Burrendong Ridgecrest Camp NSW

Friday 5th July 

We are currently at Burrendong Ridgecrest Camp (see photos) - a Kid's Kamp was still going when we arrived, so haven't seen too much of Chris or Lynette yet, but it has just finished and the parents are collecting the kids as I write. The view from up here is magnificent - the Dam and Lake on one side, and hills and mountains from the other sides. We are here until Monday when we leave for home.

View from Ridgecrest

Burrendong Camping Area

Burrendong Dam and Lake

Burrendong Lake

From Ridgecrest ... towards Orange

Sunday 8th July 

Got up this morning, opened the door of the caravan and looked straight at this beautiful sunrise over Burrendong Lake......

Sunrise over Burrendong Dam

.....then a little later the mist started to rise off the waters near the dam.

Mist rising from Burrendong Dam

Yesterday I spent most of the day working with the volunteers here on a retaining wall that they are building so as they can put in a Jumping Pillow for the kids when they come on camp. It is being built close to the edge of a very steep fall off that has to be reinforced and it is hard, slightly dangerous, labour. We started at 8am had a short stop for morning tea and lunch and back into it, by 3pm I was zonked out, so I had to excuse myself, but Ps Chris and the others kept on going until 6pm - volunteering can sometimes be harder than working! Your Mum even came down and did a bit, but she has been having quite a bit of back pain (all the sitting in the car) lately, so she had to take it easy.

Tuesday  9th July

Tuesday 9th July After staying at Denman Caravan Park we arrived home today. We travelled roughly 16,500 Kms around Australia.

Broken Hill NSW

So on Sunday 30th June we left Adelaide after stopping for church at Enfield and drove until we reached a small roadhouse at Terowie where we stayed as their only guests for the night - it closed at 9pm and the Indian guy who was looking after the fuel and food sales came knocking at our caravan door with a pie and pasty that he couldn't sell as they had been defrosted and heated and offered them to us - we gratefully accepted. (An aside - we have noticed on our trip that a lot of these out of the way road houses seem to be staffed by back packers or people of Asian descent, seems as though Aussies aren't interested in working at such isolated locations.) 

The next morning we took off for the NSW border to Broken Hill - interestingly Broken Hill keeps South Australian time and seems to have more of a connection with S.A, than it does to NSW. When we reached Broken Hill and as I was booking into the caravan park there, I went to get out my credit card folder to pay and it wasn't in my pocket, so I paid by cash and when we had set the van up on site we started to look for my credit card folder. We turned the car and van upside down and couldn't find it anywhere, so I made a phone call back to Terowie Road House (where I could last remember using it) to see if I had left it there, no it wasn't there. I called the last caravan park we went to and it wasn't there - next step was go to the bank and stop all the cards (what a job that would be), then I thought to make one last look in the car - I picked up my jacket, that I had thrown behind my seat, that I was wearing the previous night when I paid for fuel, and felt something hard in the pocket - it was the folder - wow that was a close call. God looks after his foolish children! 

So after that we went into town for a look see - it's not as big a place as I had always imagined, just a nice size, but filled with history going back to the 1800's, with plaques along the streets with pictures and explanations of building, places and people connected with that particular place. At the end of a street quite close to the main CBD there is a huge tailings heap and sitting on top of that is a restaurant and a memorial with the names and dates of all the workers killed whilst working the mines around Broken Hill, going way back, with the cause of death. Most simply say 'crushed' or 'fell down shaft', but some more descriptive ones say 'caught in a fly wheel', 'entombed in rock fall', fell into rock crusher' or 'killed by blasting'. We drove to the top of this tailings heap and took some photos of sunset over Broken Hill and the giant's chair was there also.

Broken Hill from Tailings Heap

Tailings heap at edge of town, with restaurant & Memorial on top

They have giants here in Broken Hill

On Tuesday we drove the six kilometres to the Sculptures of Broken Hill in the Living Desert Reserve, it costs $10 per car, but it is good for all day, so we went back at sunset to get some photos at that time too. There are nine or ten sculptures and you can read why they are there in the photo 'Self Explanation'. We spent a good hour or so there and then a bit less in the evening - took photos of them all but only included some of the best in this email.

Six kms west of Broken Hill

"Motherhood"

"Motherhood"

"Under the Jaguar Sun"

"Under the Jaguar Sun"

Different view in the setting sun

"Horse" - sad story

Georgian Horse & Wedge-Tail Eagle in background

Sculptures in setting sun with Broken Hill in distance

We then drove back to town and drove 25 kms out to Silverton, the original town that was set up when they first found the 'mother load' almost on the surface, which soon ran out and when deeper loads were found near Broken Hill the miners moved out of Silverton (many taking their homes with them) and it became almost a ghost town, but at its height it was a thriving metropolis with several pubs and churches, plus a Masonic hall, Town Hall and goal etc.

Silverton Catholic Church built 1886 - now restored

Silverton Miner's Cottage & me on Railway Scooter

Ruins, Catholic Church & Masonic Lodge at Silverton

The gaol is now an interesting museum filled with much memorabilia, some that makes me feel old as I remember my Mum using some of the utensils etc on display. About 25 movies or TV series have been filmed here and lots of TV commercials. There is a population of 60 odd (some very odd) people living here mainly for the tourist that flock here. A few kms further west is a lookout to nowhere. It's said that you are looking out at three days of nothing - it just shows how vast this country is.

From this lookout you can see for three days

We left Broken Hill on Wednesday 3rd July and several kms out on the Barrier Hwy to Cobar there is a small sign on the road that says - you are now entering NSW time zone put your clocks forward half an hour. So we are now back to NSW time. All along this highway we saw more emus than we saw anywhere else and goats everywhere - we couldn't make out if they were feral or not, but they weren't fenced, just running loose along the edges of the road - but they do seem to have more road sense than kangaroos because we didn't see any goat road-kill. The closer we get to the coast the worse the roads seem to get. 

We stopped at a roadside rest stop that night (went down to 4 deg) just before Cobar and arrived here at Narromine this afternoon. We had wanted to reach Dubbo, but Ruth's back has been playing up for a while now and she couldn't take much more, so we stopped here and here I am catching up with my updates. This just about wraps up our trip, tomorrow we are going to Ridgecrest Baptist Camp near Burrendong Dam to spend the week-end with Ps Chris and Lynette, leaving on Monday to get home late Monday or early Tuesday next week.

Port Germein and Adelaide SA

We arrived at Port Germein settled into the only caravan park there and went to explore the small, coastal town on the west coast of Spencer Gulf that has or had the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere, at one stage (until it lost 165 metres off the end in a storm), it is now 1,500 metres long - that's a three kilometre walk to the end and back.

Port Germein Jetty 1,500 mtrs

It seems to go on forever.

We started the walk but only got as far as the water, about halfway, where we saw the tide coming in at a fast flow. We had to walk fast back towards the shore so as we could get the photos taken from the sand. It was originally used to get wheat onto the ships by horse and cart and had a larger section at the end where the carts could turn around (didn't seem wide enough for two carts to pass). The Water Depth Gauge was the first we had ever seen and was large enough to be seen from deeper water so as the ships knew whether or not they could dock - it used to be at the end of the jetty together with a small lighthouse.

Water Depth Gauge - no longer in use

The next day (Thursday) we left and went to the closest caravan park to Adelaide city centre and just across the road from the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. We had time that day to walk through the gardens, which were quite nice, with sculptures everywhere, as well as plants and flowers, but being Winter, not many were blooming.

 Natural Beauty & Harmony @ Adelaide Botanic Garden

Adelaide Botanic Gardens - Amazon fighting Lion on horse

They had a very modern building devoted to the Giant Amazon Water Lilies which was heated to create their natural habitat - hot and humid.

Amazon Water Lillies

As we have never been to Adelaide before we decided to do a bus tour of the city and surrounds, so on the Friday we did just that starting out with a pick-up at 8:30am and getting back by 5:30pm - it was a long day but quite interesting and enjoyable. We had hoped that we could get a tour that showed all of the churches of this 'City of Churches', but we was told that a lot of the churches had closed and are now restaurants, medical suites or shops, but we did see the main ones, which are still churches, but didn't get to go inside - I guess most people aren't interested in churches any more. 

We had a good driver/tour guide who drove that coach through the busy city streets whilst sprouting heaps of information about the city, its history and what building was what and if it was now a heritage building or not (most any building over 50 yrs old in South Australia seems to be on the heritage list). Colonel Light in 1836 was given the task of finding a suitable site for Adelaide City (named after King William's wife) and had much opposition to the site he chose, but in the end it turned out to be the best for the climate and countryside - he planned it so as it could be defended from cannon-ball and musket fire by locating four green areas (parks - still used as parks) big enough so as a cannon-ball or musket shot couldn't reach the main streets of Adelaide from the end of these parks. 

So our first stop was Light Park that overlooked the city, but there is so much construction work going on that all we really saw was his statue in the park surrounded by large cranes accompanied by the sounds of jack-hammers and the beep-beep-beep of diggers and trucks turning and backing up.

Colonel Light overlooking the city of Adelaide

Then we went to the Haigh Chocolate Factory, a small boutique chocolate enterprise that mainly sells its chocolate products in South Australia, with a few outlets in Victoria and NSW. We had a short tour and a free sample and were then taken into their shop where we could buy some of their wares with a 5% discount voucher. Ruth and I headed for the seconds counter and bought some Rocky Road and slabs of coconut, peppermint and almond chocolate. It really wasn't any better than Nestles, but they apparently have a following and do quite well - it is still family owned and run. 

 From there we went to where the first settlers, settled, now a suburb of Adelaide called Glenelg. The driver said we could have a walk around for 20 minutes and said the Glenelg beach was one of the top ten beaches in Australia - so we had to see that, what a disappointment - maybe it was because it was Winter, but there was seaweed all over the beach and again, with so many of these so called top beaches, there was no surf. When I questioned the driver about this he said, this is a gulf so no proper surf here. I suppose it would be good in Summer for those who just want to get wet and cool down, especially for small kids.

Glenelg Beach and Jetty

We then went back to the depot (in the heart of Adelaide) for an hour or so break - so we decided to see the city markets and walked around there after a quick lunch and got lost, they are so huge - but finally managed to get back to the depot for the afternoon tour which left for Mount Lofty in the Adelaide Hills where one can get a good overall view of the beautiful city of Adelaide (voted as one of the best cities in the world to live). However, it was very cloudy and overcast, so we really didn't get to see the beautiful city of Adelaide from afar, but it was on the tour, so we went anyway and the driver was kind enough to take our photo with the city (clouds) in the background.

Mt. Lofty Looking out over Adelaide - haha

Then we had a nice drive through the Adelaide Hills and small villages ending up at the village of Hahndorf, which is a village that was settled by German Lutherans who had left Germany because of persecution and wanted to start life anew in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. It still has many of the original buildings and crafts and we had several hours to walk through the village and enjoy the ambience of the place. We were given a voucher for either 'coffee & cake' or 'a sampling of German beers' at the local German Tavern. Ruth & I had only had a light luncheon, so we decided that we would have a typical German Hot Dog with sauerkraut & mustard before we had our cake. They would only offer us a metre long hot dog and nothing smaller, so we left and found another smaller cafe where we got what we wanted - then just before we had to board the bus we went back and got our 'hot chocolate and cake', instead of the coffee.

 Ruth enjoying her Bratwurst, Sauerkraut & Mustard Hotdog at Hahndorf

The next day, Saturday, we went back to the markets in the morning and bought some fruit, veggies, cheese and goat meat as we were getting low on supplies - then in the afternoon we went to the Adelaide Zoo to see the Panda Bears (the only zoo in Australia that has them). We saw them, behind thick glass cages, with notices saying 'No Flash Photography' - not that it would have helped as the flash would have just reflected back off of the glass and spoilt the photo, but we did get to see one close up eating his bamboo. We also saw a lot of their very fibrous poos scattered all over the floor. They did have plenty of room outside where they could go, but after our third trip back to their enclosure we decided that they didn't go out very much at all.

Ruth with Panda

Bernie with Panda

We did see lots of other animals that you would see in most zoos and that was enjoyable - my favourites were the meerkats, just after I took that photo they were fed - one mouse each (this was their Saturday treat - the mice were dead, but they only had enough for one each).

Meercats at Adelaide Zoo

Cassowary at Adelaide Zoo

Baboon, showing his fangs, at Adelaide Zoo

We left Sunday morning and stopped of at the Enfield Baptist Church on our way north, now, towards Broken Hill.

Streaky Bay - Kimba SA

We left Nundroo on Saturday 22nd and reached the Ceduna "Fruit Fly Checkpoint" to be told that they were only interested in any thing that came out of the ground, like potatoes or carrots and also citrus fruit. Ruth had already cooked the potatoes, onions etc and we had eaten all of our fruit, so we didn't have to declare anything, but we could have brought in a lettuce (that we gave away at the roadhouse and our Boab tree seed pods that we threw away). 

So from there we drove down the coast of the Eyre Peninsula until we reached Streaky Bay where we decided to stay over for church on Sunday and leave on Monday. Streaky Bay is a small coastal village where everyone seems to know everyone, extremely well kept and looked after by the council and locals, with almost everything a small town could want except a Baptist church. 

Rugged Coast near Streaky Bay, SA

We took a walk on the Saturday afternoon along the bay, right next to the caravan park, and noticed that quite a few of the sea gulls there only had one leg, see photo - we actually disturbed them in case they had one leg tucked under their wing, but no, they actually hopped away from us as we drew close to them. What was happening? Well further along the beach we came across one gull that was having a hard time walking at all because it had fishing line wrapped around both of its legs, so we assumed that the one legged gulls lost their legs when fishing line caught around their leg, cut off the circulation, the leg died and then fell off. It was quite pitiful to see - this coastal area boasts that it is a great fishing area and is probably their main attraction. 

One-legged seagulls

The next day was Sunday and we had the Anglican or Uniting churches from which to choose - we chose the Anglican, and what a good choice it was because it is one of only a few evangelical Anglican churches in South Australia and the message was spot on. I found this out when I spoke to the minister after church and told him that he could have preached that sermon in any Baptist church and no one would have know he was an Anglican. He replied that he would hope that he could preach that sermon in any church and be accepted, but acknowledged that not all S.A. Anglican churches would. He preached from Galatians 3 and it was a full on salvation sermon and even had an invitation at the end for anyone who was serving the church, but hadn't accepted Jesus as Saviour in their lives - even mentioning that baptism didn't get us to Heaven. 

We walked back to the caravan park and bought fish 'n chips for lunch and stayed in for the rest of the afternoon as it was cold, drizzly and fairly miserable (and Ruth was getting worse). So first thing Monday we rang the local doctor and made an appointment for 11:30am, which was too late to carry on with our trip, so we decided to stay another night. After Ruth got her antibiotics and a nasal spray, we had lunch and did a short drive around the coast and saw some of its ruggedness and missed out again on seeing some blow holes blowing because the sea was quite calm and maybe the tide not high enough. 

We left Streaky Bay on the Tuesday and continued south for about 40 kms until we came across Murphy's Haystacks which are some very unusually shaped granite rocks on top of a hill and from a distance they could possible be mistaken for haystacks - see story in photos. We spent a good hour there walking amongst them - at the entrance they ask for $2 per person to be put in a metal honour box - it's on private property and the toilet and pathways have been provided by the property owner, so we thought that was fair. 

Murphy's Haystacks

Close up of main outcropping of Murphy's Haystacks.

Explanation for Murphy's Haystacks

Ruth on windswept side of one of Murphy's Haystacks

Just kicked the top off a small haystack.

We then drove on to a place called Elliston where we turned east and headed for a small village called Lock, where we stayed the night as the only guests in the local caravan park. We had thought of continuing south to Port Lincoln but by this time we figured we had seen enough rugged coastlines and the main attraction all along there seemed to be fishing, so we gave that a miss. At Lock we met a lady in the caravan park bringing in her washing and the utility she was driving had written on its side - Truck Evangelism - so we got talking and it turned out that she and her husband were visiting the local Free Presbyterian Church there where they had their fifth-wheeler caravan parked that they used to visit truckie stops (off the tourism routes) to bring the Gospel to the truckies there by offering a coffee and chat - her husband is an ex-truckie, so he obviously has an advantage with their language and interests etc. We thought it was a great evangelistic service that they did without any denominational support, so we gave her an offering which she said would enable them to give out more coffee. 

From Lock we drove north to Kyancutta and there turned east for Kimba (which claimed to be the half way mark across Australia) and where they have a Big Galah.

The Big Galah

Kimba - halfway across Australia

The Story of Kimba.

All of the Eyre Peninsula seems to have a foundation of karst (limestone) and the fields and paddocks all have white rocks and stones over them, but some that are being used to grow wheat have been cleaned up and have large piles of rocks every so often that they must plow and harvest around whereas some of the more industrious farmers have built rockwall fences with the stones and they look quite neat and reminded us a lot of the English countryside where they have stone walls dividing their fields (many that have been made over hundreds of years, unlike those here on the Eyre Peninsular that look a bright white with no aging showing at all). We left the Eyre Peninsula via Port Augusta - saw much mining going on and a huge mountain of iron ore at Iron Knob - bypassed the Yorke Peninsula and headed for Adelaide and over-nighted at Port Germein Caravan Park.

The Nullarbor Plain WA - SA

We made it across the Nullarbor Plain! After we left Norseman we continued through the largest area of hardwood woodlands in the world and finally came to the longest stretch of straight road in Australia - 145.6 Kms - and it really did go on and on - quite monotonous and one had to be careful not to get hypnotised by it, but it sure was a good lesson in perspective as that road went right on to the horizon until it became a point instead of two lines - just liked we learned in technical drawing at school.

Beginning of Nullarbor - West side

Good Perspective of Nullarbor Road to Horizon

The signs along the way warned of kangaroos, camels and emus on the road but we only saw a few (live) kangaroos, but we saw heaps of wedge tail eagles - feasting on the road kill - they stuff themselves so full that they have a hard time lifting off the ground when a vehicle comes along and we did see several that had become road kill themselves. Towards the end of the Nullarbor (in South Australia) we also saw a few dingoes.

Whoops - Ruth beamed up again on the Nullarbor.

Found her! at a Nullarbor Blow Hole

Explanation of Blowhole

The highlight of the crossing was also in the South Australia when we came close to the coast and got to see the rugged, cliffs of the Great Australian Bight - there were four places along the way where you could drive almost right up to the cliff edge. At the first stop I saw a whale breaching and then Ruth saw it when it breached again - we waited and waited but it didn't breach again. Then at the last place called "Head of Bight", a bay where the Southern Right Whales come every year to calve last year's conception and then conceive for next year we saw quite a few of them up close and personal as the mother whales turned over on their backs to show their white bellies in frustration to keep their calves from feeding too much.

Rugged Southern Coastal Cliffs

More Rugged Coast - it was cold too!

Southern Right Whale at Head of Bight

Whale blowing - - bottom left

It was very hard to get a good photo because of the digital camera's knack of taking the photo just after you've pressed the button - that was frustrating for us - and they wouldn't oblige by staying up for long. We saw a few more breaches here, but too far off for our camera and it happens in the blink of an eye - you would have to have your camera pointing at that spot just at the right moment. This area is a national park and a fee is charged ($12 for seniors) so as you can use their boardwalk that takes you up to the edge of the bay where you can see them - everywhere else is fenced off. The Southern Rights come to this spot from May to Oct each year and they don't feed at all, just live off of their own blubber - and the females also have to feed their calves from this accumulation of fat that they stock up during the other months of the year down in the Antarctic waters. This is one good reason to come here in Winter, but it is very cold and the wind coming off of the water is bitter. 

So we are now in South Australia and heading for Adelaide (the city of churches) via the Eyre Peninsula - before we get to Ceduna we have to make sure we have eaten all of our fresh fruit and vegetables and we had to get rid of some seed pods of the Boab trees that we had collected - not allowed into the state. We are at Nundroo Roadhouse with no internet reception, so I'll probably send it tomorrow when we stop for the night.