Lightening Online

Our experience in Dubbo has been rather mixed.  It was nice to stop for a few days after having been on the road constantly for what seemed like forever (okay, that’s an exaggeration but you get what I mean right?).  When we booked into the caravan park, we were given a warning to make sure we locked our van at night and didn’t leave any valuables in sight in the car.  Now, we do both of these things already but we’ve never had a caravan park emphasise this on check in.  Around the park were signs about theft.  It left us feeling a little concerned and unsettled.

Being a tourist town, the caravan park wasn’t cheap either.  $54 a night for our family (still cheaper than the Big 4 which was $63).  I have a feeling our budget of $50 a night may get stretched a little.  What annoyed me though was that the bbq’s provided in the park all COST to use.  When you’re paying a reasonable fee, you’d think the last they could do would be provide free bbq’s.  I’ve never stayed in a park where they charged for the bbq’s before!

The washing machines were reasonably priced at $3 (some parks charge $4 per load) but the dryers were more expensive than I’ve seen elsewhere.  The cynic in me wonders if it’s because of the climate where people may not have the CHOICE but to use them.  I did manage to do 3 loads of washing and only used the dryers for 1 of those so that was something.

We went to the Old Dubbo Gaol on Sunday.  It was quite interesting although at $50 for a family, seemed a little expensive for a place that took a total of an hour to look over.  We were unfortunate that a staff member was sick on that day and we didn’t get to see the show they advertise that they put on.  Lleyton was particularly disappointed so we asked if we could come back another day to see the show and they agreed.

On Monday we went out to the Western Plains Zoo.  We decided to hire bikes to see the zoo.  That added $70 to the days spending.  At least I had packed up snacks and lunch so we didn’t spend any money on food or drink while there.  The bikes were well worth the cost as we all enjoyed riding around.  I was disappointed though that they only allowed you to have them for 4 hours.  Why not allow you to use them for the entire day?  Ours were due back at 2pm so it’s not like anyone else was going to get the chance to use them.  It meant we skipped all the shows in favour of making the best use of the time we had the bikes for.  To me, they should either make them a 3 hour hire (a little cheaper) and perhaps give the option of hiring for the full day at a rate less than double (since you only have 1 set of paperwork etc to do).

Anyway, we had the pick of the weather the day we were there.  The sun was shining and there was very little wind.  It did get cold around 3.30pm and we were told by the attendant in the zoo shop that the breeze was coming off the snow in Orange (yes B – you were right about that).

With tickets valid for 2 consecutive days (an excellent idea!!!) we went back on the Tuesday to catch a couple of the keeper talks and see the animals we hadn’t had time to see the day before.

We then went  back to the Gaol to see the show we’d missed on the Sunday.  It went a lot longer than we expected and was quite funny.  It made the entry price seem a little more worthwhile (they didn’t charge us to come back in).  Unfortunately, while we were there, we went over our 1 hour parking time by about 20 minutes and ended up with an $84 fine.  Seems a bit steep for a parking fine if you ask me and a lovely welcome to visitors to the town. 

When we got back to the caravan park, we found out that people we had befriended while there had been burgled the night before.  Someone had come into their van while they were asleep and stolen her handbag.  Unfortunately she’d just withdrawn $700 cash.  :(  That kind of thing just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

So, while we did enjoy the time we had there, we were kind of glad to pull out this morning and leave Dubbo behind.  After a 4 night break, we’re feeling ready to be on the road again.  We’re now heading North up the Newell Hwy.  Only a couple more nights in NSW and then we’ll be in Queensland.  We have no set plans for where we’ll stop tonight but we have booked into Moree for Thursday night as the caravan park there has pools filled from the hot springs and is very popular.