Saturday, May 30th, 2009, Bus Trip from Broken Hill to Dubbo
Bob: We left Broken Hill at "O-Dark Hundred", 3:30 a.m. to be exact. The city streets were completely dark and deserted, and walking down them to get to the bus station was a spooky experience. A surprising number of other folks, 5 in all, boarded at the same time as we, but we did get the coveted front-row seats where we could get a great view out the front window. At first, of course, there was nothing much to see but the long ribbon of asphalt straight ahead of us and the shrub brush on the shoulders to either side. |
Monika: My little camera did a great job imitating an alarm clock (the alarm clock in the motel did not function) so we got up in time and by 3:15 started walking down an eerily empty downtown We knew from our previous driver that this bus would be driven by Phil, a private pilot. So he and Bob got quickly into talking about flying in Australia, while we all watched the road for the ubiquitous kangaroos. There were a few, most of them chased away by a quick blast on the horn but one did try to get across in front of us and Phil had to break to miss the poor creature. |
Bob: As in our trip out, however, we did see kangaroos intermittently and occasionally other wild nocturnal animals like foxes, a possum-like creature, and so forth. But far and away the most dangerous were the kangaroos as they unpredictably would hop either off to the side or directly in front of the bus. Shortly after dawn, in fact, our driver had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a small mob of them that hopped right in front of us, but I was lucky enough to have the camera ready to take pictures right as that happened. The combination of the roos jumping in the sun, the brakes screeching, the bus swerving, and the shutter on my camera going "click-clack, click-clack" as I took a burst of pictures while waiting for the bus to collide with the roos is indelibly printed on my mind. As the sun rose in the sky the land became very slowly more verdant, with taller trees and bushes. Finally as we approached Dubbo there was sufficient rainfall and the land was fertile enough in spots for growing wheat and possibly hay or some other grain, I'm not sure. We arrived back in Dubbo in the early afternoon and swung by the Woolworth store on our way back to the Formule 1 Hotel to purchase some foodstuffs. After a quick lunch in our room I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep while Monika spent a couple of hours updating her journal. |
Monika: After two hours it started to get light and with that photography became possible. When another couple roos decided to cross in front of the bus, Bob was ready and kept snapping away. Again, Phil slowed down and missed them. You can see on the pictures that the roos finally made it safely to the other side. After it got light, we saw no more kangaroos but a lot of sheep and goats and even a couple of emus . However, none of them tried to cross in front of us. Slowly the landscape again became more verdant; the trees got bigger and there was some agriculture, wheat and cotton we were told. We arrived in Dubbo around 2 and went back to the Formule 1 Hotel. They had kept our luggage for us which saved us from having to trundle them back and forth to the train station. We took the luggage back to our room where we had something to eat and Bob took a nap, while I caught up on my writing. |
Bob: I did rouse myself around 5:00 p.m. so that we could take a quick walk back to where we had seen the cockatoos, parrots, gallahs(?), and magpies on our walk to the Zoo during our fist visit to Dubbo. We were in luck that the cockatoos seemed to be flying around just getting ready to roost for the night at a bend in the river where we had seen them previously. I was curious to see that they settled in to nest in pairs or couples, and each bird spent some time preening, "kissing", or "necking" with the other. Probably I'm being anthropomorphic, but it certainly looked like affectionate, pair-bonding behavior to me, and I was surprised to see that in birds. Monika was feeling like French fries and after watching all those birds I had a hankering for some chicken, so we decided to have a quick evening snack at the Hungry Jack (Burger King) restaurant right next to out hotel. Getting a chicken wrap meal, we could split the Coke and I could eat the grilled chicken wrap while Monika ate the fries. We really were like Jack Sprat and his wife where "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, and so between the two of them they licked the platter clean!", or cleaned up the Burger King meal in this case. By the time we got back to our room and settled in for the evening, we were both too exhausted to do anything else, so we turned in early, really early, about 7:30 p.m. |
Monika: When Bob woke up it was around 4 and I thought it would be fun to walk along the river and watch the cockatoos. This really was a lot of fun and we both kept trying to take pictures. It seemed that the cockatoos were trying to decide where to settle for the night. They flew in very noisy flocks from one area over to the river and then back again. It seemed that cockatoos were pairing off, one pair settled in a tree above us and acted very lovingly, but they also congregate in flocks. When it got too dark for pictures, we went back. At this time, I was somewhat tired of cheese or ham and cheese rolls, and since there was a Hungry Jack (looks like Burger King to me) right next to the motel, I hankered after a nice order of French fries. So we split a grilled chicken wrap combo, with Bob being the sensible one and having the chicken wrap and I enjoyed the fries. We shared the coke. Our bus the next morning was going to leave at 8:10 and we knew it was a 30 minute walk. We also decided on breakfast at Hungry Jack since they opened at 6. I set my trusty camera for 6:15 and we turned in somewhat early. |
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