Trip to Traralgon

I'm in a bit of a better frame of mind this morning, after last night's rant. I've spent the morning doing laundry and beginning the not-so-fun process of packing up. When I head to Broken Hill tomorrow I'm taking one of my two big bags with me, and I'll leave it in Sydney at the end of that trip. This'll allow me to avoid the extra baggage charge I would otherwise have to deal with if I flew both big bags out of Melbourne at the start of May. But it does mean I am once again packing my life into a suitcase. I'm actually rather surprised at how small the pile of stuff is that I've gotta stuff into my bags. It's kinda amazing how little I've needed to survive this year of traveling.

So... another update appears to be in order...

Monday morning I got up at 6, was out the door by 7:20, and on a train to Traralgon at 8:30am. Once again Metlink conspired to make my trip down to Southern Cross Station more stressful than was strictly necessary, and I only made it there with 5 minutes to spare! Gah. I will be happy to leave Metlink behind. But at least the V-Line train to Traralgon was one of the new "sprinter" trains and so I enjoyed a comfy, smooth ride all the way out there.

(A note to all the Canadians reading this: Traralgon is pronounced "Ta-ral-gun". There's an extra "r" in the town's name that isn't pronounced, for some reason. It's taken me forever to figure out how to pronounce it, ha ha!)

Anyway.

I went to Traralgon to meet Di, a Guider I've chatted with online for over 10 years, and Adrienne, a Canadian ex-pat and Guider who is now living in Traralgon with her husband and five kids. Traralgon is in Gippsland, the region of Victoria to the northeast of Melbourne. The ride out there took me through all sorts of cute little towns, farmland, and rolling hills. When I was nearing my destination the train passed what looked like several huge factories of some sort. I learned later on that these were either paper mills or coal-fired power plants, as these are two industries that the area is well known for.

Di and Adrienne met me at the station, and once again I was amazed by how easy it was to (a) identify and (b) become instant friends with fellow Guiders from the opposite side of the world. We did a brief walking tour around Traralgon's downtown, then headed off to a local restaurant for lunch. There we were met by several other Guiders, some of whom were ALSO Canadians! (For whatever reason, there seems to be a lot of Canucks and former Canucks in the area.) Lunch was delicious - I had fish and chips and sure enjoyed the all-you-could-eat salad bar. MMMMM.

In the afternoon, Di and Adrienne took me on a bit of a tour around the valley that Traralgon sits in. We visited the local Guide camp property, which has a really cute main building and several nicely-laid out tenting sites. We drove up to the top of one of the bigger hills for a panoramic view of the valley. I hadn't realized that Traralgon sits on a very rich deposit of brown coal, which is why there were several coal-fired power plants visible from where we were. We also drove across the valley to get a closeup look at one of the open pit coal mines and the Low Yang power station, which was pretty cool. (I somehow managed to leave my camera at home for this trip, so Di took all the pictures. Once she sends me copies, I'll post 'em.)

In true Aussie fashion, we paused throughout the afternoon to enjoy tea, first at Di's house ('cause we had to pick up some stuff for the Guide meeting that night) and then at Adrienne's ('cause I had to dump my stuff there and get changed into my uniform and all that jazz). They run a unit of older girls (Pathfinder aged), and the girls had decided on the program for the evening. When Adrienne and I arrived at the hall, half-barrel portable fire pits had been set up in the parking lot. Once all the girls had arrived, we split into groups to tackle different parts of the night's cooking. The girls prepared sausages, onions and tomatoes in foil wrap and baked them in the fire like we would prepare our standard foil dinners. I spent a good chunk of the evening in the kitchen, working with another group of girls to make lamingtons. (MMM. Lamingtons.) I think we ate more sponge cake than we actually turned into lamingtons though. :-)

While the sausages were cooking, and after the lamingtons had been made, I took all the girls and taught them a few silly games. This mostly resulted in a lot of hooting, hollering, and screaming, but I'm pretty sure they all had a good time, ha ha! Then we enjoyed a nice sit down dinner together. The girls surprised me at the end of the evening with a beautiful gift. They'd worked all together the week before to make me a dilly bag (we'd call it a mesh bag or a ditty bag) for my camp dishes! It's got a picture of a white cockatoo on it - and while they wouldn't have known this at the time, the cockatoo is one of my favorite Aussie birds! Cockatoos were the first "new" birds I spotted when I was driving from the airport in Sydney way back in September, and ever since they've been a kind of a symbol for me, to remind me that I'm in a different country. So thank you, everyone. That was a very kind and thoughtful gift!

I spent the night at Adrienne's, and her daughter kindly lent me her bedroom. (Thank you!) I also got to enjoy the jacuzzi at Adrienne's house... now THAT was a wonderful treat. I haven't had a bubble bath, let alone a jacuzzi bath, in god only knows how long. My shoulders were very happy by the end. :-)

In the morning, and after a yummy hot breakfast of pancakes and bacon and homefries and eggs, Adrienne, her husband Rob, Di and I drove out to Tarra Bulga National Park, about a half hour from Traralgon. The park is in the hills that lie between Traralgon and the ocean, and is another remnant of the southern temperate rainforest that Jen and I explored in the Otways on the Great Ocean Road. It was beautiful. We took a short hike through the rainforest to a suspension bridge over a tree-fern-filled gully, and then back to the car. We also drove up one of the tallest hills (Mount Tassie), to get another panoramic view of the valley. Then we headed back to town to enjoy lunch, and then all too soon it was time for me to get on the train and head back to Melbourne!

It was a short visit, but a wonderful one. Di and Adrienne and everyone else made me feel so welcomed! I was sorry I couldn't stay longer, but Jen and I had a "date" with a Gumnut group in Melbourne last night that I had to get back for! So after another comfy 2.5 hr ride on the sprinter train (I snoozed a good portion of the way back), I found myself at Flinders Station. I changed platforms, caught a train heading out on the Belgrave line, stopped and bought Jen and I Boost Juices, and made it to her school by 4pm. Phew!

Jen, unfortunately, was having problems with her laptop, and was waiting in the front hall of the school for the computer repair guy to show up. She needs to get the report card program put on her machine, but apparently it had a virus, which is what the computer guy needed to deal with. What with one thing and another, we didn't leave for the Gumnut meeting until much later than we'd planned, and we were 2o minutes late! Yikes! But the girls had fun anyway, and we taught them some new games and songs and showed them where on the map of Canada we live. They were so cute!

The daughter of Jen's teaching partner, Isabelle, was one of the Gumnuts (hence how we ended up being invited to the unit in the first place), so once the meeting was over we went back to her house for dinner. So by the time we finally got home, it was well past 9pm. I was POOPED. Again. This last bit of my Aussie adventures is proving to be very tiring.

And then I read that stupid, insensitive blog comment that someone sent me last night, and I was so angry/upset about it that I had a hard time sleeping. BLAH.

Today I'm madly trying to get everything ready for my adventure off to Broken Hill tomorrow, and finish booking stuff for our Grampians trip, and all that jazz. Time is slipping by rapidly! So I'd better get back to it. If you don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I am once again in transit. I will do my best to report next from Broken Hill on Friday evening. Cheerio!