27 August 2009

August 23 - 27 Broken Hill

This is the second leg of our goal to put 5000kms on Tom before we hook up the van.


We left on Sunday and were very surprised at how green the countryside was - crops, grass, hills, and the trees are all in flower, wattle everywhere too. First stop Junee for a ploughman’s lunch (the last time there it was great) but no; they don’t have it anymore, very disappointed. So we bought some chocolate and licorice anyway.

Stopped at Griffith and went to West End wineries for more tastes and bought another case. This time we kept a list of the ones we want for Christmas.

Our first stop was Hillston motel. Not much to pick from in this town. Spots of rain overnight but it didn’t stay on the ground for long. Ian spoke to the NRMA man and the council about the roads and they said all ok. They haven’t had any real rain for ages. We left Hillston and set off to Ivanhoe. 100kms of dirt road, bad for the first bit but then softened out.


Ivanhoe is a small town and while there we bought some postcards for mum and the girls. The lady was washing the floor of the shop, so I had to wait over in the corner to pick the postcards and then pay for them. Then onto Menindee, more dirt road for another 200km. We pulled over to the side of the road and had lunch and watched a dozen cars pass by. There were also numerous emus, goats, sheep and cattle. They were working on the road and it was bad at first and very rocky, then smoothed out. The landscape varied from desert, to scrub, to trees. There were lots of wildflowers we just don’t know which ones, so I took some photos.


Menindee lakes are empty; we drove to the lookout and couldn’t see any water. Ian wanted to drive down to the bottom over the railway line but I wouldn’t let him so he found another road to go down.

Stayed at Broken Hill overnight. It was very windy driving into BH and also overnight and as we left town the wind was still blowing.



Called into the Wentworth gaol on the way and also checked out the spot where the Darling and Murray Rivers join.






Then thru to Mildura – what huge trees they have in the main street. On the way to Moulamein we saw various vegetation, changing all the time from trees, shrubs, grasses and back again to trees, we also saw what we thought were tumbleweeds. Decided not to stop overnight at Moulamein as it didn’t look very enticing, so we drove thru to Deniliquin.
In the morning we checked out the Ute on the pole (Deni is the ute capital of the 'world') and the Ute covered in mosaics (the Arts school decorated a ute with mosaic tiles and it took them 2 1/2 years), and totem poles in park (don’t know why they were there). Drove thru to Mulwala lakes – dead trees in lake, very spooky, checked out the CPs in Lake Mulwala and Yarrawonga for future trips.



Onto Rutherglen, stopping at Pfeiffer and Cofield wines then into Rutherglen and found a motel. More wineries, All Saints and Morris (Ian found a tokay he would like for Christmas) and later on a great dinner at the Poacher's Pub. The following day we set off for Canberra, there is lots of roadwork along the way (Sturt highway and Albury), dozens of caravans heading south.


Achieved out goal and did 4973kms on the two trips and over 5000kms if you count what we did in between. Next week its off north - YEAH.

18 August 2009

August 2009 11th to 18th

Our trip for July to go north was postponed when Tom blew a piston and needed a new motor. That took a few weeks to organise and on 11 August we took off, without the van, to run in the new motor.

We headed west through Crookwell and stopped there for coffee and a visit to the sock factory. They have a small shop and the back room is the factory, where they make 150-300 pairs of socks per DAY. Wonderful colours and styles for women, men and children. I bought some purple and pink ones for me and some multi colours for the girls. We continued on thru the old village of Tuena, Hobby's Yard and Blayney, to Orange (Ian's home town). The afternoon seen us run through Parkes and to the village of Trundle with its wide main street, which is the widest in Oz. Dusk arrived as we went through Tullamore (lots of T's around this part of the country) and after numerous close encounters with kangaroos we arrived at Tottenham for our first overnight stop.


The hotel was in the middle of town and had a big verandah on top. We were the only guests so we didn't have to line up for the bathroom. We drank wine on the verandah and in the morning had breakfast there as well.





Thursday we set off to get to Quambone (the birthplace of Canberra Times editor Jack Waterford). Jack had frequently referred to his home town in the CT and we were looking forward to checking it out. Unfortunately we were disappointed with the small settlement we found.



We stopped at Bingarra at the Myall Creek Memorial. This memorial is the site of the massacre of 28 aboriginals by 12 whites and resulted in the first conviction in the colony for whites killing blacks. Very well presented memorial and very moving.



After a overnight stop at Inverell we travelled to Sydney by Thunderbolts Way. We visited aunties, cousins, brother and mother. The traffic is terrible in Sydney, I will never complain about Canberra traffic again (well at least for a while).



Sunday we were off to Dalmeny to visit Tracey and Graham for two days. Very relaxing time with them. We went via the Sea Cliffe Bridge - what a engineering feat, out over the ocean.



On Tuesday, on the way home, we checked out some places around the south coast to see if we would like to live there - the jury is still out on that. We arrived home around 2pm and unpacked. To pack up again in a few days for our trip to Broken Hill.

So far we have done 2500 kms on Tom and Broken Hill will bring us up to around 5000kms. Then we can head off with the van - north.