general warning to travelling members

We stayed at a Motel in Dubbo and were told lock the car make sure all valuables are keeped with you because the cars in the car park had been done over.
Pity great place to visit and take the kids to the Big Zoo.
Cheers Jeff

I stayed in Dubbo a while ago and was wondering why the motel had a great big security fence around it and the car park, Seems I now know. Shame as I really enjoy Dubbo and find it sad to see a few W**kers wreck it for all.

Stefan

It's a crying shame this sort of thing is becoming such a worry in Dubbo and other parts of the central west. We have family at Orange ,its the same story there now. Such a beautiful area ,hopefully these issues can sorted, but with bungling goverment depts i wouldn't hold your breath.

Regards Axle.

I have to agree with sentiments of those above me. I have regularly worked in Dubbo many times a year over the last 10 - 15 years and have seen the demise of a once, very nice town. Now it is an unsavoury place to say the least. Sadest part is a lot of people who bring "city" services to the bush are abondoning their efforts due to constant vandalism of thier equipment or worse, theft of thier equipment. Which costs the whole community in the end. Absolutely NOT a place I would stay for a night. There is rest areas to the north and south of Dubbo (10 -15km) and I do stay at these but never in town. There is parts of Dubbo that if a house fire starts, the Fire'ies will not attend, rather leave the place burn to the ground than have thier truck wrecked while trying to fight the fire.

I agree that it could happen anywhere....Just more frequently in Dubbo unfortunately.

Travel safe.
Regards, Trevor.

I dont think its fair to say it a Dubbo problem.

Ive seen i happen in other caravan parks especially during the holiday season.
There are organised gangs that know many holiday makers will be out sight seeing during the day and go through your van or tent with little chance of being caught.

When I travellimg I keep xxx amount of money hidden for emergencies but most of the time rely on plastic money which is kept on me at all times.

Regrettably this sort of low act is becoming more frequent recently, don't know if it is seasonal but schcool holidays & weekends seem to be the worst times. Bourke, Dubbo, Orange all have reputations that seem to be getting the locals offside...No it's not fair to single one town out, it's just unfortunate that people don't say we stayed at xxxxx and did not get robbed. By human nature we only whinge about the negatives in our lives.
Interestingly this type of petty crime does not seem to be so prevalent in places that have schemes in place to counter the ingress of the itinerant unemployed. As an example a mate of mine worked for centrelink in Cobar for a few years & they got the petty theft rate under control by simply coming to an agreement with the mine to provide work for those who wanted to claim unemployment benifits, thos that were genuine took the work thos that were not simply move elsewhere & take there unsocial habits with them...

Just wherabouts can you leave $1500 in an unlocked caravan safely????; )

Steve

We were warned about Dubbo by parents from the local Grammar School in Scone. They were in a cabin, got up at about 5 am to get ready forthe function they had to attend.

The wife had her purse on a window sill and in the time it took her to walk across the cabin to put a cup in the sink and turn around the thief had cut the fly screen, reached in and took the purse.

By the time they got outside he was gone.

Last Easter we chose to drive the extra 45 min to Dunedoo.

It used to be a nice place, perhaps it will change again.

Regards Bob

Yep had myn broken into at the local motel friday night, broke in the passengers door, $400 bucks later for the damage dented panel plus required new door handle, luckily we took every thing out including the mic to the uhf, we were only there for the weekend and went to the zoo. Rang the cops reported it, saw them freqently the next night driving around, I slept on the back seat the next night with the steering lock, wife stayed in the room with our other friends that were there with us, coppers checked and saw me lying there thought I had broken into it, shining there torches in my face couldnt see bleep through the windows was bloody freezing after 15 mins explaining what had happened the night before and with no alarm in vehicle they were ok but was glad to see them doing there job. They even said to me they were and obviously still having major problems in the area. The police did say that they wished every body would make a formal complaint as this helps them to show that they need more police in that town, but if people dont they cant prove the crime rate in relation to the amount of cops that need to be assigned to that area. And yes if the low life scum had come back again I would of rapped the steering lock round there heads then dragged them out into the street. Regards Steve M

No offence, but you wouldnt go to Dubbo to save ya kids life.. What a toilet.

We went there in 97 with the bike club, we stayed in a pub (if memory serves correct near a train line), and were going to walk round town at night, and lady at the pub asked how many of us there were, we said 12, she said you "Should" be ok... She said bashings and robbery of tourists is quite common amongst people that if you named people would call you rascist.

The area we were in, there were guards with dogs on corners...

I disagree with ross (posting above) and say that it is a huge problem in Dubbo. You only need to talk to the locals (i know quite a few) and they will tell you themselves straight up front what the problems are. Everyone is aware of the issues, and Council/Government/Police are trying heaps to stem this problem.

I know of 2 people who have been robbed at this Caravan park, and you only have to drive past the place to gain a feeling of its character. Be ware that there are problems with all the CPs, though not to the same extent. We stayed at the big four one towards the Zoo with its 6 foot + fence, cameras etc and there was a break and enter of a vehicle less than 50m from us that night. It is scarey in this day and age when such a nice area has such a problem as this. The locals say stay away from the NW (?) of the city when staying in Dubbo.

There is/was talk of moving some of the population down to Orange to spread out the trouble, though the locals in Orange would be targeted then. What to do?

Andrew