Life & Experiences
After the excitement of Saturday’s sight-seeing adventure, I took things a little more slowly on Sunday. Though I thought about getting up early and going for a walk, I stayed in bed until about 9.00am. As daylight saving has commenced, I didn’t feel too guilty about sleeping in. Oh, and hey, I’m on holiday!
After a late morning breakfast at “Diggers” in Bourke, I returned to the apartment where I’ve been staying and had a brief lunchtime nap.… Read the rest “On The Road Again”
Late at night, there aren’t too many sounds you can hear from the balcony of the apartment where I’m staying in Bourke. There’s the occasional car or truck going past. There’s the occasional sound of some birds or crickets. Consistently, there’s the sound of dogs barking.
The other night on the roadside outside Bourke there was only the sound of the car engine running. And when that was turned off there was the sound of “nothing”.… Read the rest “The Big Sky”
There’s a two pub stereotype for many small country towns in Australia: there’s the “popular pub” that everyone goes to, and there’s the “less popular pub” that sometimes struggles to stay open.
When I lived at Bourke, NSW in the late 1980s, there were several pubs, and most of them were pretty popular. There was “The Royal” which was the town’s upmarket pub, with a silver service dining area. At the other end of the scale, there was “The Post Office” (“The P.O”)… Read the rest “One Pub Town”
It’s over twenty years since I last visited Bourke in Western NSW. To be precise, it was March 3, 2000, and my visit there co-incided with a visit by Queen Elizabeth II.
I was working for ABC Radio presenting the NSW Regional Drive Show, and the visit by the Queen to the outback town was a noteworthy event worth covering.
I had a connection with the town, having lived there for a couple of years in the late 1980s.… Read the rest “Back O’ Bourke”
Though I can’t be sure of the exact date, it was sometime in February 1988 (thirty years ago) when I got my first full time “paid job” in radio, working at 2WEB, Bourke. Prior to that, I was a volunteer at 2NCR-FM, Lismore (since 1978), and worked as the phone answerer for Saturday nights requests at 2LM, Lismore (since 1981), where I was paid $10 for three hours work. 2WEB was an awesome station to start out with.… Read the rest “The Passing Of Time”