Adelaide / Broken Hill (2019)

After a late sleep in and breakfast we packed up for the trip to Canberra.

Now, Canberra is not on the direct route for this trip, but,as we have a son and daughter-in-law living there, decided to stop there for a couple of days to catch up.

We drove south to Canberra, stopping at Lake George for morning tea. Still no water in it. How many years? Although the wind generators seem to grow well here.

We settled in at the Capital Country Holiday Park (which is actually in NSW) before going out to dinner. We had stopped here before a few years ago and even though the sites are drive-through, they are so skinny that we had problems just getting the awning out.

Springtime in Canberra is always interesting, and with the overnight temperature getting down to 1c, we kept the heater on all night.

We drove into Canberra to visit the Floriade Festival. Only took us 15 minutes to find a parking spot.

Floriade is a great display of flowers layed out in various designs. We were a bit surprised by the overuse of tulips in the beds, but then realised that they would be one of the few flowers that would be in-flower at that time in Canberra. We had the worst ever coffee there at one of the stalls. (We had our own coffee machine in the caravan, but we had got rid of it! Luckily the next stop was Wagga where we could buy a new one.)

After strolling around for a couple of hours we walked along the lakeside for a while as it was a really nice spring day.

We sat on the seats at the end of this jetty looking over to Black Mountain.

Finally we drove up to Mount Ainlsie to take in the views.

Wagga Wagga

Arriving in Wagga around 12.30pm we booked in to the Big 4 Holiday Park that's on the banks of the Mirrumbidgee River.

As soon as we were setup we drove into town to do some shopping and a new coffee machine - not that we were suffering withdrawal symptoms. We had some rain in the late afternoon which brought cold air, but not as cold as the last few nights!

Later in the morning we took the 40km drive to Junee to visit the chocolate and licorice factory. It has changed to being a tourist trap and increased in size.

After that we walked through the historic homestead Monto Cristo. This was restored over many years but has been let go over the last five years and is looking very sad. Seem to be pushing it as a spooky place rather than a historic site and charge too much for what it is.

From there we drove to Coolamon on the way back to Wagga. It's looking really good.

I drove out to the RAAF Base to take a look at the museum and some of the older aircraft on display.

I had to go there early so I could get back to the caravan to watch the Bathurst 1000.

Canberra Bomber

Meteor

I had a small model of this when I was 6 or 7!

Mirage

When we visited Townsville and Magentic Island in 1979, I remember these flying practice sorties, and when we took a boat trip up to Palm Island we had to avoid the bombing range (with encouragement from the Navy)

There had been some rain overnight, but everything was dry when we started packing up. Packing up took some time as several people wanted to stop and have a chat. We left just before 10am to drive to Hay. This a a bit of a change of plan as I wanted to save a day driving to Adelaide. The original plan was to stop at Darlington Point, then Balranald and Mildura, but by adding 100km to the first and 50km to the second day, we could get to Mildura, and then Adelaide, a day early, giving us extra time to stop if we want to at some interesting spot. We got into the park at Hay around lunchtime and then did some shopping in town. By 5pm the park was full of South Australians returning from Bathurst.

Beautiful morning for packup and we headed across the Hay Plains towards Balranald were we stopped for lunch at the information centre cafe and had a long chat to a lady in the information centre.

Another 2 hours saw us arrive at the Rivergardens caravan park at Gol Gol, just short of Mildura. After setting up we drove into Mildura to do some shopping.

Mildura Homestead

Relaxing morning and after morning coffee we went to the information centre and got details on the Chiefly Tour that directs you around all the interesting historical sites in the area.

Later we stopped for lunch at the Art Centre.

The first stop was the original Mildura Homestead next to the river.

Rio Vista

After we visited the Mildura Homestead we walked through the house built by the Chiefly Brothers (who brought irrigation to the Riverina region). The house is called Rio Vista and is beautifully restored by the council.

Psyche Pump

This was the first irrigation water pump, located at Psyche Bend on the Murray River and built by the Chiefly Brothers, that supplied the local farming area.

The boiler and pump house are open a few days a week. Unfortunately it wasn't open the day we visited.

Paddle Steamer Melbourne

This old steamer runs tours and cruises along the river. We stopped to watch it passing through the lock.

I love these old steamers - the smell of the burning wood and hot oil and the engines are beautifully built.

We packed up for the 200km drive to Waikerie. This drive takes us across the border into South Australia where we had a fruit and veg check. None allowed to be brought in because of fruit fly danger.

Renmark

We stopped for lunch at the pretty town of Renmark, another river town.

There are a couple of paddle steamers here, the PS Industry that takes occasional cruises and is at the museum and also the very large Murray Queen that is now floating restaurant and hotel.

Waikerie

Arriving in Waikerie in the early afternoon, we pulled in to a free camp next to the Murray River.

A really nice, spring day and the first day we could relax for the afternoon.

Friday 18 October 2019

Took our time packing up, but before heading to Adelaide we took a look at the silo art in Wakerie.

Adelaide

Being a Friday, the traffic was heavy for our arrival and there were delays on South Road, so it was nice to get on to the quieter roads to West Beach Park. A large park, but with lovely green grass.

The weekend was to be cold and windy, but that's Adelaide in Spring!

From there it was then down to Clayton to look at my old boat club. Reckon I would still love sailing around there.

Next stop was Goolwa to look at the "new" bridge to Hindmarsh Island and to see how the marina had developed over the years, and then to the barrage and the boat ramp. So windy and cold I was wearing a beany. We had a quick stop at Victor Harbour, but it was so windy the horse drawn tram wasn't running.

We took the lightrail into the city and walked around past the Cricket Ground and up to the Mall.

At Glenelg we took a quick walk to the jetty but too windy to stay there.

We booked into the CP after which we walked around town and then drove around to have a look at things. I don't know if it's just a South Aussie thing, but our neighours wouldn't even acknowledge our existence. We have never found that before!

A bit strange.

The tourist board here have a great system. You can rent a key for the day that will open all the various interesting areas, such as the open cut mine (and shaft), the gaol, the miners huts etc..

Today we were driving East for the first time on this trip - towards Broken Hill, with plans to free camp somewhere around Yunta before driving the following day to Broken Hill, but, after we had refuelled at Yunta and didn't really think much of the free camps, we decided to continue on to Broken Hill.

We had to refuel at Yunta, as after that there are no services for the 200km into Broken Hill.

Not a lot of traffic on the Barrier Highway. In fact, over the 350km we were only overtaken by 3 cars!

It was a long day, but resulted in us being able to have an extra rest day in Broken Hill. (Just as well we did because I came down with a virus that took a few days to go away.) We booked into the Tourist Park and went to do some shopping at the supermarket.

In the evening we drove out to the sculpture park to watch the sun go down. Beautiful evening.

The driving tour was excellent and took to all the interesting places. Broken Hill is a mining town and, of course, was the home of Broken Hill Proprietary better known simply as BHP, one of the mining giants of the world.

The town (city!) is still dominated by the original mine waste heap.

On top of this heap they have built a monument to all the miners who have been killed in the mines of the area. This is called the "Line of Lode Miners Memorial".

Over 800 miners have been killed in the mines and the names are all recorded on the memorial.

The cause of death is also mentioned and that makes very scary reading. Examples..

"Fell down shaft" "Caught in machinery"

"Hit by belt" "Hit by rock Fall"

"Explosion" "Fell down stairway"

None of them nice....

The museum is in the old police station and jail.

We took a walk around the town, having an early lunch at the bakery.

The cemetery is rather large, covering around 42 acres!

We drove a bit further out to Munti Munti lookout. A lot of very little out there.

and then to Umberumberka Reservoir that was empty. We understand why there is water restrictions in place!

Pro Hart was a great artist who is renown for painting his Rolls Royce.

Of course, he had two other Roll Royces to drive anyway.

He also loved sculpturing, especially of insects.

Wilcannia

The mighty Darling River was dry!

It wasn't always that way. A couple of the information boards show it in better times.

We had been told to be very careful staying here, but we had no problems and the town was quite tidy and clean.

Tuesday 29 October 2019 (Cobar)

Visited the museum in the morning and walked around the town heritage walk in the afternoon. Talked to our neigbours for a long time. Nice kiwi couple.

The heritage centre that had been the old mine management building had some interesting stuff.

The centre has an old railway carriage that had been used to bring health services to remote areas.

We also had a look at the old open cut mine. It's a bloody big hole!

Narromine airfield was a pilot training field during WWII and is now a general aviation and gliding centre. It has a great museum showing its history.

We drove the 40km into Dubbo and did some shopping after which we drove to Coolah. Sadly the drought continues.

Thankfully the fire that had come so close to our home had not damaged any of our property.