We're at the point in our tour that is more difficult because we are only in a town for a few hours and hardly have time to get to know our hosts. We arrived in Mildura a little after 4:00 pm and only stayed 7:30 am the next morning. But even though the visit was short it was certainly worthwhile.
After having coffee at Woodsie's Gem Shop and having the opportunity to at least shop a little we went back to the Army hall to set up for our concert. The corps building in Mildura is relatively new having opened in 2003. But the corps itself has been there a lot longer. As soon as we had set up our hosts were ready for us to eat dinner and as has been the case everywhere we've been so far it was great.
Once again, the hall was full for our concert. They'd packed in about 200 chairs into the chapel of the corps. In order to do that, the front row was very close to us. In fact, I think the closes person to me in the concert was just over an arm length away. I suspect they're having a bit of difficulty hearing after being that close.
The concert drew attendees from all over the area. Even Broken Hill, where they tell us the Outback begins, was represented and that is about 300 km (180 miles) away. We also met a young lady from Colorado that is here on a Rotary study abroad program. Originally she is from Wisconsin and will be returning to study at UW in Madison this fall. Actually, she returns to the States on July 5 after having been here for more than a year.
Following the concert we dispersed with our various hosts for the evening and were taken very good care of even though it was a short night. Special thanks and mention should be made of Captains Quentin & Susanne Castle as well as Bandmaster Denis Harvey who put together a team that contributed to a successful time together. The Captain told us this morning that his daughter, who bought our CD with her own piggy bank money, will be listening to it for a long time. That's pretty good considering she was one of the people sitting on the front row!
Mildura06/19/2006 08:25 PM
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