I LOVE DUBBO

This is what we were met with everywhere we looked when we ventured into Dubbo for the first time on Wednesday. The library staff all wore these t-shirts, as did every third or fourth person we saw. We were very curious and eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I asked someone what it was all about. “Just a local promotion to counteract the bad press/reputation that Dubbo has had recently and to raise funds for charity.” I was told. Nice idea and it certainly caught our attention; we were beginning to wonder about the place!! We have spent the last couple of days at the zoo as planned, despite waking up both mornings to the rain. After almost complete dry weather for the past month or so, it seemed a tad ironic to waken up to the gentle pitter-patter of the rain on the roof of the bus. But the rain is so important that you have to smile and I have to admit that any hotter yesterday and we would have struggled to cycle round the zoo. We took our own bikes (saving $60) and it was definitely the way to go. Western Plains is about a 6 km circuit, but after we finished I reckon we had covered almost double that. Highlights of the day were: • Feeding the giraffes pieces of carrot on their long, strong, curly blue tongues. Pretty tickly and wet! Jarra’s face was priceless! • Watching the otters tuck into their morning tea. They were even cuter than the meerkats. Otters have such beautiful faces and are so inquisitive. We all loved them. • The display at lunchtime by the siamang apes. A family live on a couple of little islands and at feeding times the keeper drops the wires that connect the two islands so that they can check out their home while we get front row seats to watch them singing and swinging on the other island. Their territorial booming is so loud that they can be heard up to 4km away!! • Andre being eaten by the deer in the children’s zoo! They seemed to think he tasted really delicious and kept on coming back for more. Rennie wasn’t too impressed when one decided to give her t-shirt a taste! • Learning that elephants sleep standing up. Did you know that? It is a great idea that the ticket allows access over two days. Today we took the video camera and filmed all our favourites, had lunch and were back by 1.30 to chill out at the caravan park. There are lots of kids here now and our kids are not going to be short of someone to play with this weekend. I am missing our open spaces though and after so long at campsites, Andre and I at least are looking forward to getting to the Warumbungles National Park north of here. Our other excitement is our new RED canoe – red ones go better or so Tal and Andre reliably inform me??? On Wednesday we finally found just the one and bought all the jackets etc and are now set to go. So over the weekend we will go for a paddle down the river. Buying the jackets I was amazed at the fact that Jarra’s one was double the price of ours and three times the price of the kids. Just hoping he enjoys wearing it. Saturday pm. We all got really excited. Today was the day to baptise the new canoe. Drove down to the local boat ramp on the river, donned the jackets, put on the cream, got the drinks and snacks ready, unloaded the canoe, got in the water and after about 20m had to turn round and come back. How disappointing!! The whole canoe felt extremely unstable and kept on listing from side to side, dipping down to about an inch above the water. Needless to say we went straight back to the outdoors shop and will now have to wait until Tuesday before they can order us something else in. Aaarghh!