1st - 7th June

Monday 1st

It's still raining and miserable so we decided finally that we had better head for home today. Brian and Colleen also had to leave this morning in a hurry as Brian's mum isn't well - they headed off early while I did my work.

We all trooped over to the laundromat and did our washing, had lunch, etc, before we headed off towards home - we are sure going to miss travelling, but it won't be forever!!

We drove for a few hours and ended up in Cobar for the night - still wet and miserable.

Tuesday 2nd

Still raining so we headed off in the wet and kept heading East. We had just gone through Nevertire near Warren when a warning light came up on the dashboard of the Rover so Ross thought he had better pull off to the side of the road to see what was going on. Unfortunately, the ground was really slippery and before we knew it we were sliding down the side of a slope and ended up in a ditch! As soon as Ross felt it going he gunned it to try and drive out of it but the ground was so slippery it didn't help. He tried driving out once we were at the bottom but we were going nowhere - darn it!! First thing we did was ring the NRMA to explain our predicament and they said they would send someone from Warren to assess the situation and if they couldn't get us out then they would have to send a tow truck and then we would have to pay.

The NRMA was going to be a while so we started getting out our recovery gear to try and work out if we could get ourselves out of this sticky situation. A very helpful local pulled up in his 4x4 and asked us what we were doing down there and that if we had have pulled off a few hundred metres up the road then we wouldn't have had a problem and then drove off - thanks buddy! It is a very quiet road so we didn't think anyone else would come along to help. Fortunately, a couple of guys - 1 in a truck and 1 in a Landcruiser coming in opposite directions saw us and pulled over - they knew each other which helped! They were great. In no time they had us hooked up to the Cruiser and towed us out - caravan and all - not a bad feat - got it all on video. There was a bit of a hairy moment there for a while when I thought the caravan was going to tip, but they made it look so easy - pretty sure they have done that before. We thanked our saviours and gave them our details in case they were ever in the area and we could buy them a beer! Just before they pulled us out the NRMA guy showed up and told us that he had pulled several vehicles out of the same area recently because it is very deceptive and you don't realise how slippery it is. We were all pretty muddy by the end but all in all it all turned out pretty good thankfully!

We kept going and ended up in Warren for the night and got home the next night after a long drive through the Walch mountains.

25th - 31st May

Monday 25th

It is a bit miserable today but we didn't let that stop us. I worked in the morning while the others played with their bows and arrows - don't worry about me guys - I would only snap the bow again anyway!

We were supposed to leave this morning but we are having such a great time here we decided to stay another day - it gets $1 cheaper per night every night you stay here.

We had a great day, wandering around setting fishing lines all over the place - there are certainly plenty of fish to be caught here. We went canoeing again and found another great waterhole where we reckon there will be plenty of fish so we set 8 set lines overnight and will see what we have in the morning!

Tuseday 26th

Well, so disappointed with our new fishing hole - there were only 7 fish on our 8 lines - hehe. One obviously got away!! There were 3 carp and 4 yellowbellies - cool bananas!

We said goodbye to our new friends, Barb and Bill at Bindara Station with a promise that we would return and do some work for them in exchange for board and lodging after we finish our current project, which involves going back to Brisbane for several months to do some property developing with Ross' mate John. John contacted us a couple of weeks back and asked if we were interested and we made the decision to go ahead and go up there and go partners with him - hope we are doing the right thing! Ross has to go back to work full time to get a job and I will do extra work with my work - not really looking forward to going to live in he city again but hopefully we wil make a tidy profit and can earn some extra cash so we can hit the road again.

We took the back road to Menindee which was a fabulous drive, really interesting country, lots of wildlife and just a generally good fun drive (we almost got lost a couple of times too which made it more interesting!). WE stopped and looked at the Kinchega Woolshed which is a big old woolshed from the 1800s. It isn't used any more but you can just imagine the huge numbers of sheep that used to go through it - it's pretty big! After the woolshed we moved along to have a look at the ruins of the paddlesteamer Providence, which is not much to look at because there isn't much left, but it has an interesting story.

We got to Menindee and looked for somewhere to camp and ended up at Pamamaroo Lake, near Menindee Lake, where the only water is still in the area, all the other lakes are dry - pretty depressing driving past dry lakes - guess they could do with some of that rain down here that they have been having up Brisbane/Lismore, etc.

We camped near the weir and played cards but it was FREEZING so we didn't last long!

Wednesday 27th

The only things we managed to catch overnight were four yabbies - hardly worth the effort! Nevertheless, we cooked them up for a snack and left the bucket on the ground with the cooked yabbies in it - much to Boris' delight - luckily he didn't get far before he was accosted!!

We moved on to Broken Hill and Ross and I headed to the laundromat to do some washing. The others were a little bit behind us as they had stopped to help Carol and Des change the fuel filter in their bus along the way. WE all ended up at the information centre and then decided to have some lunch at the The Demo Club which was a bit of a mistake as it wasn't all that crash hot!

We then all went our own way for awhile before we ended up at Norma's place - dad's sister. We had been sending some parcels to her place so we could collect them when we got there and she was telling us all about the troubles she had collecting them, especially since she didn't know how Ross Thomas was as she had never met Ross! She finally worked it out and got all the parcels under control but there are still a couple that haven't arrived yet - hopefully they will arrive soon! We had scones and jam and cream for afternoon tea and watched "Thank God You're Here" and then headed to bed as it was freezing again - apparently it's only going to get worse from here on in - brrrr!!

Thursday 28th

Everyone chuffed off and did their own thing this morning while I worked - I am having tomorrow off so we can go out to Silverton - can't wait for a day off!!

We went and did some sightseeing, including going to the art gallery and seeing Norma's painting she has on display, as well as some other family member who I have never met had a painting on display as well - never knew I had such a talented family!!

After that we went to dad's old neighbourhood and had a look at his old house where he had grown up. I had always wanted to go back there with him to hear all of his memories of the place. Unfortunately the house is an abandoned wreck, but he still had lots of stories to tell, I really enjoyed that. We also went to look at Norma and Bruce's first house that they built, from the ground up, they even made every brick in the place. We also looked at dad's first house he bought. After that we went to "Bell's Cafe" which was there when dad was a kid and he reckons it hasn't changed much, we went in and all had drinks for nostalgia's sake. Ross and I then went up to the lookout and sat on the big chair that overlooks Broken Hill.

Friday 29th

We set out early (for us) and headed to Silverton - what a great little town with a fabulous history. Silverton was the original settlement in the area but when better mining was found at Broken Hill, everyone packed up (literally - they picked up their houses and moved them) to Broken Hill and left nothing much left at Silverton except a few old buildings and the famous Silverton Hotel. That's a great place to visit, they have made heaps of movies in Silverton and all of the memorabilia is on the walls in there. They have made movies like Mad Max II, A Town Like Alice, Razorback, etc, etc. They also have one of the Mad Max cars (replica) out the front. There are donkeys wandering all around the place and we went to the coin place where the guys cuts out old coins which was a pretty fascinating place, and he is a bit of a have a chat!! He is also looking after a baby joey at the moment - apparently he does it all the time and he said this is number 110 and his name is Smoky - very cute!!

WE also went out to the Mundy plains lookout for a look - pretty awesome!!

We also went to the park at Silverton, once on the way in and once on the way out for lunch. They have camping there and they also have a bunch of animals including Sarah the pony and Jack the little Corella who is a toatal maniac and kept us entertained for ages with his singing and dancing.

After Silverton we decided that we might go to the Painted Desert and look at the scupltures. Being the cheapskates we are we were wondering whether it would cost us to get in and while we were discussing it on the radio, a local guy cut in and said that you don't have to pay if you walk in, so we drove there and arrived at the sculptures ready to walk up, only to be accosted by the Ranger telling us that it is $10 per head no matter what!! Grr - we all decided it wasnt worth the money so we headed back and went and looked at an old mine instead that was free to look at!!

Saturday 30th

Dad has an old friend in town called Mickey and he was really excited when he heard dad was in town and as they share birthdays (a couple of days apart), he invited us all around for a BBQ lunch at his place today. Unfortunately, Mickey has Alzheimer's and when we got there he wasn't there - he had obviously forgotten that he had invited us around!! Not letting that deter us we set out to find a park to have our lunch at seeing as we had all the stuff with us. We ended up at Twin Lakes park which is just beautiful and we had a lovely picnic and stroll around the lakes afterwards.

Mickey rang later nearly in tears because he had forgotten all about us so mum and dad went around to see him but didn't stay long because he had to go out for the night. We rounded off the day by playing cards in Norma's back sunroom with the heater going flat out - it's freezing here!!

Sunday 31st

Dad's birthday. We all ended up going out for lunch at ?? can't remember name of club as the weather has turned nasty so we couldn't really have a BBQ or anything. After lunch most of us trooped back to finish our "projects", which is a challenge Brian set for us all to give us something to do and you had to pick up stuff off the ground and make it into something and Norma will be the judge to see whose is the best. Brian is always doing that sort of stuff so we reckoned he would be pretty hard to beat but we gave it a good try. Over the last few days I had been picking up all sorts of different stones and bits of broken glass and even a big piece of bark to make a "stone garden" scene. At the last minute we also bought some pipecleaners to make some people in the garden. When it was eventually finished it, Ross had ended up making a Broken Hill mine as well as a 4wd and a boat on top towing a caravan and I put in two people and a dog and "Twin Lakes" and it ended up being a scene of Broken Hill - we were pretty pleased with our effort.

Brian had made a woman out of bits and pieces, she was pretty hilarious with the ends of shotgun pellets for boobs and a cut up tin can for hair and a broken pair of sunnies, etc. Colleen had made a "Lime Man" out of two limes picked from Norma's garden and some hair curlers for arms and she even knitted him a little beanie - pretty cute! Mum made a weird concotion with a cardboard box and bandaids - supposed to be abstract art??!! Dad had cheated and bought a model plane from the Reject Shop for $3 and Des and Carol put in a miserly effort and came up with nothing!

After long deliberation, Norma awarded first prize to us!! Yay!! WE all had a ball doing it - onya Brian - can always rely on Brian to make things interesting!

18th - 24th May

Monday 18th

We arrived at Graham and Margaret's about 3 ish and the boys went straight to work trying to figure out how we could make a bike rack to carry our bike somewhere on our rig. Margaret had been away at her son's place all week and had just gotten back and was pretty tired so we just had a light tea and let them go to bed.

Tuesday 19th

The boys decided that there is no way to make a bike rack for the bike so we are just going to keep tying it on the front of the caravan for now until we sell the boat somewhere along the line and we will then make a bracket for them to go on the roof. Instead, they made a bracket for the jerry can on the back of the spare wheel which turned out pretty good!

The others (mum, dad, Colleen, Brian, Carol, Des) arrived late in the afternoon and we had a big fire going and we cooked chili con carne and damperfor dinner and lemonade scones for dessert - fantastic!! Some friends of Margaret and Graham joined us for dinner too (Lyn and Geoff) and we all sat around the campfire and had a great night. We are going to Lyn and Geoff's tomorrow night and they are going to put on a campfire and try and outdo tonight's one - should be good!

Wednesday 20th

Well, Geoff certainly outdid himself - what a great fire we had tonight! We had so much food we could have fed twice as many people as were there - we had a great night!

Thursday 21st

Mum, dad, Colleen, Brian, Des and Carol all took off this afternoon and Ross and I will be following in a day or two and will catch up with them somwhere along the line. We are having a great time here and are helping Graham and Margaret with some of their stuff they are getting ready for an exhibition they are having in a few weeks' time. They do tin sculptures, etc (using old rusty stuff found lying around old farms etc) and they do a fantastic job and will be displaying them at an exhibition in Mildura coming up. We also are going to make mum and dad a Christmas present while we are here using Margaret and Graham's tools and materials.

Friday 22nd

Ross and Margaret managed to get a whole bunch of work done yesterday and today to help her get a bunch of stuff done for the exhibition, he loved helping her as he really loves that stuff and she really appreciated the help.

Saturday 23rd

We hit the road by about 8 am and caught up with the others by about 9:30 am ( they had camped by the river near Pooncarie and had put out a white shirt on the road that they had driven down to let us know where they were). We all drove in to Pooncarie and had a cuppa before heading off again.

We drove about 50 km north from Pooncarie before finding a camp next to the river to stay for the night. It is really desolate and harsh country and, having never seen the Darling before, was quite disappointed in it. There is very little flow (only a few feet deep), it is very muddy, it has really long, steep banks with lots of dead trees littering it, but Brian did manage to catch another Murray Cod, so it can't be that bad!

Sunday 24th

The others headed off at about 10ish while we stayed behind for me to finish my work for the day until 11. By the time we got underway the others were ahead of us by about an hour and a half but by the time we got to Bindara Station where we were heading for. Their excuse was that they stopped to smell the roses on the way, had morning tea, had a flat tyre, etc, etc, but we reckon they are just slow.

WE got to the station and were introduced to Barbara, the owner who is a lovely lady and we hit it off right away. The station is a lovely oasis in the middle of some pretty harsh country, the fire was burning, the kettle was on, tea and coffee were supplied. They have a fantastic fireplace with plenty of room for everyone to fit around and chat and cook their meals.

Brian, Colleen, mum, me and Boris went for a walk to the old woolshed - it was a bit further than we thought and I think we ended up walking about 4 kms round trip - phew!!

Ross and I went canoeing in the afternoon with the canoe that they supply for campers while Brian went fishing and got a couple of carp, a Murray Cod and a yellowbelly. We all sat around the fire at night and cooked our meals and then Barb came out and made golden syrup dumplings for everyone! Not bad for $10! There are also hot showers, hot running water for washing up and a sink, a laundry, but no power other than to charge laptop batteries, etc as they are only on solar and wind power out here. They don't have town water either and have to bring drinking water in from Mildura.

11th May - 17th May

Monday 11th

Ross and I rode the bikes in to Lyrup to check the mail this afternoon while mum and dad took the Disco into Renmark for appointments.

The boys are still catching plenty of yellowbellies - we are getting to the stage where we have nowhere else to store them and can't eat them fast enough to keep up - tough life!

Sunday 17th

It has been a great week. For some reason the fish have gone off the bite so Brian is getting bored so he decided to make bows and arrows from the stand of bamboo nearby and we had an arrow shooting competition - girls vs boys! For some reason the girls ended up with a crappy, dodgy bow and the boys had a lovely, nice one - go figure! Anyway, once we wrested control of the good bow we had fun shooting at the barrel and we all did pretty good until it came to my second turn and I must have exerted just a little too much pressure and snapped the bow!! That was the end of that - looks like Brian will have to go back to the drawing board and make new bows!!

There is a pizza oven here too so we made pizzas in it on Tuesday - yummy and we also had a roast done in the camp oven on Wednesday - tough life!

We left after playing cards Sunday night to head to Renmark as I had a hair cut appointment booked for the morning and we will go on to Graham and Margaret's after that. The others will follow on Tuesday. We are going early because Graham has a full workshop and Ross wants to do a couple of things to the car.

4th May - 10th May

Monday 4th

We decided to try and look for a better place to stay than Thiele's sandbar. It is quite a nice place but it is very sandy with nowhere we can park the car/caravan that is not on the sand and sand is getting everywhere in the caravan. We were just about to head off when Ross looked at the places we could drive out and one was really sandy and the other wasn't so much so we decided to go for the sandy part!! (Just for a challenge). We did manage to get temporarily bogged because Ross forgot to put the diff lock on, but after that we were away - it was good to know what the 4x4 is capable of when it comes to towing the caravan.

We found another campsite only a couple of kilometres up the road that wasn't sandy and settled down there to wait for the houseboat to come past tomorrow.

We buggerised around most of the day doing little jobs, etc, waiting for mum and dad and at about 4 pm we decided to ring because we thought they should be here by now. Mum still didn't know what we were up to so I didn't want to spoil the surprise. Well, I reckon I was more surprised when I rang and she told me they were in Loxton already!! How did they get past us?? Well it was all blown by then so I had to come clean - it was pretty funny and we had to try and work out how they got past us. It turns out that when we were moving they passed the spot that we are camped at now and parked about 300 m down the river around a bend overnight where we couldn't see them!! Gah!! Nevermind, we will catch up with them tomorrow in Loxton. We will leave the caravan here and go in and meet them. So much for the surprise!




Tuesday 5th

I did my work in the morning and then we headed for Loxton to catch up with mum and dad. They have Colleen and Brian visiting at the moment - they are going to be travelling with us+mum and dad up the middle of Australia in a few weeks' time when Carol and Des arrive (we will all go up together). We were sitting down having morning tea when we looked up to the carpark and saw Derrick and Robyn pull up who we had last seen at the Yorke Peninsula! Small world! Anyway, we invited them down to the houseboat and the boat needed to go to the "pump-out" station so we took them for a drive - they thought it was wonderful! They are from Tasmania so they said if we get down that way next year we can come and visit them.

Wednesday 6th

Ross and Brian went to check the set lines this morning and came back with a Murray Cod!! They are so rare these days it was a real surprise to catch it. Being so rate they would have put it back excpet that it had already half drowned itself and wouldn't have survived. Most of us had never seen one before so it was a real treat and we ate it for lunch - YUUUUUUUMMMMM!! Heaps better than the yellowbellies we have been eating. Brian has been catching quite a few yellowbellies so we have heaps of fish to keep us fed for quite a while!

Ross decided to try to learn to throw the casting net today and mum and dad had it on video when someone showed them how to do it so he watched then went out to the back of the boat to practice. After several throws he had it pretty much down pat and on the last throw he threw it out and brought in a carp! Pretty hilarious - that would have to be the world's most unlucy carp!!

Thursday 7th

The boys caught another big carp so we decided we might try and cut some fillets off, mince it and make it into fish patties. It was soaked in vinegar for a little while after it was minced and then made some patties. They actually tasted quite good! We made sure we put plenty of other seasoning in it :). So you can eat carp!!

Friday 8th

Mum and dad moved on this morning to go to Berri - they want to go to the markets on Sunday morning. They will stay somewhere near Berri tonight and we will probably go to Martin's bend and stay the night there and then Ross will go to the markets in the morning and meet up with them some time and we will have lunch together later.

When we got to Martin's bend , about an hour or so later a couple of people that we met at Port Parham turned up - sure is a small world! It was fun catching up with them and working out what they had been up to in between here and there.

Sunday 10th

MOTHER'S DAY

We moved on to Lyrup this morning and we all had morning tea with Melva, Tom, Paul and Zager on board as well. We had a lovely morning.

Ross and I cooked lunch as a treat for mum - we cooked chilli con carne. She loved it - yay!

27th April - 3 May

Monday 27th

Rain again ... We did manage to do a few things in between the rain and the sun - what weird weather! It can be raining one minute and lieterally sunshine the next and then rain again within minute and so on and so on - very frustrating!

The caravan park we are staying at is Rangeview as I found out and it has a lovely view of the Southern Flinders Ranges.

Tuesday 28th

We packed up and left in the morning. The weather is a little better today. We drove into Port Pirie for some more shopping, had some lunch and then headed for Crystal Brook which is a lovely quiet little town only about 15 minutes from Port Pirie. We wandered around the shops and used their free BBQ for dinner.

Wednesday 29th

We headed to Gladstone this morning to check out the Old Gladstone Gaol. Gladstone is another lovely little town. The Old Gladstone Gaol was definitely worth checking out. It's $6 each and you get a guided tour. They are still in the process of restoring it but it is still great. You can also sleep there - it's kinda like a motel - only different!

We then headed through Laura (another lovely town) and ended up in Wirrabara - another lovely town! We have been through so many lovely little towns lately - it's just great! They all have lovely, warm people and a great atmosphere, unfortunately the other thing they all seem to have in common is that they are all struggling to survive. In all of these towns many of their shops have closed down and there are only a few shops left open - I really hope they all manage to survie because it would be terrible to lose them.

We camped on the side of the road in a paddock opposite the information centre.

Thursday 30th

This is such a lovely campsite, beautiful green paddock with hills in the background and an excellent park with great facilities right next door.

We headed off to Wirrabara State Forest for the day to have a look around - what a fantastic day we had! The forest itself is the usual forest, but it has this old nursery that is just fascinating, we spent ages wandering around looking at all the different trees that they grew there back in the 1890s that are now giants. They are all labelled and there are heaps of different trees including fig (tried fruit off that was okay), olive (ewwwwwww!!), there were a gazillion types of pine trees, a cork tree, but my favourite was the lemon-scented gums, they had beautiful, smooth pink trunks and the leaves when you crush them smell just delicious!!

After the nursery we headed off to the "King Tree" which is a giant River Red Gum about 400 years old and it's just HUGE!!

We then dedided we were going to head towards Peterborough but on the way saw a few things of interest so we took a detour and went to Magnetic Hill, which is a hill where you stop your care and turn off the engine and it rolls uphill (bit of a farce, it looks like it is uphill but according to our level on the caravan it was actually downhill), but it was fun anyway - can say we have done it now!

Then we headed for Dawson which is a Ghost town north of Peterborough. It was a lovely drive on really good dirt roads. When we got there it was also a bit of a farce because there are still a couple of people living there and only one building that you can actually explore because the rest are locked up (all two of them), but again, it was a fun drive and fun exploring the old tavern so all in all it was a good day.

Friday 1 May

We stayed at a rest stop just outside of Peterborough overnight and went into Peterborough for a look around. It is an awesome town! There are four entrances to the town and each one has a large-scale model train next to the road that was made by a local guy. There is a locomotive engine, a cannon, the information centre was made out of an old railway carriage, museums, etc, etc. It was really intesting to walk around and look at the town. We then decided to go an check out "Meldenfield" which is a place where they make miniature scale models of mostly coaches and carriages from the olden days before cars. When we first went in there I thought it was a great place and was fascinated by all of the models they had made and the detail and trouble they go to to make them exact replicas as well as use the same methods - I thought that was well worth our $3 each entry fee. But then they took us out the back - I was blown away!! This guy, Eldon has been building a replica of the old Peterborough Railway Station for the past 20 months. It is (I think) a 1/12 th replica made using original bricks from the original station cut up excatly to scale, wooden pillars/pillars using the original wood, lanterns, etc, etc. The detail was incredible and it is just amazing the trouble he has gone to!! Very impressive!!

After that we started heading towards Burra and stopped in at "Lancelot" which is more what we would class a "ghost town". It was awesome! The story goes that it was a town that was supposed to be where the junction of all the railway lines were meant to meet. However Peterborough developed and Lancelot died as a result of it. We aren't sure how long ago it was abandoned, but we did find old newspapers dating back to 1959. There are heaps of old buildings, most of which have started to fall down but one of which (we believe it was the old tavern/accommodation) is mostly still standing. We spent ages looking around and had a fab time.

We then called in at Trewoie which is almost a ghost town. It used to be a thriving town and it has some fantastic buildings but due to a change in the railway structure it has almost died.

We ended up in Mt Bryan at a rest stop overnight. What a great day!

Saturday 2 May

We moved on to Burra because we heard there was an antique fair going on so we thought we would check it out. Burra has some beautiful buildings and they have kept them restored wonderfully. We turned up pretty early and there weren't many people around but by about 10 am there were people everywhere!! We couldn't believe how many people were there - where did they all come from? In this part of the world you can drive for 100 kms and not see another car and only the odd house but these people just came out of the woodwork! We had a great day and then decided to head for Lyrup to catch up with mum and dad. We were originally going to go from Peterborough to Broken Hill, but when we looked on the map there is basically nothing to see in between them and mum and dad are going via the Darling (they are heading up to Cameron Corner) so we thought we might tag along. We didn't tell them we were coming - thought we might surprise them but they surprised us because they weren't at Lyrup - they were further up river near Loxton. Never mind, we are camped on a sandbar near Loxton and they will have to drive past us in a couple of days' time - that will surprise them!

Sunday 3 May

Where we camped overnight at Thiele's sandbar was a little too sandy for us so we decided to try and find somwehere else to stay. We ended up finding a nice spot further up the river and pulled up there instead. We went for a swim because we hadn't had a shower for a few days. It was rather cold but it was nice to be clean! Had a great campfire and cooked curried sausages.

20th April - 27th April

Monday 20th

We packed up in the morning and headed for Warooka - we had an easy afternoon and didn't do much :) - hard life. We stayed overnight at the rest area with another couple who had broken down and couldn't move (Rod and Dianne in a big bus towing a 4x4 and boat). We were going to move to the showgrounds where you are supposed to stay but thought we should keep the other couple company and had happy hour with them.

Tuesday 21st

We took the caravan to the showgrounds and left it there and went sightseeing today. We went first to Gleason's Landing on the west coast because we had some information that said there was somewhere there you could have a shower. What we found was that there was a hand pump stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a hand pump that pumped bore water that you could use to shower in - we decided not to go with that option! We then moved on to Corny Point which was quite nice. We saw a pod of dolphins just offshore which was lovely. We then headed down to a nice secluded beach and went for a swim - much better than standing under bore water I reckon! We then drove to a couple of other beaches along the coast and found Flaherty's Beach which was just lovely. There are umpteen spots you could stop and camp in that area but most if it is rough dirt tracks with small campsites so we reckon it wouldn't be very practical taking a caravan in there. You also have to pay $6 per night to camp anywhere down here (except where we have camped of course!) It says in Camps 4 that you have to pay to stay at the campgrounds here but that just aint true! You can even hook up to power for a donation.

We had happy hour with the rest of the campers who were camped in the showgrounds and had a great time - what a great bunch of people! One of them also told us that you can get showers at the CWA in Maitland or Minlakowie - can't remember which one.

Wednesday 22 nd

It took us ages to get on the road today. A lady pulled up travelling alone in a caravan just before we left the showgrounds and we started chatting and that went on and on - lovely person and very brave doing it all on her own.

We took a drive to Hardwicke Bay, Port Minlacowie, Parsons Beach and ended up at Bluff Beach. Bluff Beach is a fantastic little beach and you are not supposed to camp there but we talked to one of the locals and she reckoned that there would be no problem camping there as there was nobody else around. It is the tiniest little village but there is heaps of construction going on so it is growing. We went for a swim at the beach and then had a shower at their outside shower. They also have toilets there.

Thursday 23 rd

It is cold and raining this morning and the weather forecast is for more of the same for the next several days so we are going to start heading north to find somewhere out of the weather.

We drove north and stopped in at a few coastal towns for a look including Victoria Point which reminded us a lot of Ardrossen and it would have been a nice place to walk around except for the weather so we kept going. We seem to have sprung a leak in the caravan - we reckon when the roof popped up and got damaged it might have damaged the roof a little too so Ross will get up and have a look as soon as he can - once we get out of this weather. It is really windy again too.

We went to Moonta and decided we were going to stop there for the night so we stayed at the Information Centre where it said "No Camping" :) It was really windy so we pulled up right next to the information centre to get out of the wind which turned out quite well.

We had a bit of a walk around Moonta and it's quite an interesting little town with some great shops.

Friday 24 th

It isn't raining as much but it is still windy. We have decided we are going to go on the Wheal Hughes Copper Mine Tour which takes you on a tour of an old copper mine. We are booked in for 12: 30 and Boris will have to stay in the car while we go - it only goes for about an hour.

Back from the tour and Ross loved it though I could take it or leave it - mining doesn't really inerest me. We then went around the Moonta Heritage trail for a look at all the old ruins of the mining era around the place - that was more interesting - lots of old buildings to look at and climb over. We could have camped at any number of these old ruins along the Heritage trail but we dedided to move on and drove up to Port Broughton which is a nice little town. We originally parked in front of the pub near the water but being a Friday night there was a lot of noise from the pub and also it was REALLY windy! We moved to a little information sign and camped there which was better.

John and Elaine from Point Parham phoned us tonight - it was lovely to hear from them - they are up on Mildura and thought we might be in the area so we could catch up - not this time guys!

Saturday 25th

ANZAC DAY. We moved on from Port Broughton to Port Pirie. We decided to stay in a caravan park as we have had no sun for several days and needed to top up the power. We are staying at ?Highview Caravan Park and the guy who runs it is really friendly and it is only $19.00 per night for a powered site so we are happy with that. We are booked in for two nights and will see what happens with the weather before we decide when we will move on and where.

Ross managed to get his webcam working and talked to his family tonight - it was great to catch up as we haven't seen them for a few months.

Sunday 26th

Nasty weather again - can't really do much. I have done a bit of washing but it is really hard to get it dry. The weather forecast says it will start getting better as of tomorrow. In the meantime we will just stay put!

13th April - 19th April

Monday 13th

It was like a mass exodus this morning, all the people who had arrived for the Easter long weekend packed up and left this morning and by the time I had finished my work and walked outside they were all gone - the place was practically deserted! It was really good though, with the amount of people who were here, we all got on well and made new friends and everyone was friendly and easy-going - it was a great weekend. Our new friends Neil and Mary also left this morning which was quite sad as we got on really well with them - hopefully we will catch up with them again somewhere along the line.

I cooked my whiting on the bbq for lunch - yummy!

Tuesday 14th

Ross had to head into town first thing this morning to take the 4wd in for a service and will probably be gone all day so I spent the morning working, then did some tidying up, washed the clothes and then went hunting for worms and pippis for bait for when I go fishing this afternoon. Boris helped with digging the worms again - still trying to work out whether he is more a hindrance than a help!

Some new people turned up, Waynd and Colleen and John and Elaine and they are really nice and we had a good chat. Wayne and Colleen are first-timers as far as free camping goes - they couldn't have picked a better spot to start!

I went fishing and without Ross here to keep him under control Boris insisted on coming with me and swam around and around and around me and kept trying to grab the fishing line and anything else he could get his teeth on - what a pain! Pretty funny though :) . Wayne and co saw what was happening so called him back for me but I still didn't catch any fish worth keeping.

Wednesday 13th

Man it got windy last night! No idea where it came from but it blew a gale! Ross and I had to scurry out in the middle of the night to batton down the hatches! We were too scared to pull the awning in in case it got away from us so we had to settle for tightening the ropes and putting extra ropes on. Our poor old "pop up" shower copped a hammering so we pulled that down but the rest had to wait till morning.

The wind had settled by this morning and everything managed to survive - phew! We might have to be more careful in future and make sure everything is put away every night in case the wind comes up.

We went out and dug for more worms this morning with John and Elaine while Wayne and Colleen went out for crabs with their new rake they bought in Dublin. We got heaps of worms for a change (with Boris' s help of course) and Wayne and Colleen caught a bunch of crabs - way to go guys!

John and I are the only ones keen enough to get wet to go fishing so we took off a little earlier than we should have (we worked that out once we were already in the water) so we spent a bit of time hunting crabs that were swimming around in the water with us. John managed to snag a crab with his hook on his fishing line so be brought that one in but they are a little hard to catch with just fishing hooks - we reckon you need a net - might try that tomorrow. I took a couple of photos of the crabs under the water - pretty cool! We used the scraps of the crabs that were eaten the night before for burley but we still managed only to catch one whiting (or John caught it) that was of legal size - it was fun though. Maybe all the guys that were here over the Easter long weekend were right and you only get the big ones around the full moon.

We had dinner with "the gang" over at the BBQs and at all the crabs they had caught and had a great night.

Thursday 14th

It was a bit chilly today so nobody went out crabbing or fishing.


This afternoon Elaine and I went in to Dublin to get some grog supplies (very important!), we went in Elaine's car and when we got there she asked me to get her purse out of the back seat - guess what - it wasn't there! She had left it back at the caravan! Never mind, I paid for a box of beer and we will go halves and she will pay me back later. I don't think she will ever live it down though - everyone gave her a hard time when we got back to camp.


Friday 15th

We said goodbye to both Wayne and Colleen and John and Elaine this morning. They are both heading in different directions and we are also packing up and going today, but not really sure where we will end up. We might see them somewhere along the road again - who knows? We have had a great time here but it is time to move on and see what else is out there!

We were just about all packed up ready to go when Margaret and Andrew, a (Scottish?) couple we had talked to about a week ago when they drove in to have a look at the campsite turned up with their caravan and we all started chatting, had a cuppa, etc and by that time it was getting late so we decided to stay another night!! They only live about a half an hour away and didn't know about this campsite so they thought they would come and and camp here for a while to see what it's like. Lovely couple.

Another couple also turned up who seem like they would be good to talk to - closer to our age but they are heading off in the morning so we got their details as they are heading roughly in the same direction as us so we might catch up with them somwhere along the line.

Saturday 16th

Ross took off to try his hand at some crabbing this morning with our new rake we bought. I stayed back to finish off my work and then headed out to join him. We came back and by the time we sorted through them to take out the ones that were too small, we ended up with 15 crabs - not bad for a morning's work! I took the bucket out to take the small ones back (apparently you aren't supposed to do that, you are supposed to sort them as you are collecting them). The water was about a kilometre out by that stage so it was a long walk and I remember being told that the Razor Fish were a long way out so I spent the next hour wallowing around looking for Razor Fish - I managed to stumble over two but that was all - must be doing something wrong!

We started to cook the crabs and realised that we had no idea how long to cook them for so we asked one of the campers who was walking past and he happened to be very knowledgeable about the process and told us exactly how to cook them and for how long - obviously we picked the right guy to ask! He also told me that the Razor Fish are much further out than where I was today - about twice as far - blow that!

The fisheries ranger came around after that and despite what everyone had told us he was very friendly and helpful and even gave us some measuring stick for the crabs. He made sure we knew how to measure them and how to look for the females with eggs.

We decided to go fishing for whiting again tonight but the tide wasn't coming in as far as it had been so it wasn't very deep and it was cold and windy so we gave it up for a bad job after about half an hour and no fish.

Sunday 17th

We are definitely leaving today!! We packed up after I finished working, said our goodbye's to everyone and then headed off to the Yorke Peninsula. We stopped in at Ardrossen for a look as we had been gazing at it across the water for the last two weeks and wanted a closer look. There is a big long jetty going out into the water there are there were hundreds of people fishing off of it! We couldn't believe how busy it was! According to one of our camp books there was a camp site at Tiddy Widdy Beach which is just near there but when we went to have a look we couldn't find it so guessed it was closed. It didn't look like a very inviting place to camp anyway.

It was getting late so we decided to head to Maitland where there is an overnight rest stop with toilets. We thought we could stay there the night and then work out where to go after that. We had a bit of a walk around town and without anything else to do watched a movie and went to bed - not a very exciting town!

6th April - 12th April

Monday 6th

After I fisished work we headed into town to do a bit of shopping and look for a couple of things that we had been wanting to get for a little while. Ross had already rang to find out about getting his car serviced and found out that it couldn't be done until after Easter - a week away! Darn it! We found a campsite that is about an hour north of where we will get the car fixed so we will head up there when we can.

By the time we did all the running around we needed to do we had run out of time and we still hadn't got to Whitworths which is in Port Adelaide, so we camped the night right on the water at Port Adelaide ready to go to Whitworth's in the morning. We were really surprised by Port Adelaide, we thought it would be a thriving area but it is dead! They are planning on tearing down a big old building right on the water and make it fancy apartments etc, so not sure if that will bring the place back to life or not.

Tuesday 7th

After work we did a bit of shopping and headed off to find a new campsite for the next week. Being Easter we need to get into somewhere soon before everyone turns up for the holidays. We found a really nice campsite called Port Parham near Dublin that is right on the beach. It is right in the middle of nowhere but we were really surprised to find how many people were camped here already.

The beach is really weird and is VERY shallow, so much so that even with the tide right in it is only half a meter deep and when the tide goes out you have to walk for about a kilometre before you hit the water - we have never seen anything like that before. Also, when the tide comes in it comes in a walking pace - weird!

We made friends pretty quickly with the neighbours and had happy hour before it got too cold to stay outside. The weather is definitely turning into winter now. It is strange, only a week ago the whether was sweltering hot and now it has turned freezing! The nights are really cold and there is a really cold wind blowing here at the moment.

A couple of German people turned up after dark in a station wagon so I went over to say hello to them as they seemed to be without much in the way of gear - they had a station wagon - that's it - no tent, no roofracks on the wagon, just a couple of chairs and a little burner to cook their food. I reckon they are pretty brave. They have been travelling around that was for several months and still have another seven months to go doing the same thing - just goes to show you that you don't need nearly as much gear as everyone reckons you do and I started to think about all the stuff I have with me that I dont really need!

Wednesday 8th

A couple of the guys were going crabbing this morning so Ross, Boris and I decided to join them to see what it was all about. They all had proper dive boot-type footwear (including Ross) but I didn't so I wore my crocs - aaggh!! I didn't realsie that it would be so muddy and I kept getting stuck in the mud and losing my shoes - it was really hard going. The ocean isn't supposed to be muddy! I think because it is so shallow the mud doesn't get washed away? Anyway, you take a metal rake and wade through the mud and slush and weeds and when you come to a bare patch of sand you rake around and if there is a crab in there it will grab onto the rake and then you put it in a bucket! It was pretty fun and we caught a few crabs (blue swimmers). Lots of them were too small and we had to put them back but the group of us ended up with 12 in total which is probably not a lot but we had fun doing it.

There were professional crab-catchers out there picking up crabs too - I don't think that I had THAT good a time that I would bother taking it up for a living but I reckon if I got my hands on a set of waders (gumboots attatched to rubber pants) I would do it again. We cooked the crabs up and I had some for dinner - YUMMY!


Thursday 9th

When we woke up this morning there was a van parked near us but we didn't know when it came in or who was in it and we didn't see any movement for most of the day. After lunch a young guy finally emerged and we started chatting to him and found out that his name is Hadleigh and he comes from England and is here for a few months travelling around by himself. He had a few problems the night before with finding the camping area he was going to originally wsa closed for renovations, problems with his GPS and finding this place, etc, etc and didn't end up getting into here until 2 am - no wonder we didn't hear him! He is a lovely guy and we got on well with him and he liked Boris which is very important!! He unfortunately didn't have a doona with him and had been pretty cold last night so he is going to go into Adelaide and get one and then possibly come back here if he can't find anywhere else to stay.

Well, it's Easter weekend and late this afternoon a bunch of people started turning up to stay here for the Easter break - we thought it was pretty busy before - we are packed in like sardines now!! What a popular little spot!!

We had a BBQ with Neil and Mary tonight which was great - they are a great couple and we get on well with them.

Hadleigh came back fairly late and had bought himself a doona and a couple of other goodies including a new little single gas burner that we had a bit of trouble getting going initially but eventually Ross got his screwdriver out and got it going!

Friday 10th

Hadleigh took off this morning, he is heading down the Great Ocean Road - I hope he has a great time and meets lots of nice people along the way.

We had an easy day and had happy hour and played cards with Neil and Mary this afternoon.

Saturday 11th

I decided that it was the thing to do to go fishing for whiting as it seems that's what everyone else comes here for. Apparently the best "free" bait is worms which you dig up from the beach. I reckon that looks like too much hard work so I tried plastics. Guess what? They don't work! I waded out with the rest of the boys and Boris came too but he proved not to be at all helpful when he chased the line every time I cast it out and when he couldn't catch the bait he resorted to trying to chew on the line!! I ended up sending him back - wonder why??!! Anyway, I didn't even get a nibble so it looks like I am going to have to do it the hard way tomorrow - darn it all!

Sunday 12th

Neil, Ross and I (accompanied by Boris) went looking for worms this morning. It actually wasn't nearly as hard work as it looked and was quite fun, especially when Boris decided he was going to help and started digging as well! There were also a couple of kids who were there helping us as well.

When we went over to the BBQ's for lunch there was a guy there who had just brought back a bunch of "Razor Fish" which aren't fish at all, they are more like giant mussels or something and the bits he was throwing away we decided to keep and try to see whether they would catch whiting as well.

About mid-afternoon Neil and I hit the water to go fishing. Because the water isn't very deep you just wade out as far as you like and throw your line in - there are always heaps of people out there doing it and they all have their special gear like waders and floating buckets - looks pretty funny actually! Neil and I had a secret plan that we reckon was going to catch us a million whiting. The guy who gave us the Razor Fish guts also lent us his floating bucket too as well as all the scraps of the Razor Fish. We took all the scraps out and dumped them near where we wanted to go fishing and then moved away and cast our lines towards where we dumped the Razor Fish. Well, as soon as the line hit the water the fish were jumping on our lines!! It was awesome! I had two hooks on the line and I pulled in two fish at a time!...... That lasted about 5 minutes and then we worked out that we had made a bit of a blunder because the tide was still on it's way in and we started getting a little more wet than we planned - darn it!! We had to move closer in to shore and we lost our secret advantage. We didn't catch any more fish after that but we were getting plenty of bites and had a great afternoon.

Once the mighty hunters returned from their fishing trip we had showers and headed down to the local club/pub for $5. 00 fish and chips. They were quite nice fish and chips and the meal was so big I couldn't eat all mine - not bad - a pretty good day all round I reckon!!

30th March - 5th April

Well, we've had a great week. We left the houseboat Thursday morning after staying the last night in Berri just outside the pub. We moved on to Mannum to visit with some old family friends who we have known since we were little tackers - John and Jan Doughty who used to be our neighbours when we lived on the farm in Echunga.

We had a great time visiting with them and caught up on 30 years of gossip! They live on their housbeat and are currently caretakers for the place they are going to be putting the new marina for Mannum.

On Friday they very kindly offered to babysit Boris for us so we could go and visit the Monato Zoo where they keep African animals. I have always wanted to go on safari in Africa but of course could never afford it so I reckon this is the next best thing! We had a great time and I reckon the price is pretty good for what you get. You pay $22.00 per person and you get to go on a coach tour with a commentator who tells you all about the animals. You drive right through their paddocks and they come up to the bus - it was great - especially the giraffes. There are walking tracks so you can walk around and see them all yourself or there are shuttle buses that take you around and drop you off and pick you up. It was a great day out.

I just love how they build houses around here - there are so many gorgeous old stone houses, outbuildings, etc, etc built out of stone and they are just fantastic - love them!

The next day we said goodbye to Jan and John and headed for Hahndorf followed by Echunga - my old home town via Birdwood - Ross wanted to go to the National Motor Museum - of course. He reckoned it was just ace and I sat in the car babysitting Boris and doing some work on the computer. When he came out, I asked for fish and chips so while I finished up my work Ross walked across the road to Cafe Blumberg and got fish and chips - I reckon they were just about the best fish and chips I had ever had!! YUMMY!! If you ever go there you have to get some. I went in and told the owner how good they were and she said that they go to a lot of trouble to get them that way and do all sorts of special things to make them the best - I was pretty impressed!

I hadn't been back to Echunga for about 30 years and I was only 10 when I left so I didn't remember all that much. We walked around Hahndorf for a couple of hours - a great touristy place that is an old German town and has heaps of great shops - I reckon the best one was the candlemaker - I reckon I could have taken half his shop home with me!

We drove around Echunga which still looks exactly the same as it did when I was a kid! We then went out to our old chicken farm which has definitely changed and then walked around the old gold mines that we used to play in when we were kids - it's a bit different now - they have fences all around the mines and they didn't when we were kids - if you want to know a funny story ask one of my family about the guy who fell in one of them on his motorbike!

We camped the night at the parking area for the gold mines and are planning to walk up and see the people in our old farm to see if they remember us!

Sunday 5th April

Ross wandered around the gold fields again while I did some work, there was a big tunnel that you could go down that we spotted yesterday but you needed a light, so he went back this morning to check it out and guess what? He forgot his light! He went through anyway but didn't see much of course. When I finished working we both went back and took torches this time - it is about 80 metres long and it was pretty interesting. Following that we went down to our old farm to introduce ourselves. The people who are living there now are the Van Doorns? (something like that) and they had been there for about four years and didn't know too much about previous owners. Nevertheless we had a great conversation and I told them about what used to be where, etc. The farm has been broken up and there is an extra house further down the hill where one of the chicken sheds used to be and I think there is only one or two sheds left, all the others had been pulled down (or fell down).

After that we headed off towards Adelaide as we want to go to Adelaide tomorrow sometime so we wanted to find a place to camp nearby. We stopped at McLaren Vale at a little roadside stop near the information centre that had free BBQ's and toilets, etc.

23rd - 29th March

Well, we finally got the caravan back! Yay! We went and picked it up on Friday and brought it back to the place we have the housboat docked up river from Berri. Ross has a few jobs to do on it before we get underway again and we have to reorganise it - again.

We had a great week as usual, never running out of things to do. We have caught a few big carp and we usually take them up onto the bank and chop them up to make sure they are dead and so the kites can pick them over. One morning when I got up to do my work I actually saw the kites picking at the fish just about 2o feet from me and I got some footage of it too - pretty awesome!

We have some more visitors who arrived yesterday - Judi and Reg who we have known since I was a little tyke and I used to babysit their two girls.

16th - 22nd March

Well, another exciting week on the houseboat and another week gone by without us getting the caravan back. We have spoken to both the insurance company and the people who are fixing it and it looks like it will be another week before we get it back so mum and dad will have to put up with us for another week!

It has been an interesting week with lots of swimming, fishing, cycling, exploring in the tinny, happy hours and taking in gorgous sunsets.

The weather has been extremely variable. It has mostly been hot and sunny and beautiful weather for swimming, but we have had days where it is really windy all day, only for it to calm down to a beautiful, calm night where we go up on the top deck to play cards and watch the sun go down and for it to be hot enough that you can hardly get to sleep at night, only for it to come up with a huge wind storm in the middle of the night and turn cold enough for you to want to snuggle under all the blankets you can find. The good thing about that particular spot though (Booky Creek) was that it was the best fishing we have had the whole time we have been on board. It seems unbeliveable but we have hardly caught a fish the entire time we have been on board (can't even lose a bait). We caught a great big yellowbelly as well as some huge carp. We cut the carp up and leave it on the bank for the kites to eat.

This morning I had a bit of a nasty surprise when I got up early to do my usual work only to find out that the internet woudn't work. After playing around with it a bit for awhile I decided to get Ross out of bed who had hardly slept a wink because of the storm and he played around with it for awhile and couldn't get it going either. We had just moved to a new spot from the night before so we hopped on our bikes and went back to the spot we had been the night before where the internet had been working fine to see if it was the phone or the Telstra that was playing up and it turned out it was the phone - bumma! We were out in the middle of nowhere so there wasn't much we could do about it at that stage so we just got underway when we could and decided to head into Berri. Ross and I took off in the tinny and went into town but being a small country town and it being a Sunday, there wasn't much we could do about the phone so we decided to go to the pub where we were going to moor outside of and see if we could organise some wireless internet. As we were heading to the pub we noticed mum and dad coming in so Ross ran down to help tie it up while I went to the pub to find out about the internet. Ross got to the boat and mum and dad threw him the rope and as he was tying it up his foot slipped and he went over the pier and straight into the water - phone, wallet, GPS and all! If the phone wasn't broken before I reckon it will be now! Luckily the GPS was waterproof and the wallet - well it will dry out!

9th - 15th March

Well, we have had a lovely week on the houseboat. We have swum heaps in the river, fished (no bloody fish here), played cards, puttered around to different camp sites, etc, etc.

Ross went into town with dad in the tinny and they came back with a brand new pushbike for me that they had bought from a place that was closing down for $30.00 and apparently it was worth about $200.00+. It had been written off because there was a bit of a bend on one of the back frame bits but the boys reckon they can fix it!

WE have spent lots of time wandering around Renmark and Berri and went to lunch with Bob, Marian, Melva and Tom at a lovely little pub on the riverbank that overlooked a beautiful area where there were hundreds of black swans camped out.

Ross and I slept on the roof of the houseboat one night - it was just lovely. We were going to do it again the following night but it came up all windy and cold so we moved downstairs again.

WE have only caught one yellowbelly worth keeping which jumped on the line at 2am one morning. I heard the bell going off and got Ross up and we brought it in and decided to keep it but remembered dad telling us you needed to kill and gut them straight away for some reason. We couldn't find a thing in the dark but managed to get the job done eventually and found out in the morning that dad had a net we could have put him in overnight that would have kept him alive until the morning and we could have done it then rather than in the middle of the night! Oh well, we will know next time.

Bob and Marian left during the week to head home and Tom and Melva left this morning (Sunday) so it is back to just us four again. Mum and I play Sudoko on a big board sometimes and we play cards and generally keep ourselves occupied.

We still don't have the caravan back and it won't be until sometime next week now obviously - hopefully it won't take too much longer!

2nd - 8th March 2009

Monday 2nd

There are a whole bunch of juvenile white cockatoos here (they don't have their crests yet) and they get up to all kinds of shenanagens. They are pretty funny to watch - they are also quite noisy! We got the boat off the roof for the first time this trip to take a little fishing trip. We didn't really expect to catch anything because we really don't have the right bait, etc to catch anything but we thought it would be fun to try anyway - guess what!!?? We didn't catch anything :). Never mind. It was a lovely boat trip around the lake, there is a lovely cool breeze out there and it was an interesting ride. As I said, the birdlife is so abundant, but the lake makes for an eerie landscape with all the dead trees sticking up out of the water, it's quite a bizarre site.

Tuesday 3rd

The weather turned a bit lousy over night - quite windy and a few speck of rain. This is a really dusty place and dust is getting in everywhere! We decided to move on and see what other places we could find that might not be quite so dusty.

We said goodbye to our new friends Laurie and his wife Merle from Sorrento and Laurie's brother Pat and his wife Margery from Kialla (Shepparton). We got on really well with them and it would have been nicer if we had more time to spend some more time there with them but we need to get to Renmark within the week and there is a lot to see and do between here and there.

We drove towards Echuca looking for a new campsite. The weather had settled down a little and we went into Christie's Beach (Camps 4) to have a look around. It is a great spot and it has toilets but it was still early so we decided to keep on going. We eventually pulled up at Echuca and were going to camp opposite where the Paddle Boats pull up for the night but when we were sitting down eating our fish and chips that we got from a little takeaway store boasting "Best Fish and Chips in Town" (hate to think what the worst were like!), a guy walking his dog came up and said hello with his dog "Timmy", a lovely labrador X that Boris actually got on with, and told us about a spot at the boat ramp where there is an off-leash area for the dogs to run in and you could go swimming there too. We were pretty hot and bothered and dusty by then and were definitely due for a swim so we headed down there. It is a great big area with signs up saying "No Camping" but there was another caravan there so we stopped and chatted to the guy and he told us that he has camped there before and had no problems - you just don't put your annexe out so it doesn't look like you are camping. We went for a well-earned swim and then settled down for the night, only to have the wind come up pretty hard again and we were parked under some trees so Ross got out and moved us out into the open so we didn't get hit by any falling branches.

Wednesday 4th

It was 6 am (still pitch black) when all these cars started turning up out of nowhere and the people were making a whole lot of ruckus. They weren't making the kind of noises that drunk people make so that made us feel better but we were thinking to ourselves "what on earth are all these people doing her in the middle of the night?" (well 6 am IS pretty early!). We listened to what they were saying and found out that they were "Bootcampers" here to do their morning exercise! There were about 20 cars so it was no small group. They eventually moved off and we went back to sleep only to have some great big noisy machine pull up near us and start shredding tree limbs that had fallen on the ground! We gave up after that and got out of bed.

We had planned that I would work and Ross would go and look at the Holden Museum and find out whether there was anything else worthwhile looking at while we were here. We decided to move the van into the sun to get solar and I noticed the wheels on the caravan making strange noises so I told Ross. He decided it was the bearings so he got down and dirty and pulled the wheel off while I worked. Unfortunately he dropped the bearing in the dirt and couldn't find any grease to clean it with so had to walk into town to buy some. By the time he got back and finished putting the wheel on I had finished my work so we got underway. A couple of the locals (including the council guys) came over to see if they could give us a hand but Ross had it all under control.

Before we left Echuca we decided to have a wander around the Port area, which is great, a bunch of old buildings in a type of arcade with a blacksmith and a woodturner, etc. The thing we found great about Echuca was that all the buildings with any historical significance have plaques on them explaining their history, so it is really nice just wandering around reading all the plaques on all of the old buildings.

Ross decided to go and see the National Holden Museum before we left too, which I wasn't really all that interested in so I stayed in the caravan and read a book and babysat Boris.

We have been driving through dust storms for the past couple of days - it has been very windy with big gusts of wind and there are great clouds of red dust that cover half the horizon - it is quite an awesome site - it kind of looks like smoke haze but it is red.

We got underway eventually and stopped at Lake Boga, a rather unfortunate little town that was obviously once quite a prosperous place located on a lake but there is no lake any more. I found this article that might explain what happened there better:

Lake Boga was once famous for fishing, swimming, yachting, and speed boat racing. But due to the ongoing drought and reduced water allocations, the lake is now dry.
Over 500 people live in the township by the lake, and many of them work in industries that rely on tourism related revenue.
But during last summer the lake dried up, and misfortune of biblical proportions seemed to descend on the town.
Around 10,000 fish died and the smell of rotting fish soon covered the town. Gnats also infested the area and the local tourism industry was severely affected.
Now winter is almost over, but the lake is still completely dry.
Locals say they have even seen cars being driven across the cracked lake bed. This would have been unimaginable when the Lake Boga Yacht Club was created in 1936, but now the yacht club seems like a symbol of more prosperous times.

It was pretty tragic. Anyway, just before we were about to hop in the van and keep going Ross noticed that the top was up on the caravan, which of course it shouldn't be! We went inside to investigate and found that all the straps that hold the pop top down had busted! Apparently one of those big gusts of winds I was talking about had gotten hold of the roof and ripped all the straps off and we had been driving with the roof up! Needless to say that is not a good thing! We managed to get the roof down although it was a little skewiff and Ross rigged up some more straps to hold it down until we got into Swan Hill to try and get some help. We were about 10 kms out of Swan Hill. About 5 km on the top popped up again! We got it down again and kept driving until we reached Swan Hill at about 6:30 pm. Obviously it was too late to get anything done at that stage so we camped overnight and are going to take it to the caravan repair place in the morning.

Thursday 5th

We woke up in the morning and were in the process of having breakfast when a friendly local came past with his dog. Knowing what Boris is like we put him in the caravan but "Trev" the friendly local said his dog would be fine with Boris so we let him out. They didn't eat each other which was quite surprising! We gave Trev a cuppa and had a chat and then headed off to get our caravan looked at.

The guy had a bit of a look at it and reckoned it would be a write off - all the cross bars that hold the roof up are bent and it has bent the roof too and it doesn't close properly. If it was going to be written off we would have to wait for an inspector to come and look at it and apparently that would take about a week and we didn't want to take that long so we rang the NRMA who we are insured with and told them we would take it on to Mildura which is a bigger town and closer to where are are supposed to meet mum and dad. Apparently I also have some cousins who live near Mildura who might be able to help us out.

The next problem was how to keep the roof from flying up again before we reached our destination so Ross solved that problem by buying a big red strap and strapping it around the whole caravan! It looks like it has a big red ribbon around it!

We rang mum and dad to let them know what had happened and mum seemed to think it was pretty hilarious for some reason and had to pick herself up off the floor after she finished laughing about the big red ribbon. Ross’ mum was a little more suitably concerned. In my mums defence she knew we were okay before she started laughing.

We got to Mildura with no further problems and went and saw the caravan guy. He reckons it is fixable and told us to bring it back next week. So it looks like we will be staying in Mildura for a couple of days. Mum told us to go and visit my cousin who I have never met who lives close to Mildura so I rang him and we will go there tomorrow for a visit. We had a bit of a look around and a swim in the Murray River before settling down for the night in a little carpark at the back of some place called "Pots and Foundtains" or something like that. There are toilets in the park and it is not far from the river.

Friday 6th

I worked to 11 am and then we went to Red Cliffs to have a look at "Big Lizzie", which was an enormous tractor used to clear vast expanses of land around the river at the Red Cliffs soldier settlement. It was the biggest tractor ever made with a top speed of just two miles an hour and weighed 60 tonnes. It was huge!! Quite interesting to go and have a look at.

We worked out that Monday is a public holiday here so we won't be able to drop the caravan off until Tuesday so we went back to the guy and asked if we could drop it off earlier and he eventually gave in and will let us drop it off in the morning instead of Tuesday so we will meet up with mum and dad tomorrow afternoon on the houseboat in Lyrup where they moor it.

After that we did a little shopping and then headed off to see my previously never met cousin - Graham and his wife Margaret who live at Pomona. Pomona doesn't exist on our GPS so we had to get there the old fashioned way - fancy that!! They have a lovely 10 acres right in the middle of acres of grapevines. The country around there is very hostile and barren, but they have spent a lot of time planting heaps of native trees, etc to make their block lovely and green. There is still a lot of work to be done but they are doing a great job. They also grow all their own vegies and they do "Scrap Metal Art". The go to scrap metal yards and old farms, etc and gather up all sorts of scrap metal and then turn it into all sorts of weird and wonderful things. They are so talented and they have a wonderful imagination - it's amazing what they can make! We had dinner with them and got to know them and we reckon they are just wonderful people.

Saturday 7th

We took off in the morning and headed for Lyrup and got there about 2 pm. We spent the afternoon unpacking the 4WD, fishing (no fish in this damn river) - we were trying out our new lures but dad has had the lines in the water with fresh shrimp on them for a couple of days and hasn't even had a bite. We went for a swim and then played cards with mum, dad, Bob and Marian (firends of mum and dad's who have been visiting them on the houseboat for a couple of weeks.

When we were swimming mum was just getting in the water and had the "noodle" (long, thin floaty thing) in between her legs and she was on the swim ladder and Boris was on the swim deck. As she was climbing down the ladder the noodle got enticingly close to Boris so he said thank you very much and grabbed it thinking it was being offered to him as a play toy. He was very offended when we had to wrestle him to the ground to get it off of him before he destroyed it! Mum couldn't work out why I was laughing so hard when I saw the whole thing unfolding.

Boris just looooooves the housboat, he spends most of his time in the water when he can. We throw the ball off of the back and he jumps in off the swim deck, grabs the ball then climbs back up the swim ladder ready to go again.

Sunday 8th

I worked till lunchtime and then we got the boat out and we all had goes on the inflatable tube that gets towed behind the boat - it was great fun!! Dad was the only one who managed to fall off and that was only because he was trying to show off! While we were trying to get dad back on the tube, we were about 300 m away from the bank and both Ross and I were in the boat which Boris was not happy with. Unbeknowns to us in the boat, when he saw us stopped, Boris decided it was a good time to try and join us and started swimming out to the boat! He got about half way out there by the time dad got back on the tube and we took off again (we still didn't know he was out there). Poor old Boris was left in the middle of the river all by himself and didnt know what to do!! He eventually decided to go back to the boat but he certainly had a great swim!

We played cards and then finished off the afternoon with another swim, happy hour and more cards.

23rd February - 1 March

Monday 23rd

It was a beautiful day and we did lots of walking, etc. I made up a big batch of curried sausages that should last us a couple of days.

We all trooped up to have Happy Hour at the designated time but had only been there for about 10 minutes when a big storm front hit us and everyone scurried away to batten down the hatches! There went the afternoon! We amused ourselves for the resto of the evening by watching DVDs - not nearly as exciting as chatting to the neighbours, but what can you do?

Tuesday 24th

The morning was bright and clear and beautiful. After I finished my morning's work, we headed on into Bathurst to drive around Mount Panorama - I mean if you go to Bathurst you HAVE to drive around Mount Panorama - right?!!

We also went into the Bathurst Racing Museum which Ross found very exciting and he wanted to pack up everything and get a job there and stay there forever but I managed to persuade him otherwise :).

We managed to have a great Happy Hour with a bunch of residents this afternoon without getting rained on.

We are going to move on in the morning and see what other wonderful places we can find.

Wednesday 25th

I did my work while Ross packed up (sounds like a good plan to me!). We went and said goodbye to our new friends and headed off at about lunchtime. We went through Carcour, Cowra and then Young. We stopped at Young at the information centre (not easy to find - no signs on the building but it looks like a railway station) and they told us there was free camping at the showgrounds which is not in Camps 4, but it was still early so we kept going. We couldn't find any campsites that were going to be worth staying at so we just found a roadside stop at Illabo. It wasn't be best choice as it was right next to a railway line and the trains kept going through but we managed to get to sleep eventually!

Thursday 26th

We got on the road mid-morning and headed to Junee - what a great little town! There is heaps to see there and we started and the Licorice and Chocolate Factory. Neither of us is particularly interested in licorice, but the chocolate part definitely got our attention! We took a tour which cost only $4.00 each ad we got to play "Licorice Bowls" (you would have to be there to understand) and I won! I got to stand on the podium (stairs) and receive my award (a bag of licorice)! It was great fun.

We then headed to the Monte Cristo Mansion which is the most famous haunted mansion in Australia. It was going to cost $9.50 each to go on so we didn't bother but we did buy a book that tells a little of the history of the place. It is a fascinating story and would be well worth going to have a look at if you were more financial!

The next place we visited was the Roundhouse Railway Museum. That was $6 each and I didn't bother going but Ross went on the tour and had a wonderful time - he was in his element! The old guy let me go in and have a look at the model railway they had though, which was quite interesting.

We then headed to Wagga Wagga and decided it was time for a hot shower so stayed at a caravan park right on the "Wagga Beach" which is the inland equivalent of a beach which is a spot right on the Murrumbidgee River which was quite a nice place to stay (although the white cockatoos were quite noisy in the morning - guess we will have to get used to that). It was lovely to have a nice long hot shower for a change.

Friday 27th

I did some work in the morning and Ross went into town to try and do a couple of things. After that we checked out of the caravan park and parked the van in a parking lot and then went to have a look at the sites of Wagga Wagga. We went to the museum to have a look at "Box World" which is a miniature town built purely out of recycled boxes, etc. It was pretty interesing. We then spent the next few hours wandering around the shops of Wagga Wagga as well as checking out the Memorial Gardens. By late afternoon we were ready for a swim and headed to "Wagga Beach". After that we decided to try and find a campsite for the night and ended up at "Oura Beach" which is east of Wagga. It is so DRY around here - they haven't had any decent rain for quite a few years. It is a nice campsite but there is a total fire ban so no campfires - makes it a little less fun. We had another swim and then another one right on dark to cool us down - it is pretty warm at the moment.

Saturday 28th

We decided to have one more swim and then head off again - the water is great - perfect temperature! We headed back into Wagga Wagga and went to the Botanical Gardens for a look around - pretty nice place - they even have an animal farm there go I got to play with some of the animals :).

WE drove through Albury which is a pretty big town, but there didn't seem to be anything too interesting to stop and look at so we kept going to try and find a new new place to stay. We found a reserve called Murray River reserve or somehting like that which is not in Camps 4 but is located at the end of Moss Road Barnawartha North (Vic). It was a nice place with heaps of places to camp but all the good ones were taken so we decided only to stay for the night and then move on and find somwehere else. I can't wait to find another nice campsite so we can settle down for a couple of days.

Sunday 1st

We found another couple of campsites listed on Camps 4 but they weren't very big and there were no spots that we could get good solar power all day so we kept on going. WE got our first glimpse of the Murray River today - just love the Murray! We ended up finding a nice place called Kyffins Reserve (found in Camps 4). . We are near Tocumwal (wherever the heck that is). It is right on top of Mulwala Lake which is kind of part of the Murray River.

We went into town (Yarawonga) to check out the scene but again there doesn't seem to be too much in the way of excitement but the ladies in the information booth were very nice.

The bird life here is incredible - you name it you can find it here. There are white cockatoos, black swans, ducks, galahs, shags, egrets, water hens, magpies, pelicans, pee wees, willy wagtails, kookaburras etc, etc. It's a great little spot but there are no ammenities at all so you have to make do. We have lovely neighbours and we had happy hour with them this afternoon.

16th - 22nd February 2009

Monday 16th

We were booked in to do an Aboriginal Discovery talk this morning at Wentworth Falls at the Conservation Hut and fortunately the weather was not as bad as it has been. It turns out that Ross and I were the only ones on the tour so we had some pretty good one-on-one education! The people running it were Chris Tobin and Janelle Randall-Court who are Aboriginal Discovery Rangers for the Blue Mountains National Park. They were fascinating people to talk to and they knew so much about the Aboriginal Culture (though both having not been brought up in the bush were still learning some of the things!). Ross and I were a little apprehensive at first that it may be a little uncomfortable talking about some of the subjects that may come up but they both soon put us at ease with their easy manner and confidence in themselves.

We went for a bit of a walk down to one of the lookouts and along the way were Janelle showed us all sorts of plants that could be used for medicinal purposes and for “Bush tucker” as well as where to find red ochre for grinding up to use for colouring stuff. When we hit the lookout it was just gorgeous – the clouds were hanging low and they move so fast! We were hanging over the edge and noticed that water droplets from the plants below us were hitting us in the face – they were being blown upwards with the updraft of the wind. There were also a few waterfalls running which Janelle told us normally don’t run but because of all the wet weather they were running.

We wandered back to Katoomba after the tour and found a shoe store with a great sale on so we bought Ross some hiking shoes (something he has needed for quite some time). After that we headed back to the Dairy and did some washing ready to leave in the morning L. We are a little disappointed that we didn’t get to do as much as we wanted while we were here, but we still had a great time. If the weather is okay in the morning we might go and do a small bushwalk, but the weather forecast isn’t looking too promising – we live in hope!

Tuesday 17th

Well, the weather hasn't changed so we packed up and drove down to pick up Boris who was VERY glad to see us! Shannon and her family were just fantastic and spoiled him rotten the whole time and he lapped up every bit of it! We are so glad we left him there instead of a kennel - our minds were much more at ease.

We had left the caravan at the Old Leura Dairy and when we got back up the mountain we went and picked it up and found a place to park for the night on the side of the road just north of Katoomba. The caravan is starting to leak, probably just because it is old and it has been in the wet for the last week so I think we just need to get going and find somewhere dry to camp and dry it out and see if we can find any leaks that need plugging up. If the weather is okay in the morning though we might have one more go at having a look at the Three Sisters.

Wednesday 18th

Well, the weather is exactly the same again this morning so we decided to move on. We headed west towards Bathurst and it finally stopped raining. We found a great spot near the river just east of Bathurst (found it in Camps 4) near Tarana called "Flat Rock". There are a couple of other campers here and they were nice enough to give us some of their firewood to get us going, told us about a big stand of big, fat, juicy blackberries and also gave us some of their garlic prawns they cooked on the barbie!! How nice :).

Ross went to the toilet late at night and it was a really black night. Boris followed him like he always does and after a few minutes I started wandering over there because I had to go too but I didn't take a torch with me (I was kinda just wandering around in the dark hoping I would spot Ross' torch when he came out of the loo). Next thing I could hear Boris yelping off in the bushes somewhere and not having a torch with me couldn't work out what was going on. I started calling him and yelling at poor Ross to get off the loo so we could have some light to work out what was going on. Boris kept yelping and Ross (luckily he had finished) came out of the loo with the light. Boris finally came out of the bushes looking very upset but we couldn't see any marks on him so didn't really know what had happened to him but Ross guessed that he had had a run-in with the electric fence and had the bejeebers scared out of him!! He hasn't gone back over near that fence since so I reckon Ross might have been right! Poor Boris didn't know what hit him! It was also drizzling so the wet probably made it worse.

Thursday 19th

It rained again overnight but it wasn't too bad. I got up and did some work while Ross pottered around.

We went for a lovely swim and a walk and found more lovely juicy blackberries and an apple tree with some nice apples on it - tough life! The boys (Tony the neighbour and Ross) went and took the chainsaw and got a whole bunch of firewood so we could have a good fire tonight. We did a lamb roast with roasted vegies - yum yum!

Friday 20th

We sat out and watched the stars last night - just glorious! We saw a bunch of "shooting stars" does anyone know what they actually are? Tony reckons they are space junk but they move so fast - they cover half the sky in the blink of an eye! (hey that rhymes!).

We saw a snake right next to the path we were all walking on today, it was a brown snake but not sure if it was a normal brown or a king brown. I tried to look up on the internet how to tell the difference but I couldn't really tell.

Today we pottered around doing as little as possible - beautiful day. I cooked a lamb casserole with potato dumplings in the camp oven and we shared it with Tony and Michelle.

Saturday 21st

We went swimming again today, it is just beautiful weather - about 30 degrees - perfect for swimming and sitting in the shade reading.

I cooked a bacon and cheese damper in the camp oven and we did jaffles with the left over lamb roast from the other night.

It was a lovely night and we sat around the campfire trading stories.

Boris is such a tart. A bunch of different families turned up to go swimming down at the river and he goes up to every one of them and offers to accompany them down to the river and go for a swim with them. Him being so charming and all they don't mind in the least and always promise to bring him back when they come back. Some other campers also set up camp nearby and he felt obliged to spend some time letting them scratch his back - very considerate of him!

Sunday 22nd

We are packing up to move on this morning. We will head into Bathurst to do some shopping and then find somewhere else to stay tonight.

We said goodbye to Tony and Nicole, we got on really well with them and hope we meet up with them somewhere else along the line. They have a 9-week-old baby with them (baby Toni), who has been on the road with them since she was born. They look like they don't have two pennies to rub together as they are travelling in a really old Land Rover Defender with tents, but I reckon either one of them would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. They have a great attitude to life and I learned a lot from them.

We headed through Bathurst after shopping and through Blayney and came to a camp site on Carcour Dam - it's a pretty popular spot and we found a nice place to park the caravan. There are cold showers and toilets here so we reckon we might stay a couple of days. We might even do some fishing in the dam - we'll get the boat off the roof and have a potter around. The dam is pretty low on water but we will give it a go anyway.

We found a group of travellers having "Happy Hour" so we invited ourselves and some others along and had a nice chat to all the campers for an hour or two before heading off to have dinner.

There are wind turbines up on the hill near hear and when it gets windy you can hear them in the background. They are probably about a kilometre away.