Bega

We have settled in to our new home. Matt has gone to work and i am left to finally get by blog up to date and explore. I'm adamant that i'm going to be more productive than I was in Leigh Creek. I will complete my Spanish course, update my blog and also finish the two English reference books that I started writing while I was in South Australia. That should keep me busy.

The Angry Lady has not been out of her room much since we arrived. yesterday a Kiwi lady from Dunedin arrived. She will be working with Matt in the HDU of the hospital. She is really nice, we had a chat yesterday which ended up with her in tears. nothing I'd said. I suspect she is a bit emotional after spending a month in India with her partner and now coming here to work on her own.

We had a little explore around town yesterday. Its quite nice, it even has a shopping mall which for a town of only 5000 is unusual. The people seem friendly (excepting the Angry Lady). When we first arrived I was a little concerned as the taxi drive seemed quite lengthy and it would be inconvenient to be stuck out of town. It now appears that, in order to bump up the taxi fare the driver had took us the long way round as town is no further than 300 metres down the road.

Bega is famous for cheese... from Wikipedia....

The Bega region was used by the Yuin-Monaro tribal grouping of Aborigines for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the area. The first European to come near the area was George Bass, who explored the coastline in 1797 as part of his broader explorations of the Australian coast. William Tarlinton was the first European to explore the area on foot, arriving in 1829. He returned in the early 1830s and settled there, starting a cattle farm. Others who arrived in the area around the same time were the Imlay brothers, who also began farming there. Their name has since been preserved in the form of Mount Imlay National Park. Live cattle were transported to Sydney for a time, to be supplemented by tallow and hides in the early 1840s.

Beef and dairy farming were carried on in the area through the 1840s, and many towns were surveyed in the 1850s. Dairy farming expanded quickly throughout the 1860s, overtaking cattle farming as the predominant industry. In 1858, Tathra was used as a port for the transport of products to Sydney, and the Illawarra Steam Company was established. In 1860, Tathra Wharf was constructed, which allowed for the further growth and expansion of the dairy industry.

The region received a further boost in the late 1870s when gold was discovered in the Bermagui area. The Bermagui gold rush followed quickly in 1880. Two years later, in 1882, the Municipality of Bega was created. The Bega Dairy Cooperative Limited was set up in the late 1890s.[4]
Bega is now well-known for its cheese. Bega Cheese is manufactured by The Bega Co-operative Society Limited which is one of the larger Australian cheese companies. Their products are exported around the world and distributed across Australia and are available in most supermarkets and general stores.

Notable local landmarks are Bega Court House and Rosevear Jeweller's shopfront, which are both listed on the Register of the National Estate.[5] The court house was built in 1881 and consists of rendered brick and iron roofs. The Rosevear shop is in Carp Street and was established circa 1899. It is listed as a notable example of Victorian commercial design.

I'm probably going to have plenty of time to explore and taste the cheese. Red wine and cheese, hmmmmm. Going to have to find a discount shop for the booze though. It as double the price of Sydney!

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Location:Auckland St,Bega,Australia

Sydney to Bega

We left Ashfield at 10 to catch the midday train from Sydney Central. I was quite looking forward to the trip, other than the local service into town, I had never travelled by train in Australia. The fares are not expensive at all. The cost of a single from Sydney to Bega was 78 dollars.

Me, with my trusty backpack and Matt, with his huge new case made our way down to the local railway station in Ashfield for the short trip to Sydney Central where we were to catch the train for our first leg of the journey. Being so vast, Australia does not have a massive train network. We arrived at the station in good time and had chance too grab a cup of coffee and a 'Krispy Kreme' donut. One is never enough, but, bing on a diet now, having put around two stones on since I arrived in OZ we decided that we would not be greedy. We had a Hungry Jacks 'Whopper' meal instead.

We boarded the tran and Matt decided he wanted something to read so jumped off the train. i did have visions that it would go without him, it didn't. While he was pissing about with his 'huge' case though, he did lose his credit card. fortunately the steward on the train found it and he was reunited. Lucky !

The journey to Bega went via 'The Nation's Capital', Canberra, that leg of the journey took around four and a half hours. From there we take a coach on for the couple of hours to . Its all integrated, the coach is waiting at the railway station for you so it is basically, off the train, onto the bus and off you go again. The journey was very comfortable. The weather was appalling, it was nice to be watching the fork lightening and torrential rain from inside for a change...

The scenery during the journey was beautiful, despite the inclement weather. after the suburbs of Sydney we made our way into the semi bushland, stopping off along the way. it was a little like the countryside on the last part of the journey to Chesterfield through the Derbyshire Dales. The difference being that these trains seemed to adhere to a timetable. At the prescribed time we arrived in Canberra. I'm not sure what I was expecting but a railway station the size of Chesterfield was not it. Being the 'Nations Capital' i expected something bigger.

Graeme, our friendly Aussie coach driver got us boarded and we were on our way. It would be another two and a half hour to Bega, with a 30 minute stop along the way. The weather was still bad and although it was only 6 o'clock, t was quite dark. not too dark to enjoy the scenery and quite a few Kangaroos hopping around in the bushland. The journey took us over the 'Snowy Mountains'. Its quite a steep climb and by the time we hit Cooma, our stopping point, the temperature had plummeted and it as positively arctic. We had another cup of hot coffee to keep out the chill and a wander around the town. It was a bit out of date. Around the park were flags, included was one for Yugoslavia, long gone. Once back on board we headed further up the passes, such as the height we actually passed snow on the ground. It was hail really but whatever.

At 8.15, spot on time we arrived in Bega. It is a small town of 5,000 people. a little inland from the Sapphire Coast in South New South Wales. It waas actually pissing down when we arrived. I watched the bags while Matt went to try and track down a taxi. By some stroke of luck he found one and we made our way to the hospital he would be working at for the next four weeks. Once again, as part of the contract, they would be providing accommodation. We picked up the key to the shared house and walked the short distance to the house.

My face must have been a picture. It was rather like a cross between a halfway house and a hostel. We were met at the door by what can only be described as an Angry Woman. She pointed out the bedroom, a single bed !!
Pointed out huge Huntsman spider that was half poking out of the aircon unit. Told us that everything on the second shelf of the fridge was hers and not to touch it and then disappeared into her room. It was wine O'clock. It was fortunate that I had brought a bottle of wine with me. We celebrated the warm welcome to Bega.








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Location:Auckland St,Bega,Australia