Russ Travelling Australia

Being on the Darling River again has rekindled the desire we had in 2011 – to follow the Darling.  We went as far as we could, but had to choose another route, due to flooding, so we are now able to see the next few stations along the river.

We left Bindara and travelled towards Menindee Lakes.  On arrival to Kinchega National Park, we went to the Ranger’s headquarters, where there is an enormous shearing shed. This area offers accommodation for up to 40 people, with fresh water and showers.

We then took the River Drive, which meanders for about 20 kilometres through the red gum woodlands on the banks of the Darling River.  Further along the Homestead Loop is the boiler of the Paddle Steamer Providence.  It exploded, killing all the crew in 1872.  The boiler was winched out of the river when it became a navigational hazard.

We had lunch at a picnic spot at one of the 35 camp sites along the way.

Stopped at Menindee to collect a few supplies, but with only a small grocer, we were a bit limited.

Continued to Wilcannia, where we booked in for three nights at Warrawong Station.  We were a little disappointed, as they have set this up too well!  Too much like a caravan park, but lovely facilities, a communal fire and camp kitchen.  It is situated on a beautiful billabong, with pelicans, swans, ducks and loads of birds.  The first day we saw a pair of red-tailed cockatoos in a Shea oak.

There are not many shops in town – a ‘friendly grocer’, pub, post office, petrol station and restaurant.  The diesel is 179 cents per litre and orange juice, $8 for 2 litres!  Yesterday, we had lunch at the Chinese restaurant at the Golf Club – massive meals – half of which we had to leave.  Reasonably priced.  The sunset on the first night was beautiful.

Today, we went for a walk to the other side of the billabong, where we spotted a fireplace, so returned to camp and prepared a lunch to BBQ at this beautiful little spot.  It is 21 degrees, after quite a mild 10 degrees overnight.

Tomorrow we are heading towards Bourke along the eastern side of the Darling, stopping at a station along the way and visiting the Paroo Darling National Park.  We may not have 3G as we travel between Wilcannia and Bourke, so it may be a while before our next blog.

We are not sure what we have done heading this way (all because of Black Cockatoo Bush Camp), but we are ready to admit that is was probably not the best decision we’ve made.

This morning we woke to fog, with a very heavy mist that felt like rain, and we were thankful that we were not packing up a tent.  Once on the road everything was fine and we were looking forward to reaching Burra – a town famous for its Cornish Pasty.  In the town, in the past, pasties were made for the miners (from Cornwall).  The tradition lives on, and this quaint little town is a great place for lunch.  We have stayed here a few times, visited the old mine and also frequent the butcher, who sells salt-fed Merino lamb and delicious, home made vienna frankfurts.

Decided to continue to Peterborough, another town often visited, famous for its Railway Museum.  We didn’t pay a visit to the museum this time, as this was just an overnight stop.

Next day, the weather is improving and we set off, in the direction of Broken Hill.  On this road, we passed a creek crossing with a difference!  This one had a Hills Hoist erected, lines full of washing and a washing basket.  The things people do!  It gave us some light relief from our journey and just before the outskirts of Broken Hill, we turned onto the Silver City Highway.  Yes, now we have to travel
more or less back East to Bindara, but there wasn’t a road across.

Bindara is between Menindee and Pooncarie, which is comfortably set up for campers, caravaners, or has cottage accommodation for people needing a break from camping.  We mentioned that I need power to run my apnoea machine and Barb brought  down a bank of batteries, plus inverter and I was set to go.  The camping fee is usually $20 per night, but with this set up it was $30 for us.  We are here for two nights.

Our camp at Bindara is on the Darling River, close to a communal fire pit and a covered camp kitchen.

There are 3 external gas BBQs. There is even an expresso coffee machine, coffee grinder which is available for use at $4 a cup, or $5, for coffee and cake – haven’t seen the cake yet, but I bet if I asked, it would be there in 5 minutes flat.  There is another couple here at the moment.  We chat around the fire, which feels very comfortable and easy.  The owner, Barb is great.  Her daughter and two grandsons are here (6 and 2). The 6 year old asked another couple when they arrived, Phil said “oh, about an hour ago”, to which he replied, “oh, I’ve been here forever”!  (We later found out that he’s been here 2 weeks!

With no heating in the van, last night was freezing, but worth the pain, because today has been magnificent, 18 degrees, clear skies and no wind.  We had jaffles for breakfast and a camp oven roast for lunch, which was delicious.  Heading to a station stay near Wilcannia tomorrow, we will visit Kinchera National Park on the way.

After driving through heavy rain for two hours, we arrived at Tanunda, in even heavier rain, eight degrees, and had to set up.  There isn’t as much to do as there used to be (in the Kimberley), but when you open the door and discover that water has been coming in while travelling – over the bed – suddenly there is a change of mood.  We put the roof up, got the heater out and set it up to dry out the mess.  “Not happy Jan”.  The biggest leak seems to be in the top left hand corner of the van, so Russ is going to try and plug it with silicone tomorrow.

We had a good night’s sleep in a dry bed, and woke to find it still raining.  The temperature is still very low, so we won’t be eating outside today.  One reason for visiting Tanunda, is to go to Maggie Beer’s Pheasant Farm Shop.  We arrived there late morning, greeted by very friendly staff.  The shop is set up so that you can wander throughout, tasting a wide variety of sauces, relishes, pates, chutneys, oils, olives, to name a few things.  You can also buy coffee, light snacks and wine.  We bought a Duck and Orange Pate, a Duck Pate, with Vino Cotto and Star Anise and a picnic platter that included Dukkah, olive oil, wood fired bread and olives, resulting in a delicious lunch, in the warmth of our van.  The van doesn’t leak when it is up!  (So far).  The weather improved slightly, later in the day, so we rugged up and had a BBQ tea.

No leaks overnight, and the temperature slightly warmer, but very foggy.   Later in the morning, we went back to the Farm Shop and did the Nature Walk, around the large dam, which was very enjoyable.  Very large eucalypts and other native plants, including wattles and shea oaks, with water fowl and small birds, made it very pleasant.  A delicious coffee, the purchase of a bottle of Maggie’s extra virgin olive oil, a jar of mustard pears, more money spent and we decided we had better make this the last time.  There is a very good ‘feel’ about the shop and no doubt, we’ll be back again one day.

We went to St Hallett’s winery afterwards – we had first visited there in 1967, on our honeymoon – where we tasted a couple of wines, but ended up ordering a ‘Duck Plate’ for $35, with a glass of Grenache.  The plate consisted of Duck Pate, Duck Terrine with peppercorns, Smoked Duck (which neither of us were that keen on – it had an unusual texture and was very chewy), with Sultana Pistachio bread and Red Wine Poached Pears.

The temperature today is 13 degrees and we haven’t had rain today.  The roof has dried out and Russ has been able to plug it with silicone.

We finally got away on Tuesday – a day late – but settled into the journey and realised that we are now on the road for a long time. We decided to head for Stawell, a favourite spot for us. It didn’t disappoint and we were flooded with memories of taking our very young children there for the first time inthe mid 70s.

The next day we arrived at Black Cockatoo Bush Camp, near Narracorte, which is the reason we took this route to go North, but, because we were the only people there, it would have been too costly for the owners to start up a generator to supply power (which we needed because of the cold temperatures). It looked like a great place to camp, with fire places at most sites, but there was a freezing cold howling gale. We decided to go on to Padthaway. A lovely drive to a tiny town with a good feel. The caravan park is very small, quiet and well run, with lots of birds and native plants. We booked in for two nights, set up and went to Henry’s vineyard for a couple of tastings and a delicious panini for lunch.

Today we tried to find a Deli in ‘town’, but there’s a General Store and that’s about it. There is a good feel to the place though and it is very peaceful.

We went to Padthaway Estate Vinery, built in 1882 with a magnificent stately home on the property, where they now provide Bed and Breakfast and cellar door sales. We bought a half a dozen bottles of Rose for $10 a bottle, with an extra bottle thrown in free.
We leave tomorrow for Tanunda.

The weather has completely changed.  Extremely strong winds and freezing cold, with rain expected.  This led us to decide on a restaurant for lunch, so we chose Taste Canowindra, a place promoting regional foods and wine.  We were greeted in a very strange way, by a very abrupt owner, but stayed and tasted a couple of local wines and ended up booking a table for lunch.  There was a delicious Rose and it was only $10.00!  We ended up buying a dozen and the price came down to $6.20 per bottle, and it was organic!  After we sat down for lunch, we noticed one group of eight people and another couple leaving the tasting area after waiting too long for the owner to receive them.  I can see a business going down the drain.  In contrast, the waitress was excellent as was the food.

At lunch we ordered a shared platter of regional goodies including, Turkish bread with olive oil and Dukkah, goats cheese, olives, chorizo, spiced prawns, chicken terrine, caper berries, with lettuce and cucumber, all washed down with a bottle of our cheap, but delicious, Rose.  This part of their business might be their saving grace.

After packing up in the rain, we headed to Conimbla National Park for breakfast.  I thought Conimbla NP was a bit spooky, mainly because the forest was very dark, with the trees growing very close together, not allowing much daylight.  There was also a surveillance camera at the picnic area.  Nevertheless, we cooked toast, eggs and bacon on our $20 portable gas stove and enjoyed having breakfast on the way to our next destination.  The photo doesn’t depict my feelings, so maybe it was just me!

On the way into Junee we passed the railway spiral on the Melbourne to Sydney railway that was built to enable larger and faster locos to carry freight during the second world war.  The track goes round 360 degrees as it climbs to a higher altitude, so the slope is less than would be with a direct climb.

We booked in for one night at Junee, an historic town with the main attraction (to us), the magnificent railway station, opened in 1885. To quote the brochure “The  Railway Station and Refreshment Rooms complex is still a most impressive group of buildings today, but try to imagine just how astonishing and indeed bizarre they must have looked when first completed.  The town, as such did not exist and the first land sales had just taken place.”

The morning we were leaving, we called in to see the Railway Station and Refreshment Rooms, but they didn’t open until 10.00am. This station serviced the Great Southern Railway from Sydney to Albury.   The early photographs show these rooms to be unbelievably grand, similar to our Windsor Hotel.  Today the rooms are used as a Cafe.  Across the road from the station and railway square was the old Loftus Hotel, now a B & B, one of the old magnificent hotels that are dotted around Junee.

Another point of interest was the Roundhouse & Museum, but again, it wasn’t open until 12.00.  It began operating in 1947, attending to virtually every class of steam and diesel locomotive, rail car and XPT in NSW.  When built, the 100 foot turntable was the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, that is no longer the case, but it still operates.  Russ was very disappointed not to see this in action and we were unable to get a photograph to show the enormity of the structure.    We would like to go back to Junee again and spend s couple of days there.

We had planned to spend a couple of days in Harrietville before heading across the high country to Bairnsdale, but the weather for the week looked bad with low temperatures and cold and strong winds, so we decided to head home.  We were going to stop in Benalla, but after a long 9 hour, 550 km drive we are home now – you know what happens when the horses start heading for home??

It’s been a while since our last post, but we have travelled quite a distance, often without 3G.  We had a great final night at Mt Beauty having a spread of anti-pasta followed by lamb and chicken souvlakis.

The drive up Kiewa Valley Highway was beautiful.  Victoria is so green at the moment and the country looked superb.  We turned off at Kiewa, to Tallangatta, then took a minor road, passing Mt Granya State Park.  The forests were spectacular.  From Kiewa, we had the Mitta Mitta branch of the Hume weir to the left of us for kms.  We stopped at Kennedy Reserve for lunch, which is opposite Mt Lawson State Park, on the Murray River branch of the weir.  We continued to Tumbarumba, where we set up for the night.

Next day, proceeded through Tumut, Gundagai, Young, then cut across to Weddin Mountains National Park.  After Tumut it was obvious that NSW has hardly had any rain.  Travelling through brown plateaus, large farming areas, with wheat being harvested, cattle and sheep being transported for sale, the beauty wasn’t evident, but there is an air that everyone is extremely busy, coming to the pointy end of their labours.

Our stay at Weddin NP was disappointing due to strong hot winds, temperatures in the mid 30s, and dirt over everything.  We only stayed one night this time.  We felt that we may be carried away by the flys that covered everything, maybe that’s how the girls disappeared at hanging Rock!

On our way to Canowindra (pronounced ca-noun-dra), we looked in on the Grenfell Caravan Park (where I broke my arm).  We wanted to see if the Council had put a warning strip on the step – and they had!!  This helps our case.  We have had an email saying that they are going to offer us a settlement.  It is a step forward from their initial outright denial of liability.

We are in Canowindra now for three days, mainly because the caravan park give you a free night if you stay two nights, and we felt like a longer stop.  It probably is a two star park, but its saving grace is plenty of shade trees.

Today we visited the Nangar National Park for our usual picnic.  An interesting drive in, with 29 dry creek crossings, on a 2WD dirt road, taking us to The Dripping Rock, which unfortunately, was not dripping.  There was grass on the ground, tables and a toilet.  Very pretty place, but not in hot weather (34 degrees) we have been experiencing.

We are enjoying the last day of our eight day stay at Mount Beauty.  It has been great here, catching up with some old, very good friends, a bit like a family re-union, and one which we have done every year since 1973.  On the way here we stopped at Nug Nug, a small camping area about 13 Km South of Myrtleford.  It is in the middle of nowhere, no 3G, no radio, no TV, and we smelt smoke and heard the crackling of a fire, not nice, but after flashing around all the nearby roads we found a farmer burning off, phew!  In the photo of the camp at Nug Nug,Marg is cooking breakfast on the BBQ

Before our friends arrived at Mount Beauty, we enjoyed a couple of fire BBQ lunches at Mountain Creek in the Alpine National Park, a 10 minute drive from Mount Beauty Holiday Centre where we are staying.  It is a beautiful place with several walks from the picnic area, the BBQs were enhanced by the meat we bought from the butcher across the road from our camp, delicious fresh and smoked meat.

After our friends arrived we spent a lot of time sitting around catching up with what was happening in everyone’s lives.  The park is ideally located right on the Keiwa River.

We did manage to fit in a walk around Lake Guy at Bogong Village one day, about 3 Km long through the bush, unfortunately overgrown by weeds for lots of the way.

After the walk, we enjoyed a picnic in the picnic area by the lake, there were lots of Rhododendrons, all in flower.  The workers on the Kiewa Hydro Scheme, lots of whom came from Europe,  planted these  in the 1920s through to the 1940s, so they are quite big and covered in hundreds of blooms.  Lake Guy was created by the Hydro Scheme and there are a couple of power stations nearby.

Tomorrow we head off toward Grenfel.

We are now in Mt Beauty for 8 days and back in 3G territory.  After Beechworth we spent 4 enjoyable days in Eldorado, very quiet caravan park with lots of trees, very different to when we last camped here in 1976.  We visited the large dredge that worked Reedy Creek from 1934 to 1954.  It is a massive machine, 200 and 300 HP motors to drive the bucket chain and the tumbling machine.  There are 110 buckets each weighing 1.6 tonnes, and the machine was the largest user of electricity after Melbourne and Geelong and could be heard 10 Km away.  The machine floated in a pool of water tethered to the banks via pulleys and cables, which pulled the dredge along as it dug out the gravel.  It extracted 70,664 oz of gold and 1,366 tons of tin from 35,368,000 cubic yards of gravel and dirt.  Quite an operation.

We also enjoyed a seafood basket at the McEvoy Tavern in Eldorado, last time  here there was just a shop.  We also went for a walk along Reedy Creek to work some of the lunch off our waistlines, the old swing bridge we used last time is closed, but the cables can be seen in the background next to the handsome guy on the bridge!!

We made the same drive to Beechworth through the Woolshed Valley that follows Reedy creek to Beechworth.  We enjoyed it so much we went along this road on three different days.  It is a very historic valley, Arron Sherritt, an associate of Ned Kelly, lived in the valley and Ned stayed here from time to time, the last being 36 hours before the siege at Glenrowan.  The road now travels through bush all the way, but in the 1850’s was home to 6000 people and 5 towns with many pubs, eating places, and Chinese run vegetable gardens.  No evidence of all this activity remains except some water races and creek diversions.  We enjoyed a fire BBQ picnic at Woolshed Falls.  In the fifties the creek was diverted around the falls and the pool at the base of the falls drained to allow the extraction of 2000 oz of gold.  We saw some more Tiger Orchids and a couple of Spider Orchids that were passed (or past if you prefer) their best, unfortunately.

The miners dug water races in solid granite and also a tunnel to divert the creek, you can just see the tunnel in the picture of the creek in an eroded gully, this gully was eroded by the miners using water cannons, no concern about the environment!

On the road to Woolshed Falls we passed Buttrey’s Rock were bushranger Buttrey hid before robbing a coach.  He buried the gold in the valley before he was captured soon after at Eldoado, and the gold has never been recovered.  After another  couple of enjoyable fire BBQs alongside the creek we moved to Nug Nug, a bush camping area 13 Km south of Myrtleford for a night.   No 3G, radio or TV at Nug Nug, and when we smelt smoke and then heard crackling we couldn’t call the CFA so we had to drive around to check it out, fortunately a farmer burning off.  We enjoyed the drive through Happy Valley to Mt Beauty for cup weekend.  We will be here for 8 days.

Arrived in Beechworth on Saturday, after seeing Heath in the morning, to give him his early Christmas and birthday present – a skateboard, plus protective gear.

Beechworth is NE of Melbourne, one hour from Albury and Wangaratta.  Ya-Itma-Thang, the indigenous clan who were the first people to occupy Beechworth until the 1850s, when over 5000 Chinese, as well as many other diggers from other parts of the world, descended upon this little town to find gold. We came here 30 years ago and looked for gem stones at Reedy Creek, closer to Eldorado.  Some of our finds were quite impressive, but our panning for gold turned out to be more fun than prosperous!  We were encouraged by the owner of the caravan park, who proudly showed us a small Vegemite jar of panned gold, which, to us, weighed a tonne, and he trustfully kept it in the glovebox of his unlocked truck!

Sunday, we were out looking for orchids and we were very successful, although the Crimson Spider Orchid eluded us.  We met up with the rangers and asked them about it and they said they wouldn’t tell us where to find it, even if they knew.  Isn’t it our National Park too?  Unfortunately, they told us that people dig them up.  The few spoil it for the many.

Today we walked through the shopping centre (which has retained much of its character), trying to find place to make us picnic platter and we came across The Beechworth Pantry.  We bought an antipasto platter, with prosciutto, ham, salami, char grilled capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin, artichokes and marinated olives and mushrooms, with two bread rolls.  We took our platter to Woolshed Falls and only managed to get through half of it.  We finished with a piece of passion fruit sponge each. After we packed up, light rain started to fall, so we will enjoy the rest of it tonight.

We are staying at the Beechworth Holiday Park, once known as the Silver Creek Caravan Park.  The creek is polluted, and looks like something from Queenstown, Tasmania.  One plus, is a pizza oven in the dilapidated camp kitchen, resulting in a yummy lunch – no tea required!

Russ went out this morning to the Powder Magazine and on the Gorge Drive – I was making pizzas!  The Powder Magazine was completed in 1857 and was used to store gunpowder used in gold mining.

The gorge drive crosses the picturesque Spring Creek.

At the end of the gorge drive is an old stone bridge that was completed in 1875, no mortar was used in its construction and it is still in use on the main road into Beechworth.  The channel below the bridge was cut in solid granite to lower the level of the creek so more gold could be sluiced.

We are moving on to Eldorado tomorrow.

This blog will be a condensed overview of the last few days, but we just HAVE to do it.

First stop was at Wangaratta, where we were lured to a caravan park, on the banks of the Ovens River.  Little did we know, that if we’d been a week earlier, the river would have been lapping around the chassis!  What a mess, poor things.  To make matters worse for the owners, this is the ninth flood in 34 months.

Then we went to Grenfell, booking in for a couple of nights.  The next day we visited Seaton’s Farm in the Weddin NP. This was an excellent example of farming at its hardest.  The fences were constructed from wire scrounged from where ever possible and sheds built from flattened corregated iron (to make it go further!).  The house was made out of second hand materials, with earthen floors, very few windows. Mrs Seaton used to sprinkle tea leaves on the floor, to keep the dust down.

Later on when I was in hospital, a nurse was telling me that she grew up in a house with dirt floors, that became as hard as rock and that her mother used to sprinkle flour over the floor at night – to see if any snakes had come in for warmth!

After the farm, we BBQ’d at Ben Hall’s Cave picnic and camping area, enjoying new tables and gas bbqs, on a beautifully sunny, but cool, day.  Russ walked up to Ben Hall’s cave and I looked for orchids.  We returned to our camp, and the rest is history!!!!

On our way to Cootamundra, we called in to Cowra.  Cowra is where all the Japanese second world war prisoners were confined.  Later on, in the eighties, the Cowra Japanese Gardens were opened.  They were absolutely beautiful.  We ended up having lunch in the cafe, dining on tempura prawns, vegetables and miso soup.

We are now on our way home, last night staying at Cootamundra, in the smallest cabin that town planning would permit and presently are at Wagga, in a much more accommodating cabin.

Tomorrow we go to Wangaratta and then home.

This is from Russ: We really appreciate all the loving and caring emails and SMS’s  we got after Marg’s accident, Marg said they helped the healing process.  They also reinforced our belief that it is friends and family that are at the core of what life is about.