Tuesday 30th August

Today we did a fair bit of tripping around.  Started by going out to Orange World at Buronga.

 Here we were entertained by the wonderful Brian - check out this video I found on YouTube.

 We then went on the tour on the little train, with Brian as our Guide.

Bought a bag of navel oranges, some orange peelers, an Orange World truck for Bill, and some orange blossom honey.  Also had a complimentary glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

As well as the Valencia and Navel oranges which are grown commercially they have several display varieites, including the huge Pommelos, the even huger (??) Shaddocks, cumquats, blood oranges and tahitian limes.

They also grow avocados at Orange World.  Brian told us that when Cottees made a commercial for orange cordial a few years ago it was filmed at orange World.  Thing was, they filmed it in the avocado tree section and used plastic oranges to make the trees look like orange trees!  There are a couple of commercials that would fit the bill, perhaps it was this one!

Mandarins are also grown commerciaslly and during the tour Brian stopped and picked a couple of mandarins for each passenger - yummy.

After Orange World we called at the Botanic Gardens.  These look well laid out, although we didn't walk around them.  Supposed to be a 'train' tour but it appeared the last one had been April.  However, we did have lunch at the little cafe.  Also bought a stained glass dove with olive branch sun-catcher.  The cafe / visitors' centre was an old building that had been reconstructed.  Garnpang is an historic, mid-19th century grazier's homestead that has been rebuilt in the Gardens as a visitors' centre.More information about the Inland Gardens can be found here. Unfortunately it was the wrong time of the year for the roses - they must look magnificent when in bloom, like in this photo.

A busy day today, because after the Botanic Gardens we went for a look at Woodsie's Gem Shop.

 

This was a fantastic display of gemstones and jewellery, plus glassware and other ornaments made from metal and wood etc.  Free admission was unbelievable!  And only $2 each to go into Aladdin's Cave to see the private collection of gemstones - beautiful.  There was also a 1/2 acre maze, but we didn't venture into that (also only $2 each entry) because I doubted I'd cope with walking around a maze.  We had afternoon tea in the Cave-Inn cafe.  Lovely cake.  We bought an Adventurine Owl, a piece of clear quartz crystal, a Tiger's Eye pig, a turquoise bracelet, an unidentified piece of polished stone with sparkles all through it.

Bill dismantled the annexe when we got back to the van, ready for our departure on Thursday.  because we'd had a fair bit to eat duringthe day we had baked beans on toast for tea.