After two days of travel, we finally arrived in Hillston. Hillston is a small town (pop. 1,054) situated on the banks of the Lachlan River. It’s essentially in the middle of nowhere. The nearest city, Griffith, is a good hour’s drive away. Of course, that’s not really too remote in Australian terms, but we definitely felt isolated.
Shortly after our arrival we signed paperwork to pick cherries. Cherry picking, however, is a big ol’ story on it’s own. I won’t get into that just yet.
In all, we spent 3 weeks in tiny little Hillston, picking cherries and living in our tent. It was surprisingly comfy and cozy. I actually looked forward to crawling into our tent each night.
The town is comprised of a few short blocks of local businesses and surrounding houses. As you can imagine, there wasn’t much to do. One afternoon we walked over to the lake…only to find no water in sight! When we weren’t cherry picking, we spent a good amount of our time at the library, shopping for groceries at the only market, and relaxing at our campsite.
One of the biggest challenges of staying in Hillston was adjusting to small town store hours. The market was only open 3 hours on the weekend, while we were in the orchard. If we didn’t buy the food we needed on Friday, we’d be pretty hungry until Monday rolled around. The lack of refrigeration made it even trickier.
Still, it was nice to experience a bit of small town life.
xo, jill
Who knew that traveling to Australia would be like traveling back in time! Did you see any horse and buggies (with the horses swapped for ‘roos, naturally) while you were there? 😛