From Parramatta we traveled to Bathurst through the Blue Mountains. But not before I had the best fruit in my life from a cute back street cafe in Parramatta. The Blue Mountains. Wow! Beautiful and much more expansive than I expected! We stopped off briefly to take some pictures but had to travel on through to get to the theatre to plot the lights. The Blue Mountain area was beautiful, passed mainly through Leura and it was like a cute little town where I could imagine everyone wearing knitted jumpers. Would be fantastic in winter with a fireplace. Made me want to buy some knitted socks... I'm getting a craving for knitted socks lately.
We arrived in Bathurst and headed to the theatre. After we plotted the lights, we headed to our accommodation. My room was massive! I had one double bed and two singles in a big long room. It was very luxurious and there was a fireplace! That night we headed out to The Church restaurant and bar which serves pizza. It was a beautiful place in an old church, highly recommended, beautiful setting, vines and crumbling brick everywhere. I had some pimms and we ordered an array of delicious pizzas including one with kangaroo and one with saltwater crocodile. The kangaroo was my favourite but the crocodile was quite a tasty meat!! Kind of the taste of chicken but not stringy like chicken, more solid texture like... maybe calamari? Was delicious with lime. Some of the others ordered a chocolate and icecream dessert pizza and that was amazing! After dinner we had a few drinks and laughs in my room and then it was time for bed.
The next morning we had brunch at a highly recommended cafe called The Hub. I had ricotta hotcakes with persian fairyfloss and they were absolutely amazing! Not too sweet, beautifully presented, delicious strawberry butter and OMG green fairy floss on my breakfast! Amazing!
Had a look at Bathurst, a lot of things were closed on a Sunday but it was a very beautiful town with old pretty architecture. We also drove up to Mt Panorama and had a drive around the track. We found a motocross competition and watched some of that in the freezing cold. It was weird, I expected Mt Panorama to be just a race track but there were houses all around the track and it had a great view over the town. For dinner I grabbed a hot chook and had a salad from woolworths. I don't know if I was just starving but that dinner was amazing.
The following day we had a workshop at O'Connell State School, which was about 20 minutes away. There were around 30 in a class comprising of grades 1 to 3. We led them through a story drama where Fi (our stage manager) led them through one of the Tashi stories we perform and three of us (me, Cam and Neridah) pretended to be different characters in the story and modeled the behaviour for the students. It was great fun! In about 1.5hrs all 30 or so of us went on an adventure to the Mountain of White Tigers and stole the Baron's gold and bought our own houses! (NB: Read the story, it will all make sense haha). The kids had so much fun and didn't want us to leave (I don't think their teacher did either). They were coming to see the show the next day. That night we had a 630pm family performance and afterwards the venue manager took us out to dinner. We had a lebanese feast (literally) and it was incredible!! But way too much food - cue a stomach ache.
Poor Neridah still had stomach pains the next day when it was time to do our 10am show. Our kids from the workshop came to the 1230 show and they were very excited to be there! After the show we bumped out and then had the afternoon off. Some of the others went to have a massage and I went back to The Hub to have a brownie and a coffee. Afterwards I had a look at some of the shops on the same street and found a fantastic vintage store. I had a good chat to the guy working there and he let me take some photos of the store. It was a real treasure cave! That afternoon I went for a walk around the streets near our hotel and my goodness Bathurst is a beautiful place! I especially walked back to find this gorgeous old house and by this time there were two elderly people tidying the garden. I spoke to the man and complimented the house and he volunteered the story that it was a wedding present in 1897. He also introduced himself as Gunner (his Swedish name) and called his wife over to chat. The house was incredible and just across the road was this stunning school St Stanislaus. It was a boarding school for boys and looked more like Hogwarts! The town smelt like roses and people's fireplaces. After walking past the student accommodation beside our hotel and spotting the fattest grey cat on a verandah, I had a swim in the indoor pool and went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant and got a bento box.
That night I woke up at around 430am with stomach cramps!! I few warm showers and some stretches later I drifted back to sleep. Woke up the next day still feeling a bit shifty for the drive to Orange. Sad to see Bathurst go. The trip to Orange was only about 40 mins. We arrived at the hotel and I spent the rest of the day watching My Kitchen Rules and moping in my bed. The disrupted sleep really threw me off. We bumped in at the theatre and did the show. Even though I felt ordinary it was actually one of my best shows!! Home to bed, hopefully I'd feel better the next day.
Our stop in Orange was only for one night and two days so we had two shows on Thursday. Still feeling pretty ordinary the next day! Then disaster struck! In between the shows the crew didn't put the stage lights on and Neridah whacked her toe on part of the set. With only 30 mins left til the next show, we thought it might be broken. We adjusted some of the choreography and had a plan for if she couldn't finish the show (which was entirely possible as she couldn't even walk!). Incredibly she did the whole show, icing in between each half! Just another thing to add to this massive week!!
After the show Neridah went to ice her foot and the rest of us bumped out. The boys headed on to Wagga and the three of us girls went to the medical centre. While Neridah had an appointment with the doctor I had another brownie and coffee. After getting her all checked out we drove the 4 hour drive to Wagga. It was a beautiful drive through tiny, seemingly deserted towns, full of old churches, stunning sunsets and windy forest paths. We also saw a fox! At around 830 we arrived in town and headed to the nearest available Thai restaurant. After gulping it down we headed to our accommodation - The Carriage House Inn. My room literally backs into a paddock and the hotel is about ten minutes out of town. We think it might have been literally an old inn for carriages coming into town.
Friday finally came and there were two shows before the weekend! The 1230 show was a school audience and they were psychos! When we came back for the second story they cheered so loudly as if we were rock stars! And they even started to chant 'Tashi! Tashi! Tashi!' - it was quite frightening!! They listened to the stories though which was great. I think a lot of them hadn't read the stories and one boy said to me 'I thought we were going to see a real life movie today?'. He seemed disappointed when he realised we were 'just' pretending to be different people. The family show at 6pm was full of sweet families who were all excited to be there. One boy who was around 12 came up to me and asked if I had brought my dancing shoes today because he likes dancing in shows. I said unfortunately we weren't doing Tashi and the Dancing Shoes but there would be some dancing in the show. After the show a small girl (around 6) asked me several technical questions about the lights and the smoke machine and seemed to understand every technical answer I gave back. She was awesome! One of the crew even took a photo with me dressed as Tashi as his brother loves the books and would be jealous. We bumped out quickly (40 minutes!) and headed back to our hotel. I had booked a table at the restaurant at our hotel as it is the #1 restaurant in Wagga according to Trip Adviser. And it wasn't wrong!! I ordered a steak (which was surprising) and it was the best steak I have ever eaten! It was amazing and I cleared my whole plate!! There were even after dinner mints. It was a great meal and a great end to the week. As we headed back to our rooms it started to rain. Time to snuggle in bed.
Spent all of today in bed watching tv and ventured out to get some food for dinner and some coffee with the others. This evening we all put together a barbecue which was lovely. Tomorrow we're off to Queanbeyan where we get to stay for five days!! (Luxury!)
And it's only 6 sleeps til Will visits! 17 towns left to visit on the trip! 8 weeks, heaps of shows! We've already performed the stories 24 times, 39 to go!
But tell me how you are all going! Wow, if you made it to the end of that saga!!
Bec I want an update as soon as you can! How are the little ones now you are getting to the end of the term, Erin? And how are those stats Luisa?
Love you all!
xx
My goodness you seem to pack so much into a week! It sounds like a lot of fun Steph and I can picture the places you're visiting from your descriptions quite well :) It sounds very beautiful and I wish I could visit some of them too!
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