The Sun Always Shines In Orange....

The Sun Always Shines In Orange!

*Quick Tip - If you want to see the pics bigger...just click on them

As beautiful as the afternoon sky was over the sweltering heat in the onions fields of Hay, we decided that Hay wasn't for us. We made contact with the winery in Orange who originally had some work for us. Turned out the job was still on and ready to go, so we packed ourselves up for the long journey back. It was a great experience out there in the middle of nowhere NSW, and we learnt a lot (especially a new found respect for where our fruit and veges come from)....however Orange was calling us back!

Harley second pic is for you. Middle of outback NSW, dry onion fields at 40 degrees. Campervan with 3 surfboards on top (a couple of guys passing through for a bit of cash work). Thought you'd enjoy that contrast. Hope those pics are now big enough to your liking mate :).

Before we left though, we spent some time in the caravan park pool in Hay. This saved our lives for the few days we were there. First pic is Dom working (Dom's IT online stuff) in the pool, second photo is both of us enjoying a well earned Rolo Chocolate Dessert for our hard work in the fields, and third is the very lovely, glamorous Leonie catching some sun. The Hay Caravan Park were really lovely and the lady even returned some of our cash for some of the extra days we had paid for. If you are ever in the area, this is a great place to stay overnight and such. Hay Caravan Park Also the guys we worked for in Hay were very honest guys, they usually only pay you if you still around for the entire week (on Thursdays) actually, but after we called and explained to him that we needed to take the work back in Orange, he very quickly and efficiently put what he owed us in our account the next day. So a hard place to work in but a great boss really. So if any of you are ever in Hay or Griffith and need some work, hit Rumel up for some work 0413 602 010. 

On the way out of Hay we decided to quickly check out the Shearers Museum. These guys were/are crazy. Some of them hold records of shearing 230-280 sheep in ONE HOUR....and many of these were done with manual scissor type shears in the early 1900's (not electric ones like now). How? We don't know. But it takes a special breed no doubt. Second pic in the museum? No idea what 'Placenta Cream' is. Anyone? Tess?

On the long drive back, we took our time (left Hay at around 1pm and got back into Orange at around 7:30pm). Leonie did some driving too (you can see the seriousness in her face in the above first pic). We went a different way back (through Forbes) so we got to see other areas. Such a lovely countryside. Even though everyone says it's drought around here, we could see a huge difference between the dryness of Hay and more grass and greenery as we got closer to Orange. 

Forbes surprised Dom, we were only passing through for a fuel stop and Dom for some reason has an image of Forbes being a bigger city with some taller buildings. What we really saw was, everything was very flat (one story high) and it was pretty small. They have a beautiful looking garden in middle of their town. That's all :) We used the re-fuel as a chance to get a pic of some working dogs on the truck next to us. You can see the bluey likes a pose, but the other black boy wanted nothing of it with Leonie.

Robbie these are for you! First day back in Orange and we were straight to Harris Farm Market to get the lovely grass fed Cape Grim Beef from Tassie. These ended up being monsters when we cut them in two (around 750g per steak I reckon). Leonie cooked them up beautifully (Tess they are supposed to be a bit pink stop cringing) with a nice fresh coriander/tomato/onion chutney on the side. All washed down with a pint of Rogers Ale and bottle of SA Rose. Rob I thought of you as I bit into the first bite. Miss you guys.....

 (love heart shape for Dom's amusement)

We finally started our job for Belgravia Wines. A local family owned winery who own a wine bar in town too. Great guys who paid us well for packing export pallets of wine and helping label 9800 wine bottles for the Chinese market. Interesting stuff we found out. All these bottles going to China have red tops. Purposely done because the Chinese consider this colour strong and lucky, and they love labels that have words like bank, money, etc...and have pics of money on it. Crazy stuff we reckon! It's all about status they say. The Chinese just scull the wine down and don't know anything about it or how to appreciate it, but the rich ones that have lots of money are paying through the teeth (apparently like the equivalent of A$100 a bottle), so they can feel important and do what the westerners do. Bit disturbing really...that they feel they have to be like us to get somewhere. Being yourself is more important no?

Anyway....you can see from the pics that it was a mammoth job. First day we did 9am - 5pm, but on the second day when we had the deadline to get all the bottles labelled, we went from 5am - 11:30pm that night....and during the peak of labelling we had 14 people in there doing it. Job completed! Dom wrapped off each pallet like he was back at his old export job at Anspec (Tess you'd remember those days). Thank you very much!

p.s. We learnt that we were TOO GOOD for our own TOO GOOD. We had most of the work done with time to sit around and twiddle our thumbs while the country folk were labelling one bottle at a time. The Sydney speed serves us well sometimes :)

A local granny smith apple tree on a walk. It was cute. That's all.....

Went to the pools yesterday for some fun in the sun. A welcome relief from the warmth down here.

We are very excited with our local health food store. We found our favourite cultured hand churned butter 'Pepe Saya' and 'Mojo' Kombucha drinks. Heaven!!! Yes Dom is due for a haircut...incase you wanted to know.

These pics are from the 'Orange Slow Summer Festival Night Market'. We sampled a bit of wine, Dom ran into a few people he knew from Sydney who live down here now, and we finally got our hands on some slow roasted pork (as you can see in our happy satisfied faces). The Dessert Chardy wasn't too bad either. We decided we'd spend Australia Day at some local wineries, and then Sunday there is a big Aussie party down by the local beach (river). A BBQ down there with a few cold ones will satisfy us. enjoy your Australia Day peeps!

Ahhhh...we love Orange.....sigh......look for work?.......ohhhhhhh........next Monday!