Bay to Bay: Wagga Wagga

We had another ETL gathering this past weekend, and we went to Wagga Wagga (pronounced wogga wogga, not wahhgga wahhgga (with a short 'a' sound) - I'm pronouncing most things wrong around here, if it has an alternate pronunciation, that is usually the one to go with!). We actually left the two girls in Batemans Bay for the weekend, and had a time away, just the two of us! We were planning on taking them, but Natalie was invited to a birthday party, and she had just missed one the previous weekend (we were away), and we figured that they didn't really need to see Wagga Wagga, so Rachel also stayed with our neighbours and kept her company.

It was a 4 1/2 hour drive inland, past Canberra, to get to Wagga Wagga, and we got a bit of a taste of what the dry interior of Australia is like (we get to see it up close and personal in July when we drive to Alice Springs); the grass was all brown, the soil had a reddish tinge, but the leaves on the trees (those that didn't change colour and fall) were green. On the weekend, we met up with people we've been seeing at other similar weekends since we've been here, and it's always nice to hear what they have been doing on weekends and school holidays. It's also nice meeting more former exchangees and hearing of their experiences in Canada and the US.

On Saturday, we wandered around the city (population 70,000), going to the market and checking out the high street. Downtown Wagga has crosswalks the like of which I've never seen or even heard of: all directions of traffic stop for a short period of time, and pedestrians, as well as crossing in the normal directions, can also cross diagonally. When I first saw it, I was wondering why all these people were walking across the middle of the road, but on closer inspection, we noticed that there were pedestrian crossing lights set at an angle to the road, and little white signs with three arrows indicating the directions in which to cross. It was amazing, and every intersection (there were about 4 big ones in a row on this one main street) had people using the diagonal crossing.

We drove up to the town of Junee, where there is a licorice factory in an old flour mill. They make organic licorice here, and chocolate covered cherries, stem ginger, coffee beans etc. We had a lovely organic lunch here, then a tour of the factory and the chance to buy some of the goods. I tried to prevent John from buying any of the black licorice (my shopping included a bag each of the chocolate covered cherries and coffee beans), but he managed to come out with a whole box full of black licorice ropes! http://www.greengroveorganics.com/

We had a quick tour and tasting at the Charles Sturt Winery, back in Wagga Wagga, then it was off to a former exchangee's house for dinner.

Sunday morning saw us meeting up at the Botanic Gardens, which were just beautiful, set onto a large sloping area in the centre of the city. There was a free zoo in there, so John and I had a wander around (we were early) and saw big Red Kangaroos, emus, donkeys (they had chewed up the wooden sign in their pen, but we knew what they were - we could hear them from the entrance to the zoo!), lots of birds, and guinea pigs with their own castle. We had a nice morning tea on a lovely grassy area, and the guys practised their boomerang throwing.

We headed out around noon, and took a detour around to Cootamundra, a little ways to the north east of Wagga, to have lunch with some exchangees from England who are stationed there. We got home just after six to a warm welcome from the girls, who had had a wonderful weekend, and to a nice dinner prepared by our neighbours, who had been taking care of the girls. Our exchangee's mother-in-law lives next door but one, and she also came over for dinner, so we had a really wonderful Mothers' Day - happy day all!