We had arrived here at the Gulargambone Caravan Park with great expectations. We were soon to find out that all we had been told about this extraordinary park was true.
But before we launch into the festivities, a quick tour of our most recent home away from home is in order....in fact it sets the scene. This is undoubtedly a park with a difference, where the owners have mastered the art of making all feel welcome and provide an oasis of entertainment in the middle of NSW.
I've already waxed somewhat lyrical about the grass and the (limited) shade, but that's not what sets this place aside.
It's just delightfully quirky (well from our point or view at least), beginning near the entrance gate with the camp dump point. Now this is a park facility I've ever bothered to include in any of our pictorial tours before for self evident reasons of sensitivity and good taste.
Some things are better left understood but not emphasised, but here the enclosure which protects the facility from over sensitive eyes is something altogether different .....an outback dunny no less.
And this sense of nonsense continues in all the park facilities, including the camp kitchen, which as you can see from this shot was but a hop step and a jump from our site.
Quiet during the day, this spot becomes the hub of social activity each afternoon.
The sign high on the shed front gable definitely sets the scene, in spirit if not entirely in practice.....tops were generally not popped until late afternoon, although a couple of camp residents seemed to feel the need to take this much more literally!
And once things are in full swing, the park amenities block is very conveniently (?) located just beyond the fire pit and an outdoor covered seating area.
Here, hooks on the wall will begin to give some impression of the style of this park....the cut off heads of old golf irons do the job admirably.
Now for the interior of the camp kitchen, which on first glance, is a mass of improbable odds and ends, but a closer inspection reveals that all this clutter surrounds a very practical infrastructure.
Here we have the BBQ, the pizza oven, a large urn and other pots and pans, all of which are available for use by guests (when Bernadette and Dave are not in full flight preparing afternoon nibbles, that is).
Adjacent to the kitchen area is the servery with all its 'decorations', a spot which assumes a great deal of importance each day, as you will soon see.
Now I would challenge the entire caravan community to come up with a lounge area more quirky than this, but entirely practical nevertheless with its barrel magazine racks, comfy settee and tree stump occasional tables.
The bottles on the wall are another story. When I first saw these I immediately thought that this was a risky practice. I had visions of cascading glass late in the evening, but they are all glued together and immovable. This is taking recycling to a new level.
A closer inspection revealed that this is actually a 'brag board', where previous campers have endorsed their empties with names and comments. Novel indeed, and again something we'd never come across previously.
Behind the servery area the ubiquitous clutter surrounds the large TV screen and the unusual sight of shelves of crockery which is all put to use on 'roast night'.
Table settings at the rear of this quite large enclosure provide for those who wish to socialise indoors, share a meal, play cards or whatever. Unsurprisingly, in a camp where folk come to just veg out for a while, a large and well stocked camp book exchange is also a feature of this back end of the room.
I've not even attempted to describe in detail all the odds and ends which are to be found everywhere throughout the room....they are self evident in all the shots. But with my well know penchant for silly signs, I can't leave this camp facility without featuring a couple of them.
My favourite! I mean, just who would think this up? Clearly someone had too much time on their hands!
And the points of difference here continue at the back end of the park, with firstly a visit to the chooks
and then on to the large enclosure,
where visitors are encouraged to share left over vegetable scraps with the inhabitants of this in house menagerie. The goats and sheep were very quick off the mark as Liz offered a bit of tasty green pick, but the goose soon made its very noisy and aggressive presence felt and did not stop until a morsel or two found their way into its beak.
Finally the largest but least pushy of the animals, the two alpacas, were rewarded well for their patience and good farm manners. Mind you, the goose was still hovering......honking! No wonder the ancient Romans used them for citadel guards to warn of approaching enemies.
From here we could also look back over the remainder of the park sites
and provide some feel for the layout.
The day wore on and the steady descent of the late afternoon sun at last heralded happy hour and the first group gathered. Liz was busy making new friends already.
Dave was hard at it in the kitchen. We had heard that pizza was to be the proffered camp nibble for this evening.
The pundits were correct. The most crispy thin, delicious pizza pieces were soon being cut up on the serving board, some of flavours we'd never before tried such as gherkin spread under sprinkled tasty cheese......sensational!
The word was out and the crowd had assembled. Pizza was passed around and the fire was lit. Beer tops were hissing and the champange corks were popping. Dave welcomed all of us who had arrived here for the first time today and provided some snippets of local history.
The sound of chatter and introductions filled the air as the afternoon quietly slipped into evening. The camp fire was then augmented with a large hollow log which drew the flame up from the bed to spurt it out into the air in these spectacular jets of fire. Why would you want to repair to the van with all this going on?
But we all did eventually......reluctantly. Pizza pieces can go only so far to blunt the hunger brought on by a busy day. We retired content that the reputation of the Gulargambone Caravan Park was indeed well deserved and on today's showing, intact.
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