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| MILDURA :: RIVERINA :: NEW SOUTH WALES :: AUSTRALIA :: CROWDED WORLD AFTER LONG HOURS TRAVERSING THE DUSTY PLAINS OF SOUTHWEST NSW, NARRANDERA OFFERS A GRATEFUL RESPITE TO THE WEARY TRAVELLER. The town of trees they call it, and a town of trees I remember it from my trips there in my childhood, European trees that give you shade in the summer when you need it, and rusty brown and yellow in the autumns when a change in colour is surely called for. According to Fruit Picking Jobs, there is plenty of harvest work in picking grapes, citrus fruits, vegetables, asparagus and pruning vines. Mulholland Drive, or Nightmare on Elm Street. The town abounds with backpacker hostels.
 The town sits on the intersection of two major highways; look above, and see the sky is crossed by flightpaths. No wonder my mad cousin K., who was born in Narrandera, is so obsessed with chemtrails! This is one strategic place, and an important waystation in in my family history. It was to Narrandera that a certain Michael Sullivan, son of Thomas Denis, took his family to become a shearer, or something. These days there are a lot of Sullivans still in town, and my surname also fills the cemetery. Norman Sullivan, one of them, perished at the age of 20 on the battlefields of France, at the end of the First World War.
 February to April is said to be the best time to go to northern Victoria looking for harvest work. Many of the hostels in town are working hostels, servicing the agricultural industry. The working hostels can set you up with harvest work before you even arrive in town. ! So on to the goodies and where to find them. Later I will tell you about my Newtown date with the amazing A. back in the Nostradamian year of 1999!
NARRANDERA BEAUTY Glow Girl: 208 Australia St, Newtown. Phone: 02/9519 3101. The ad claims: "Imagine... a massage followed by another massage, a facial, some lunch, some wine maybe, a waxing, a pedicure, a manicure..." This place is open late evenings and offers a complimentary skin analysis.
NARRANDERA COFFEE SHOPS CAFE CULTURE HAS REACHED THE HEART OF THE RIVERINA. On hot weekends tables and chairs spill on to pavement outside East Street Cafe, and if it were not for the flies, you might imagine you were in Newtown. :
NARRANDERA PUBS Top Pub: East and Larmer Sts, Narrandera. Phone: 02 6959 2057.
Jess had the following piece of advice for those looking to pick up at the Bank Hotel: don't.
Botany View Hotel: 597 King St, Newtown. Phone: 02/9519 4501.
CHATSWOOD RESTAURANTS CHATSWOOD WAS ONE OF THE FEW PLACES AND TIMES IN MY LIFE WHERE I WORKED AS A FOOD REVIEWER -- THAT IS TO SAY, REVIEWING FOOD WAS PART OF MY JOB. The other reporters at the North Shore Times must have seen reviewing food as a menial task -- what fools were they! The places I reviewed ranged from French and Swiss bistros to Korean barbeques and Chinese takeaways. Somewhere along the way there was a Mongolian hotpot. African Feeling: 501 King St, Newtown. Phone: 02/9516 3130. put it in your mouth (aka Melissa Leong from FBI Radio fame) said of this place: "Chef Hudu Alhassan may originally hail from Ghana, but his little slice of Africa in Newtown is just about one of the best places to go on safari in Sydney. Taking cues from all over his home continent, you can expect to experience distinct flavours from plantain chips from Nigeria, Bua; tender goat curry from Ghana and Yai Machuzi - boiled eggs rolled in chicken mince, coated in bread crumbs and spices - kind of like an African scotch egg..."
Mary's Malaysian: Asian food court, Mandarin Centre.
NARRANDERA WALKS Bundidgerry Track: Near Lake Talbot.  If you are observant and persistent you should see koalas on this walk, which follows the Bundidgerry Creek on its long meander through the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. The first time I made the walk, with my Mum back in 2007, we saw two of them. On my most recent walk, in 2011 after the floods, we couldn't get that far because the trail was still blocked by water, and our koala sighting record came up a zilch. Nonetheless, there are said to be about 100 koalas in the area, somewhere.
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