Russ Travelling Australia

I am in hysterics, just heard on the radio from a woman who rang in to report funny things kids say, her example was “Mum, my bum just swallowed a marble”!!

Our last night at Karte was shared with another couple from Victoria, towing – you guessed it – a Kimberley Karavan!!  They had been to the Flinders Ranges and were returning to Melbourne.  We hope they found the orchids after drawing a mud map for directions!!

We crossed the Murray River at Cadel, and the Ferryman said it was 1.4 metres higher than usual.  It looked spectacular.  The family of a longtime friend of Russ’s brother lived at Cadell’s Reach near Lindsay Island, we wonder if is the same Cadel?

Burra is a mid-north town, situated approximately 150km north of Adelaide.

It was once one of Australia’s earliest and most significant historic copper mining towns.

In 1845, Thomas Pickett (a shepherd) found samples of green copper ore near Burra Creek.  The South Australian Mining Association, a company of Adelaide investors, bought the land and commenced mining the following September.  The mine was for fifteen years and was one of the largest in the world.  Its shareholders received 800,000 pounds in dividends and Pickett received 10 pounds as a reward for his discovery!

By 1850 Burra, with a population of around 5,000, was the largest inland settlement in Australia.  Until the mid 1860s, Burra remained the largest town in South Australia apart from Adelaide.

Unfortunately, we have been confined to the caravan most of the time, with the shocking weather.  We have had 100+km gales, rain, freezing temperatures.  We booked in until Thursday night, but it is a long weekend and the start of the school holidays, and we haven’t been able to get into Clare until Monday.  This morning, we had the thought of checking at reception to see if there had been any cancellations due to the weather and there were.  We have to pack up and move from this site, but that would be better than being without power for another three nights.  We must be getting soft!

This morning, we went out for breakfast, then went on a tourist drive around Burra and enjoyed seeing the characteristic stone houses, surrounded by rock fences, still standing, without mortar.  We went up to the mine site, but couldn’t get out of the car because of the weather, except to take a couple of photos.

Margaret Nicholas (Russ’s dad’s grandmother) spent several years in Burra as
part of the Richard Nicholas family. He was a tin miner from St Just in Cornwall and Cornish tin miners were recruited to work in Australian mines. He is supposed to have stayed four years in SA from approx.1849-1853.  They travelled with Richard’s brother, Michael (the Aspro Nicholas’s grandfather) via SA to Victoria.  We had a delicious Cornish pasty yesterday in remembrance!!  We may have to do it again today!!

Ngarkat (pronounced Narrkat) – what can I say, except another beautiful spot.  More Mallees perhaps, very sandy, a great walk, taking us to a high spot, where you could see all the crops of a neighbouring farm and the overview of the rest of the park.  A new pit toilet, water tank, old shed, occupied years ago by shepherds as an outstation, but the very interesting part, for us, was meeting the Ranger.

A friendly young woman, who is one of two Rangers who manage the 270,000 hectare National Park.  She was in the park to give a talk to a group of year 12 students.  She had found a dead brown snake on the road on the way in, so thought she’d wake the kids up a bit by surprising them with this strategically placed snake.  We heard the screams, followed by laughter, from the group and guessed her practical joke was well received.

We had a chance to speak to her afterwards and she retrieved the snake from where she’d thrown it into the bush and we both touched it and the scales were quite beautiful.  She opened its mouth, showed us its fangs, which were very small, and we were surprised to see that it also had a mouthful of tiny teeth.  The Ranger said that if you wear thick socks, jeans and boots, it would be unusual for you to get bitten, as most of the venom is injected on the second bite!  They save the first lot of venom for feeding on their more customary prey.

Karte (pronounced Kartee)

Karte is another Mallee park about 80 Km north west of Ngarkat, but is far less visited, as shown by the amount of firewood around.  A brand new pit toilet and sectioned off areas for campers, with the occasional table here and there.

We had orchids on our mind and set of on a walk through the sand (on a designated walk) and found our first orchid.  It’s a Spider Orchid – not sure of its  proper name.

This orchid was found in the harshest of growing conditions.  Sand, wood, bark everywhere and full sun.

We stayed at Karte for 3 days and loved it.  We took the same walk on the second day and found a green spider orchid, but it was under the log, seen above, and the photo didn’t reflect its beauty.   Russ has to almost lie on the ground to photograph these 150cm orchids.

The third day we walked the other end of the track, where we saw grevillias, lovely grasses, correas, mallee tea trees, just to name a few.

We are presently in Burra, where we have reception, enabling me to write this blog.  I’ll leave Burra for another day, as my shoulders are aching.

As you can probably tell, we haven’t done much.  Sitting and small walks must be what is required at the moment.

It has been great to sit around a fire at night – this must be the first time we’ve been allowed to have a fire for ages.  Sorry, fellow climate change believers, but there are just some times when you have to do it.

Yesterday we walked the Pomponderoo Hill Nature walk, a lovely meander through typical desert country.  Stunted bushes and stringybarks,  grasses and the remnants of extremely old banksias, the seeds of which have  regenerated after a hot fire in 1977.

The walk is on the park’s northern boundary, 4kms south of Dimboola.  At the top of the hill is a platform, giving you a 360 degree view of the Little Desert.

Parts of the track were surrounded by these beautiful little lillies, giving off a fragrant perfume.

Today we are in Bordertown.  Power, water, no fires, but on the main highway to Adelaide!  The wind is very strong and the forecast is for another forceful front to pass through tonight.  We survived the last one and there isn’t any sand here, just a nice grassy area.  Heading off to the Ngarkat Conservation Park tomorrow.

Off again, for a bit longer this time!!   Arrived at an idyllic setting on the Wimmera River in the Little Desert National Park.  375km northwest of Melbourne, we are on the eastern block, from Dimboola.  We have stayed a few times in the other end of the park at Kiata, but this has the added bonus of the river.

There are many walks from here, mostly strolls to Horseshoe Bend and the river.  Talking to other campers, the fishing hasn’t been good, unless you want to watch Carp – at the lookout over Horseshoe Bend, you can see hundreds of Carp sucking off the algae at the edge of the river.  What hope does the Redfin have or other native fish?

We went to see the weir, which was damaged in the recent floods this year.  The photo shows the walkway well above the ground level.  Temporary earth fill on the left side of the photo has allowed the weir to function.  The electric box was destroyed and a small fire resulted, further damaging the structure. Lynton may remember an old photo of his Dad walking across the previous timber weir, during a drought.

The weather today has been frightening and as I type a massive gust came through, swirling white sand into willi willi’s and everything is covered in grit.

That’s all for now.  We are having fun!!

Yesterday we had a wonderful picnic at Terrick Terrick National Park, approximately 60kms west of Echuca.  With a backdrop of large granite outcrops, we sat amongst the largest stand of White Cypress (Murray Pine) in Australia, and old Grey Box trees.

Thirty years ago, Russ’ brother Lynton, who is a Botanist, asked us to visit Suggan Buggan, (because Murray Pines growing in that area is very rare), to take a photo of a Murray Pine, but had a head on crash with a Mitsubishi Colt that was coming too fast around a corner.  We had to tow it back to the nearest town and consequently we forgot to take a photo, and here we are picnicking in an area that is surrounded by them!

The bird life was spectacular and we saw many hooded Robins, honeyeaters, kookaburras to name a new.

We drove passed the old homestead and through some of the 1300ha of grasslands, which host both significant flora an fauna values.

Today we are walking into town and will buy fish and chips for lunch and head to our favourite table at the docks to devour them.

This will be our last blog, as we have decided to come home tomorrow.  We have been in touch with Marilyn and we are both looking forward to seeing her next week.  We may head off again in a few weeks or so.

Thanks for reading.

There is so much to do in and around Echuca.

On Monday we walked into town and we ordered a picnic hamper from The Black Pudding Cafe, to have for lunch on Tuesday.  It was the first time they had been asked to prepare a hamper and suggested we make a selection from the sandwich section of their menu, but after much discussion, we ended up with a platter of conichons, olives, smoked beef, Jindi Blue, Maffra Cheddar and Black Pudding Brie, with a small serve of Bearnaise sauce, and four slices of sour dough bread.  The hot platter consisted of two slices of bruchetta and two slices of smoked salmon frittata!

Needless to say, Tuesday’s lunch was perfect, especially with the setting of the Port, where we found a table and watched the paddle steamers idle by.  Of course, all this was washed down with a bottle of Andrew Garrett Sparkling Shiraz.

Yesterday we went into the Barmah forest (to eat the leftovers from Tuesday’s feast).  The only road open was the road to the Visitor’s Centre, which is being rebuilt at the moment, but there were tables in a lovely setting and a backdrop of what sounded like, a million frogs.

We commented that we have never seen the forest as green as it is at the moment and have never seen it covered in so much water.

Today we walked into town for a mid-morning brunch, sat again at the docks, then returned to our caravan park, by the river, where we hear the relaxing sound of tooting paddle steamers passing by every hour or so.

This year we had planned to travel to Kangaroo Island and then to Outback SA to see our favourite places after so much rain, but not to be.  We had to delay our trip until Marg’s shoulders fully recovered after surgery, to repair ligament tears.  However, in a previous trip, we did manage a few days at Wahgunyah/Corowa and had a wonderful picnic on the banks of the Murray’.

Then Marg developed a blood clot in her right calf, fortunately not in a deep vein, but still required a visit to emergency (7 hours, even though we had obtained an Ultrasound before we went!) followed by a second Ultrasound before the all clear to travel.

Then more delays because our great friend Eric Robinson went missing while on a 10 day hike on the Highline trail in Utah.  Unfortunately he is still missing after the last sighting on August 2nd, despite extensive searching by police and volunteers.  The search has been scaled back to just volunteers and grave fears are held for his wellbeing, but we still hope.

So we decided to keep our travels fairly local within a day of Melbourne in case we need to return in a hurry.  So this blog may be less interesting than normal, but doing it will keep our mind off Eric.

Echuca is our first stop, and given the cold nights we decided we need a power site, which we have on the Murray.  It is next to a forest reserve so we have organised a picnic hamper for tomorrow to enjoy on the banks of the Murray tomorrow.  The picnic table overlooks the Murray as photographed.