bundy

Yes, I only made it from Sydney to Nundle. I'd travelled in Oz on gap year number 1 when I was 18, so it's not as if I've seen nothing other than Sydney Nundle (in fact, I've been from Adelaide to Cairns doing as much as possible in between). But when I turned up in Nundle, it was only my fourth day in Oz and I'd come straight from Sydney. Stayed there for 2 weeks short of a year - the remaining two weeks we spent travelling down to Melbourne and along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide.

The place where we lived is a working sheep and cattle station - 20,000 acre property with a pretty decent beef cattle operation and a not-so-great merino wool operation. We lived on the sheep station part which, in addition to being a fully working station, also took in backpackers from the Oz Experience travel network. The idea was to get them off the beaten track (Nundle!!!) and show them a bit of how life out of the city works, get them to shear a sheep and all that stuff. I'd cook 'em a feed in the camp ovens and then we'd all get drunk on bundy rum.

Most of them would leave the next morning, but it was possible to stay and work on the station for your bed and board, which is what I started foing initially. Once I became an employee, Mr B and I moved on to the next door property (another sheep station). Mr B was working in the shearing sheds and I was cooking for the staff on the station and the backpackers coming through, but when I wasn't cooking, I'd help out on both stations which is where the jillaroo work comes into it - because I could ride, I'd get sent out on musters to assist the head wrangler or station manager. I also got roped into a lot of cattle work and helped out with the shearing. I loved it, so I'd do pretty much anything they needed doing.

So that's what I was doing! But yes, I spent a whole year in Nundle.

I'll check out your link in a moment...

bundy

Nice piccies DUP. I'm not at all jealous sitting here in my dull little office staring at...a hedge.

I love it up in the Blue Mountains, so pretty. Hard to believe it's so close to Sydney.

I went on some course of other recently where they said that people from flat areas tend to be more depressed than those from hilly areas because if you live in a flat place, you can never go up high and literally get above your problems - no perspective on your life.

It's a bit of a sweeping generalisation, of course, but for me there is some truth in it. I like being able to go, 'hmm, I think I'll walk to the top of that hill today'. Gives you something to aim at...

DagBoy

Great place to do your driving test though. No hill starts

Besides - you are forgetting Castle Hill and the Gog Magog hills. My 6th form was on the edge of the Gog Magogs and on a clear day you could see Ely Cathedral perched on the mountainous Isle.

I loved the fens - but only because I knew no better. In later years when I visited in winter I found it a cold, bleak, dull, dreary, grey depressing place. Give me the mountains of Brisbane anyday - Mt Cootha

bundy

You're right about the driving test. I took mine in Norfolk and we had to find a carpark ramp for me to do my hill start...

How could I forget Castle Hill????!!! My college was at the top of it, which made it great to get into town in a hurry, but miserable cycling back up the hill with your bike festooned with Sainsbury's bags. Castle Mound is always good for a view of Cambridge. But it only emphasises how flat the surrounding countryside is, which is depressing.

Mr B thinks the Gog Magogs are made up. He simply doesn't believe that they exist, despite having seen them. He refuses to believe that you can have hills (well, humps) called the Gog Magogs.

The fens are cold, bleak, dull, dreary, grey and depressing. You forgot to mention windy. That cruel wind whipping in from Siberia with nothing to stop it before it hits Cambridge...*shudder*.

Give me the mountains of Brisbane too!!! Or any mountains. Or even a decent hill.

Simone

Fascinating stuff, thanks!

Yeah, the backpackers with organisation (Oz exp) is sort of what I meant. I've also heard backpackers doing a 'jillaroo/jackeroo' course/workshop thingy on a station.
It's similar I guess.

Yep, DUP, hills are great, but the Perth hills and southwest hills will do for me for now! Having friends there etc makes Perth an obvious choice for us!

When we went (3/4) around Oz in 2000 we were in Brisbane for about 3 days, then Sydney 2 and THEN we went to the Blue Mountains!!
It was sooooo great being in the country again, stopping of at a small town for morning tea etc etc.
That was the moment we realised we are not city people (I know there's plenty to do (museums and stuff) but after a few days we can't be bothered anymore! ANd we're not really into partying/nightclubs etc, we're quite homey, I think we'll be right in the country!
BUT, first off to Perth, better chance of work there for Pascal, but I wonder how long it will take to get sick of the city....
You never know, it might grow on us...

bundy

Yep Simone, they ran a J/J school too (although it wasn't much good). The backpacker side of the operation has shut down now, so it's back to being just a sheep/cattle station.

bundy

I promised it months ago...and here it is....the two-headed calf, born in Nundle, currently residing nailed to the wall of Nundle pub...

Bix

I can see the likeness

heraldic

Nundle sux

bondipom

either you are speaking Kiwi or you are flame baiting,

tonyk38

The latter unfortunately......