.

One sleep until I fly to Sydney. I know there’s no point in worrying, but I’ve heard so many stories of flights being cancelled lately I’m a bit nervous I’m going to have some kind of issue along the way. I have a 19 hour stopover in Seoul though so things would have to go fairly awry for me to miss the second half of the journey. I plan to tell everyone I meet they it’s my birthday since I won’t see anyone I know on the day!

I’m going to finish with this, somewhat bizarre sign I saw on my walk. I like to think things came to a head one day when everything happened simultaneously and the locals decided a small but detailed sign would put an end to the madness.

5Apr2023

Orange NSW: Wineries With Mum

by Miss Penny Black

With Dad’s birthday coming up on April 24th, we are having a birthday dinner at my brother’s house tomorrow night. In the meantime Mum and I are spending each day visiting wineries as Orange is a reasonably prominent wine region and I’ve only visited one or two.

Yesterday was Swinging Bridge, a family-run winery a short drive out on the north side of town.

With a new cellar door set up, it was a very pleasant place to spend an hour on a slightly rainy afternoon. We were served by the daughter of the owner who, at 19, knew a lot about wine and even had a wine named after her (Eliza).

Swinging Bridge tastings were $15 for six wines and the room we sat in had a lovely view across to Mount Canobolas.

Afterwards we drove back to Michael’s to see him laying the last of the lawn and I wasn’t even out of the car before I was sent to Bunnings for bags of lawn soil mix. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I spend half my time in Orange running errands for other people, but I do spend the rest of my time lying around reading so it’s probably a good thing.

Michael has perfected the art of lawn-growing and his back yard square is like carpet, it’s so flat and even. I know lawns are not terribly fashionable these days, but a square of bright green grass is a special kind of joy on a warm day. I’m a bit sad Bonnie isn’t here to enjoy it with me.

Michael has done almost all the work with his friend Matt. The last step is tiling over the cement.

The second winery we visited was Philip Shaw, one of the more established and expensive wineries in the district.

Wednesday was a perfect day for sitting in such a lovely setting and we spent a couple of hours enjoying the $25 cheese plate and wine samples. There are 13 wines on the sample list and we tried maybe 10 of them

I ended up buying a bottle of sparkling and Mum bought a couple of bottles of red for Dad.

The other winery dog had almost the same markings and colouring as Bonnie, just much shorter hair.

So I guess what I’m saying is, if you like wine, get yourself to Orange!

1Apr2023

UK and Europe 2023!

by Miss Penny Black

I’m off! Well, I’ve left Melbourne, and yesterday Luke and I drove to Albury for the first and tiny step on this trip.

Being less fit than last time, the packing has been much more minimal!

Here’s the brief itinerary for anyone interested, and if you have suggestions of things to do or places to go in these locations, speak now!

Flying out of Sydney April 10 with Asiana (a Korean airline) arriving in London April 11 via an overnight stopover in Seoul.

Three weeks solo in the Lake District, hopefully doing a bit of wild camping.

First two weeks of May with Daniel walking the Camino Ingles from Ferrol and seeing Santiago de Compostela.

Two weeks with Luke’s family in the Lake District.

A week in London with Luke’s parents.

Two weeks e-bike cycling in Switzerland and Austria between St Moritz and Innsbruck with time in Salzburg and a night in Hallstatt.

A couple of weeks back in the UK visiting Northern Ireland and travelling around.

In the morning Luke dropped Bonnie off at her version of Disneyland (long term in-home care with her favourite dogs and people) for the next 3 and a half months. While it would have been nice if she’d looked even a tiny bit sad, apparently there wasn’t even a backward glance as she raced into their backyard.

We drove up from Melbourne yesterday, leaving the rain behind and arriving to lovely sunshine in Albury. Luke’s mother, Lea, is away on a girls’ weekend with her four sisters so we are spending time with Luke’s dad. Pete.

After an afternoon visit with Kath, Luke’s nan, we settled on the couch with some wine, gourmet sausage rolls (blue cheese, walnuts and pork – delicious! Thanks Kath!) and watched a few episodes of Eugene Levy’s ‘Reluctant Traveller’.

Nothing better than relaxing with family!

Luke caught the train back to Melbourne today and I headed off to Orange for a week. I’ll then be flying to Sydney and catching my flight from there as Asiana doesn’t fly from Melbourne.

I had planned a solo mini adventure on the way to Orange via the Yarrangobilly thermal pool. I’d seen it online, and the appeal of a chlorine-free, 27 degree pool out in the middle of a National park was very strong. I left Albury at just past 11am, since the drive to the pool was supposed to take almost four hours.

Unfortunately, due to my slow driving and several stops, I didn’t get to the car park until 4:30. The ranger in the ticket office said the walk down was *steep*, which didn’t fill me with confidence. My walking buddy, Charmaine, had slipped on gravel a few months back and had to cancel her part of the trip due to a broken ankle.

When I got to the path it was extremely steep, covered in loose gravel and the light was fading, so I did what I always do and turned back. The trip wasn’t an entire loss though. I did see quite a lot of lovely views over Kosciusko National Park.

I also saw signs warning of brumbies (wild horses, sadly not sighted) and a wedge-tailed eagle ripping up road kill and dodging traffic.

Not my photo, I was driving! This is what they look like though, their wing span is 3 metres, making it the second largest eagle in the world.

I decided to stop for the night in Tumut, a small country town just off the Hume Highway. I stopped at the first pub I saw and booked a room. The Oriental Hotel is very like the pubs my family has owned. Wrap-around verandah, high ceilings, lots of old guys in plaid shirts propping up the bar.

Unlike my family’s pubs, they do a mean chicken karaage bao, it was delicious!

Now I’m in my room, which comes with free earplugs 😂 and it’s only 6:30pm. I might take a stroll down the Main Street and see what entertainment Tumut has to free on a Sunday night. I’m guessing not much!