Hi Val,
We are closer to Mittagong than Bowral although we do >90% of our shopping in Bowral. Our favourite restaurant is in Berrima but apart from it, I don’t know all that much about the town or its countryside. We are not considered locals as we have only been here since 2004. You may have encountered the country town syndrome that you either have to have gone to school in the town or lived their for 30+ years to qualify as a local.
I have been to WA many times particularly when I was working. Although by WA, I mean Perth and 20 minute stops at Kununurra, Broome and Port Headland on the rare flights from Darwin to Perth. I remember being impressed by the mining engineers (I assumed) who got on at Kununurra. They were all Chips Rafferty look-alikes: Tall, muscly, but lean with not an ounce of spare fat on them. I don’t know whether it was the types that were attracted to that environment or whether it was the environment that sculptured them.
Not that I mostly saw much when I went to Perth. Generally, the routine was arrive at the airport, catch a cab to the office, do your work and catch a cab back to the airport If you had to stay over for a day or two the locals would give you a brief tour of the city and take you home or out for a meal at night. It was difficult to arrange to stay over a weekend, although I managed it a few times. Then I hired a car and did some short trips around the countryside. The reason these were rare was that the Commonwealth actively discouraged mixing pleasure with work. I guess you non Public Servants would whole-heartedly agree with this principle.
One exception was in 1989 when I was going to a Personnel Management Conference which spilled over to the Saturday. One of my conditions of my service at that time was to be able to take my spouse at Commonwealth expense every several years {I can’t remember how many} so long as it didn’t interfere with the purpose of the trip. This covered return Business class air travel from Canberra to Perth and a modest meal allowance for June.
On the Sunday we hired a car and headed for Cervantes to the see
The Pinnacles. {you will have guessed that the photo was from the internet and not one of mine.} We then drove down New Norcia to visit the museum and other attractions.
See here for details. We then went to Toodyay for a definite reason which I honestly can’t remember {any clues, Val} It couldn’t have been because it was named
Newcastle between 1860 and 1910. We caught the “
Red-eye special” just after midnight reaching Sydney just after 6 am. I was back in my office in Canberra by mid-morning on Monday.
The Spouse travel provision resulted in the end of the marriage of one of my more senior colleagues. His wife was wondering if it was long enough after their last overseas trip to be able to plan another one. Rather than ask her husband she rang the Personnel Section to find out. The response was “
But is only three months since you last used the provision, Mrs X. Divorce proceedings quickly followed.
We were able to enjoy more leisurely investigation of the areas and golf courses around Perth in 2008-9. Our Daughter after completing her posting to Belgrade was transferred to the regional Office in Perth for two years before returning to Canberra. So we flew over, with Daisy, to visit her a couple of times. The only problem was that our daughter had acquired a pup called Zephyr and at first they didn’t get along. But after Daisy taught him some respect they soon got along. In the fullness of time, Zephyr grew to be twice the size of Daisy and came to live with us but until she got sick she was still the boss.
One of our best adventures was two dog-friendly farm stays at Margaret River. The dogs enjoyed the beach and we enjoyed the food and wine and we would love to go back.
Well, that is no doubt more detail than you wanted, Val, but I enjoyed the reminiscences.