Orange (New South Wales)



Orange is a small city in the Central West of New South Wales. Orange and the surrounding area are known for quiet getaways and excellent food and wine. Orange calls itself Australia's Colour City due to its large number of European trees and their autumn colours. Late March and April are the best times to visit to see the colours.

Understand
Orange is not named for the citrus fruit: the area around the town is nowhere near warm enough to grow oranges! (Somewhat amusingly, Orange is instead noted for its apple orchards.) Rather, it was named for Prince William of Orange, later William I of the Netherlands.

The people of the three rivers, the Wiradjuri people, are the traditional owners of the land. Orange has a population of approximately 41,000 people and is one of the older towns in inland New South Wales. The one square mile village of Orange was established in 1841 and grew quickly due to Australia's first payable gold discovery in 1851 in nearby Ophir and later due to agricultural output.

The City of Orange municipality is in the centre of the Cabonne Shire. The Cabonne Shire consists of farmland and orchards and calls itself Australia's Fruit Basket.

Climate
Orange has a mild climate, with very comfortable summers (25-35 ℃ during the day), cool autumn and spring weather (15-25 ℃ during the day, falling as low as -1℃ at night) and, for Australia, cold winters with severe frost at times (0-10 ℃ during the day, falling to -5 ℃ overnight). Because of its elevation (862 m) it is one of the few areas of mainland Australia other than the Snowy Mountains that has relatively frequent snow during winter, and it is one of the very few population centres that gets any significant snowfalls.

Get in
Orange is four hours west of Sydney by car. Travellers would take the A32 (Great Western Highway to Bathurst and the Mitchell Highway to Orange).

Orange has several public transport links to Sydney operated by NSW Trainlink Regional & Australia Wide Coaches. The Dubbo XPT stops in Orange daily in each direction and several bus services meet trains at Lithgow. Train or bus from Sydney usually takes five hours. There are also less frequent NSW TrainLink bus services from Canberra. The Broken Hill Xplorer train stops in Orange on its way from Sydney to Broken Hill on Mondays and on the return trip back to Sydney on Tuesdays.

Orange airport is around 15 km from town, and has a nice new terminal facility for arriving and departing passengers. Two airlines, Rex Airlines (tel 13 17 13 within Australia or +61 2 6393-5550 outside Australia) and Qantas, operate flights from Sydney to Orange and return. Flight time is approximately 45 to 60 minutes. Charter flights are also available. There is car hire from Avis and Hertz at the airport, but the site isn't permanently staffed. They will drive a car out to meet you if you book in advance. Drop off is just parking the car and dropping the keys in the box (the two car hire companies share a key-drop box). A taxi into town will cost around $40, so a hire car may be cheaper if you're just going into town for the day.



Get around
Public transport in Orange is limited to the town itself, and to links to other towns in the district. Since most tourists will be interested in attractions around the town and in the Cabonne Shire, using a car is the best way to see the Orange area.

Do

 * Picnic at Lake Canobolas, the town's old water supply dam located approximately 15km west of Orange. Lake Canobolas is a recreational area with swimming, walking and a deer park.
 * Pan for gold at the Ophir Reserve, 25km outside Orange, site of Australia's first payable gold discovery. The reserve also has picnic and barbeque areas.
 * Let the kids play at the Orange Adventure Playground. Admission is free, the playground is huge, and the kids will love it.  There is a small cafe there for coffee for the adults who don't want to play too.  Right next to the Botanic Gardens, just out of town.

Fruit picking
One of the food baskets of Australia, Orange is known for its fruit picking. Many kinds of stone fruits, berries and pomes can be picked depending on the season. Ironically, oranges and other citrus do not grow around Orange as the climate is not warm enough!

Eat


In autumn, drive out to one of the many apple orchards immediately to the west of the town and buy a bucket of freshly picked apples, keeping in mind that it may make it hard for you to eat the year-round supermarket variety in the future.

Drink

 * Royal Hotel, Summer Street - across the road from Hotel Canobolas. Popular with 20- and 30-somethings. This hotel is converted into a club on a Friday and Saturday night.
 * Royal Hotel, Summer Street - across the road from Hotel Canobolas. Popular with 20- and 30-somethings. This hotel is converted into a club on a Friday and Saturday night.

Like most Australian towns, there is a big drinking culture within Orange, due to the social focus of the local pubs, as well as due to the local wineries.

Wineries
Wineries in Orange and Cabonne open for tasting include:

Connect
Australian mobile (cell) phone companies provide very good coverage inside the city. Coverage in outlying towns and villages is being progressively improved however it might be patchy traveling between destinations.

Medical

 * Orange Health Service, 1502 Forest Road, Orange. Phone: +61 2 6369-3000. Public hospital with emergency room.
 * Community Health Centre, 96 Kite St. tel +61 2 6392-8600.

Go next
The Indian Pacific transcontinental train passes through Orange westward to Perth. Dubbo and Forbes further west are the next inland towns. Cowra's Japanese Garden and World War II war cemetery are a good day trip.