Last weekend Lucy and I travelled to Armidale in NSW for my 30th year school reunion. Wow thirty years since I have left school, where has the time gone it certainly doesn't feel that long.We left home at 8am on Friday morning and arrived in Armidale at 4pm, Lucy drove some of the way to get some much needed hours.
We stayed at the lovely Cotswold Gardens http://www.cotswoldgardensarmidale.com.au which was right across the road from where our Saturday night school function was. We rushed downtown to grab a few things then back to the motel for dinner at their lovely restaurant. This restaurant is so old world it was just lovely and the food was superb. We had an early night as we were pretty tired and we needed to get up early for breakfast at a coffee shop that I wanted to try. All the web reviews said to get there early as it got really busy, they weren't wrong we got there at 7.00 and the place was packed by 7.30. The coffee shop we tried was called The Goldfish Bowl and was lovely they make all their sourdough bread at the shop in a wood fire stove. Lucy had fruit toast and I had Eggs Benedict and most importantly the coffee was very good.
After breakfast we went for a walk around town, Armidale has many old buildings which I love. Below is the Catholic Cathedral
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Richardson's- It used to be a department store and was where I had my first job, I used to work in the cosmetic department
The Mall which sadly looked a bit tired.
The Presbyterian Church
The Anglican church, my parents were married in this church. We had to be at the school by 11 for brunch and a tour around the school. I hadn't been back to the school for thirty years there was a lot that was different but a lot that was still the same, even our little common room that was a room under the school that faced into a courtyard was still there. We spent many hours sun baking our legs using baby oil or coconut oil. We weren't sun smart. Don't know what that room was now as the year 12 had an amazing year 12 space. It was lovely to see some of the girls, there was no awkwardness , everyone just slipped into easy conversation as if we had never been apart.
We weren't a big year 12 I think we only had forty girls in our year. After our tour we went to the http://www.whitebullhotel.com/home.php for lunch, we spent several hours there chatting and having a few drinks.
After lunch Lucy and I went for another drive to take a few more photos and to check a few places out.
What used to be The Armidale Teachers College
The Railway Station
The View from the Lookout
Movies, pay tv and room services Lucy was set for the night I walked across the road to the http://www.qualityhotelpowerhouse.com.au/armidale/ for our function.
We had a fantastic night and at about 11pm went to the Armidale Bowls Club to meet up with our year from The Armidale school who were also having their school reunion. It was great to see some of the guys, some of them we had been friends on Facebook for a few years but again I haven't seen some of them for 30 years. We had a ball and stayed until the Bowls Club closed. Im so glad I went and this just reinforced what a great group of people I went to school with, I loved high school. Tess said to me during the week before I left " i guess the cool girls will get together" We didn't have a group of cool girls and everyone got on most of the time. I hope Lucy had a good time it was fun showing her around.
