PORT AUGUSTA

PORT AUGUSTA – Wednesday – 25^th May

Pulled into Bird Lake at Port Augusta just to check out which caravan park we might stay at and the Port Augusta  Motor home Park at the back of the Sport and recreational Club was just down the road so we stopped in to have a look and decided to stay.

Caravans are permitted but you have to be self contained, costs only $5 per night or $25 per week, max stay 14 days. There’s a dump point and  a few water taps but you can’t be connected to the water all the time  and there are a couple of power points you could plug into if you were close enough and they weren’t already taken, but that would be an extra $8 per evening. There are four huge rigs parked here and another 7 or 8 caravans/motor homes as well. It’s safe enough because of the numbers to leave your van and head off with the car.   

There are meals at the club Friday and Sat for $8.50 and all the take away you could want is just down the road.

The tourist bureau was really helpful passing on lots of literature coupled with good sound advice and hints.

The shopping centre itself is really cute and we are looking forward to wandering around soon.

BERRI TO PORT AUGUSTA

BERRI TO PORTAUGUSTA Tuesday 24^th May

On our way again, passed through lots of grape vine country and then through almost totally flat land full of salt bush, at least I think that is what it is, never seeing any sign of animal life wild or otherwise. Most of the traffic is caravans or motor homes. We could see lots of derelict stone buildings as we travelled along.

Burra

Burra was a very interesting place with heaps of old stone houses. It was a copper mining area.

Once past Burra the country seemed more luxuriant with sheep and some cattle. Lots of  wind turbines too.

Oraroo stopover

We are camped overnight just past Oraroo at a wayside stop and there are 6 other caravanners  along side of us. Very cold and windy here but we are cosy and spoiled with our diesel heater. (I Know I keep going on about it but I like to brag ha ha).

We have just heard that parts of the Oodnadatta track are closed due to rain, so we will have to wait until Port Augusta to decide just which direction we will go in.

Headed off this morning through the Flinders ranges, fascinating to look back on once you get through.

Flinders Ranges

MURRAY RIVER CRUISE

MURRAY RIVER CRUISE

Saturday 21^st May

We climbed on board the ‘Missy’ at 10 am and until we got off again we had a ball. Trevor from Houseboat Adventure.com.au  was our compare entertaining us with jokes, singing,  karaoke and general fun. He had us dancing the hokey pokey in the aisle doing a bush band bash (Ian played the bass and I played the thingie with the bottle caps on it) and kept us smiling and laughing the whole trip. Morning tea was provided on the boat and a BBQ lunch on the banks of the Murray. To top it off a video was made during the trip and a complimentary copy was given to us. It is an activity we would unreservedly recommend to anyone arriving in this area.

Meanwhile back on shore Ian has been fishing away and a caught a nice fat catfish which had to be thrown back in again as they are protected.

spot the face

Today, Monday, we have had some rain and tested out our rain water collecting gutter system, we got half a tank of water in the short time it rained so we were quite chuffed with ourselves. If you recall I did mention that the water here wasn’t suitable for drinking and although we do have a separate drinking water tank it was good not to pollute the main tanks (just yet at least).

BERRI S.A.

BERRI – 18^TH

In South Australia now, had to dump some vegies at the border at least we didn’t have any more fruit which we had to offload before we got into Mildura.
Berri is a pretty town right on the Murray with so many choices where to camp, although some designated areas in the Murray River National Park were under water still from the last lot of flooding. 

We are presently camped in a great spot at Martins Bend Park which is a council area where camping is allowed free of charge for up to 30days. It is right on the Murray and a very pretty area – again recovering from the flooding though. There are lots of camping spots amongst the trees, you need to be self sufficient as there is no power and only an outside water tap at the toilet block and the water is unsuitable for drinking.

We bought a shrimp net to catch shrimps for bait and a yabbie ‘opera house’ net. So far we have caught quite a few yabbies and cooked some up last night to ‘test’ them out – not bad but rather messy things. The shrimps jump about all over the place when you are trying to get them out of the net and Ian has done a bit of fishing with them but so far no success. We bought some worms too but thinking I was doing a good thing I put them in the fridge to find out next day they weren’t too happy about that –oh well, live and learn.

Tomorrow we are off on a river cruise with a CMCA charter from Adelaide who are staying here too and who kindly invited us along.

We’ve met heaps of friendly people and it’s a real test for the memory remembering all their names.

MILDURA

MILDURA – 16th

A few degrees warmer and lots of sun.  Walked and drove around the town stopping to check out the Murray and the original cemetery and one belonging to a pioneer family, who introduced irrigation techniques brought with them from Canada.

Spent the next day doing odd jobs and getting the car a wheel alignment at Kmart and a repair on the muffler leak left by the last repair, the mechanics there were very helpful and pinpointed where a banging noise was coming from which Ian was able to fix back at the caravan park.

WE'RE REALLY OFF

15^th May Finally Off

Off to Lake Eyre via Mildura. We spent the night free camping at lake Tyrell, lots of space with a view of the Lake and flat ploughed land as far as you could see, just huge paddocks.
A good spot to camp but be warned there are  no loos or rubbish bins etc. Woke up to a very fresh sunny morning, just love the diesel heater, breakie in bed watching Sunrise and waiting until the chill had gone to get up. Another van shared the site with us so we felt quite safe.

MELBOURNE ZOO

MELBOURNE  ZOO

Wednesday, the coldest May day in three years and we took ourselves off  to Melbourne Zoo, we actually had hail, freezing wind and rain but still managed to have a good time. We were rather disappointed with the animal exhibits although the lovely warm butterfly house was a welcome  thaw out and quite delightful. The animals were probably smarter than we were and most likely were holed up somewhere warm.

MELBOURNE & KING TUT

KING TUT’S TOMB

replica of King Tutenkhamen

Today, Tuesday, we went to the Tutankhamen exhibition at the Melbourne museum. Many of the priceless artefacts that were placed in the Tomb 3200 years before Carter discovered them were on display, plus an exact replica of the mummy of King Tut. The articles were in amazing condition and beautifully crafted.  It was a great exhibition, absolutely packed out and well worth seeing. 

TIME CAPSULE

TIME CAPSULE

A casual reading of an article written many years ago led to the finding of a forgotten time capsule placed in the Burke and Wills fountain in Sturt street Ballarat. There was no certainty that the capsule in the form of a bottle filled with coins and papers etc of 148 years ago would even be there, so there was great excitement when it was uncovered. It will be on display for a month and then replaced with extra items from today.

SOVEREIGN HILL

SOVEREIGN HILL

We went to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat today even though it was cool and overcast we had a really good day and recommend to anyone down this way to pay a visit. The whole area depicts authentic life during the early gold rush days of Ballarat. We were there at opening and just managed to fit in the Gold museum (the entrance fee is included) before closing time and had little time to rest. The exhibits and activities were excellent, check out the website to see all available. 
We went down into what was a working mine, saw a real gold ingot poured, peered into and took photos of all sorts of stuff. No paved roads here either just gravel and the natural ground.

The wheel making demonstration quite surprised us, we had just enough time to fit it in towards the end of the day and didn’t really think it would be up to much but it proved to be very entertaining and interesting.

We finished up at the Gold museum where there was lots of lovely gold nuggets, some of them found very recently using metal detectors,  and replicas of some of the famous large nuggets found such as the Welcome Stranger.

If you manage to get here, our advice – don’t dawdle, there’s heaps to do and see and who knows you may find a gold speck or two at the gold panning.

BALLARAT

Cold and raining, why am I not surprised? Well I remember as a young child newly arrived in the city of Ballarat from England thinking ‘wasn’t Australia supposed to be hot?”  Compared to our home town of Bonny Hills, near Port Macquarie, it is a trifle chilly, but what a lovely city it is, beautiful wide streets lined with mature trees showing lots of red and orange autumn colour, streets thickly carpeted with scrunchy fallen leaves, fabulous old buildings and such a history, plus having the honour of being the birthplace of democracy in Australia. We think it’s great and we have only just driven around it and taken a short walk we can’t wait to get out and explore.

We will have a few more days to take it all in than we had intended as we are waiting for a part for the Jeep to arrive for a repair which was missed previously but picked up on the last service. We still have two weeks to go before Ian heads back to Tassie for his check up and then we will be “having fun around Oz” in earnest.

GEELONG

All went well with the birthday with lots of catching up with the rellies and re-acquainting ourselves with Geelong. We had to bus it around for a day whilst the car was in getting a service and  also walked for kms reminiscing over places we used to go when we were kids, courting, married  and early days raising our children.

STARTING OFF

The journey down the east coast to Geelong for Mum’s 90^th birthday was enjoyable but too short and we will have to re-visit the area at a later date. We particularly took to Dalmeny and would recommend the council camping ground there, it is in a very picturesque setting, economical for us oldies and we were made very welcome.