Port Augusta to Rawnsley Park Station - 24 Sept. 2016

This was planned as an easy driving day, allowing time in particular to visit the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden. I had wonderful memories of such a garden in Central Australia, the Alice Springs Desert Park, where I thought I'd pop in for half an hour which turned into half a day. Sadly, the Port Augusta version wasn't a patch on the one in Alice, to the point where it didn't keep me waiting until the 10am cafe opening time for breakfast.

Red flowers?

However, I did enjoy a short section of a cliff walk with stunning views of the head of Spencer Gulf where Matthew Flinders had landed. This was the red earth I was hoping to see on this trip.

Red cliffs and mangroves

So on to my next stop, the water tower lookout. A lot of stairs, two days in a row! Good but unexciting views of the city.

From water tower to lookout tower

Breakfast was a takeaway affair from a bakery in the main shopping centre. Fine, for what it was but I'd planned on cafe-style for the day. I was sitting on a street bench looking at the Court House, one of the cities many fine old buildings ... granted, looking across a car park!

Court House

Northern Gateway - former brewery now incorporated into a shopping centre

Onwards to Quorn. It wasn't until after I booked all my accommodation that I looked at the Pichi Richi railway timetable. Perhaps a blessing in disguise that it wasn't going to fit into my timetable. I passed it en route to Quorn – it did look fabulous! 

Pichi Richi steam train - a hit with tourists with more time (or different priorities!) than me

But on reaching Quorn I discovered that the train was expected to be 45+ minutes behind schedule. Not bad for a supposedly 1¾ hour journey!

Street frontage of Quorn's rather grand railway station

Quorn station, track-side

I had thoughts of driving to Rawnsley Park Station via Parachilna and Blinman. But a check on the roads at the Port August tourist info centre revealed that wasn't going to happen. Maps showed inconsistent road surfaces. Local knowledge confirmed the Parachilna > Blinman road is unsealed. Not good in my little car and doubly so after bucketing rain giving rise to mud at best and floods at worst.

Nevertheless, I wanted to see the Prairie Hotel at Parachilna so drove there for a late soup lunch and a lemon squash. A long way to go for a drink! Especially as there was no other way to get to Rawnsley except by retracing the whole of that drive back to Hawker.

En route to the pub I got a huge thrill - I saw four emus grazing on the old Ghan railway tracks. A wonderful sight!

Prairie Hotel, Parachilna

The Outback Highway back to Hawker - no emus this time

Finally – Rawnsley Park and my caravan park cabin! Lovely for one (i.e. me), would work for two. The bunkroom sleeps four – child size … and would be a nightmare!

It was two rolls with spinach and cheese filling for tea. It's harder than I expected to keep up my Vitamin K quota.

View from the cabin

Ouyen to Burra - 22 Sept. 2016

Next morning, I had a quick 'slow drive around town'. Ouyen looked a nicer place than the pub had led me to expect. The mobile library was in town – parked in its own parking space. I still haven't been inside one but this truck was partly 'unpacked' so I could see through the locked glass door. Quite ingenious.

Next stop was Pinnaroo, just the other side of the Victoria / South Australia border. But there was something I was watching out for – just as well I spotted it when there was little traffic about – I wasn't doing my most appropriate driving! - and there was a safe place to stop to take the photos. My little Mazda2, 2005 model, clicked over 100,000km. It's been a trusty vehicle in spite of a challenge or two I've given it. Hopefully it will see me through another 100,000.

Once into South Australia, almost immediately I started to spot the beautiful stone houses that abound in the state. A pity so many, in the country at least, are now in ruins.

Ruins - one of so many

Pinnaroo was nothing to write home about, just a chance to walk about a bit until driving on to Loxton, a really lovely town, bustling and looking prosperous. A very helpful lady at the tourist info centre gave me a bundle of information for the following day and pointed me in the right direction to get out of town. I was heading for a lavender farm where I planned to have lunch and buy some lavender soap. Ho hum. The pizzas did look delicious but there was a busload of tourists plus others so I wasn't inspired to wait. The lavender goods on sale looked tired and as though they had come from elsewhere. Very disappointing. I did indulge my mug fetish though and bought one decorated with stalks of lavender. I need another mug like I need a hole in my head!!!

Before leaving Loxton I took a drive down by the river, another suggestion of the tourist info lady. A lovely spot for caravanners and houseboat holiday makers. But it's not always that beautiful. The river floods from time to time!

The Murray at Loxton

The Tree of Knowledge by the Murray - showing flood levels
Note 1956!

Giving the tree and the flood levels a broader perspective

So what to do for lunch? Try the winery that the lovely tourist lady at Loxton had been recommending strongly. (I did wonder if she had shares! But she was spot on in suggesting this.) 

I'm not a wine drinker but did enjoy a mini yum cha lunch on the verandah overlooking stunning wetlands at Banrock Station. You can walk about the wetlands but alas, I didn't have time for that. But I did have time to shop! Although not a wine drinker, I did buy myself some prunes in port. I'm partial to a drop of port … and tokay and muscat :-)

Vines and wetlands at Banrock Station

Shortly afterwards I crossed the Murray by ferry and not terribly long after that (well, about 170km!), I arrived at Burra, the day's destination.

Waiting for the ferry at Kingston-on-Murray

Accommodation here – Paxton Cottages, three rows of stone miners cottages, about 35 in all, now let out for holiday makers like me. I loved it! 

Paxton Cottages - one of the three rows

Inside my cottage

The cottages are basic but have all you need. Really, all that's missing are the things that various accommodation providers tizz their places up with. I wished I'd been staying there longer. Mind you, the one bedroom cottage I had was ideal for me or a couple. Back in the day I doubt it would have been a lot of fun for a miner with a wife and a horde of children!

Eating and Sleeping in FNQ

First posted on May 15, 2013

Sleeping – In Atherton I stayed at the Atherton Hinterland Motel. This was a great spot to stay and I’m not just saying that because it is run by Piers’s sister and brother-in-law. It was clean, dry, comfortable, plenty of hot water and good water pressure. The location is perfect – at the edge of the centre of town so you can walk to all the central amenities (if you wanted to!). Atherton itself is central to a great district for seeing tropical Australia.
In Cairns I stayed at Hides Hotel, right in the centre of town. There’s the old hotel with newer (a relative term!) rooms as well. I stayed in one of the newer room so I could have my own bathroom. My particular room suffered from the constant hum of air-conditioning units a few feet from the window. The room also had a number of oddities – you really wonder about how things are designed … and who does the designing!! Rarely is a large bathroom a problem – except when the towel rail is placed as far from where you step from the shower as possible. You have to leave your towel on the floor by the shower or traipse, naked and dripping, across the bathroom to grab your towel from the rail. You could hang your towel on the shower taps I suppose – they were “outside” the shower! Novel!! The bed lights – you needed six foot long arms to turn them off. No fun being 98% asleep and having to lurch out of bed to turn off the reading light. And it was not refreshing to have the air-con blow straight on you from a metre away when you’re in bed. Other than that …. the balcony was great and the included breakfast had what I have at home – sultana bran!

Eating – I was most grateful to be invited to eat with Piers’s family each evening for the duration of my stay in Atherton. One of the things I long for when I’m away is a home-cooked meal. No shortage of them this time. I brunched at various cafes, depending where my travels took me each day.

In Cairns I ate twice at Perrotta’s at the Gallery. A bit more than I’d normally spend but it was well worth it for both the food and the service. The night in between I had a delicious salmon risotto at a place on the Esplanade but service was lacking. The waitress I started with was good but there was a shift change (or so it seemed) and I became invisible.

Fish'n'chips at Perrotta's

... followed by panna cotta. Yum!

At both of these places I ate outdoors. It was so pleasant. I thought, we should have outdoor eating like this in Melbourne. Then I remembered …. we do, but the smokers are there. In Cairns there was no smoking in food service areas. Three cheers for them!!! When will Melbourne become so civilised?!

Chiltern

First posted on January 8, 2013

Not quite such a leisurely start on Sunday morning. Alison had work to do on her PhD thesis and I had to start heading for home. But first, brunch in Kingston followed by a visit to the Canberra glassworks, housed in a former powerhouse. The glassworks is by a Sunday market and I thought I spotted it. No, the market is still on its Christmas/New Year break. That crowd was the Epiphany procession from the nearby Orthodox church!

Old Canberra powerhouse, now home to glassworks

As if it wasn’t hot enough already! (At times on this trip you could feel the car tyres sticking to the tarmac!!) It was fascinating, watching a blob turn into a delicate bowl, so we kept on watching, getting more sweat-drenched by the minute. I was anyway! It’s one of those painstaking crafts that I wouldn’t have the patience to do but love the end result.

You can do classes there and make simple things without blowing. I wouldn’t mind trying to make a paperweight! No need to explain the whatever weird shape it turned out. It would be ‘right’ …. artistic even. Ha ha!

Having bade good-bye to Joseph the previous evening, now it was time to say good-bye to Alison when I dropped her back home. Until next time, of course! I prefer to fill the tank at the start of a day’s driving so pulled into the queue at Yass services. And what a queue! After sitting for a while I decided to rearrange the bits and pieces in the car. Then I sat for a while longer. Finally, I pulled out of the queue and joined the Hume. Goodness knows where all the vehicles had come from, with all their various towed jet-skis, surf-boards, cars!, and goodness knows what hidden under tarps. There was no queue at all at Jugiong. Probably not as many people as I did paid 159.9/litre! It was only 130.9/litre at Holbrook, where I stopped for a late afternoon tea. Early afternoon tea had been at Gundagai – the town, not by the Dog on the Tuckerbox!

I hadn’t intended pulling into Jugiong – memories of doing that with my dear, much missed (deceased last year) friend Brenda a few years ago, laughing at the funny name of the place. But it was the first petrol point after Yass. On the way out of that tiny hamlet I stopped at the lookout point – beautiful countryside.

Views over Jugiong

Apart from the breaks at Gundagai and Holbrook, it was straight through to Chiltern, a hot day’s driving, thankful I wasn’t driving straight home. Tea at a local pub – I think the first ‘home made’ quiche I’ve had that has been home made! Delicious, with lovely flaky pastry. Followed by an early night, or so I thought!

For the past few days there had been a lot of little insects about, liberally sprinkled on the car whenever I stopped. I arrived in Canberra with a streaming nose, a ‘mind over matter’ result from thinking an insect went up my nose the previous night in Cowra. No – whatever it was, it was ‘just a tickle’. 
I experienced the real thing in Chiltern – an insect in my ear! I could hear and feel it flapping about. Jumping under the shower at 1.15am to flush it out wasn’t the sort of sleep I’d been hoping for! Nor when you could feel the insects on your skin. After the ear episode I pulled the sheet over me almost like a shroud.

In the morning outside the motel room door ….

Cowra 1

First posted on January 3, 2013

This trip came about because I was invited to Joseph’s 50th birthday party in Canberra. In planning to take a meandering route, my first thought was Canowindra. Why there? I can’t remember what film or TV show it was, but I was surprised it wasn’t filmed on a film set but in a country town, one that was still so well preserved as an example of “the olden days”. There’s something to be said for reading all the credits as they roll! So it was Canberra and Canowindra. Didn’t take long for the corny idea of staying only in places starting with C to take hold – scouring the map was fun!
And after all that, there I was, wandering about, seeing the sights of Canowindra this morning! It’s not perfectly preserved, of course. I think the thing that makes the biggest difference is the keeping of the original verandahs and verandah posts. They were the things most noticeably missing in Blayney when I passed through there this afternoon. Some verandahs were not just awnings but upstairs balconies of two-storied buildings. One missing verandah was a bit startling: a balcony had been removed and replaced with a shelter style verandah – hoping no one actually steps out the door there!

Don't step out the upstairs door!

Canowindra - Main Street

But I was to discover much better examples of preserved old towns this afternoon: Millthorpe and Carcour. In fact, Carcour was so perfect it could have been one of those reconstructed towns such as at Sovereign Hill. But it wasn’t! It was the real thing. Its publicity says it’s the town time forgot – spot on! Neither would be as easy to work with for filming, I think, as Canowindra. The latter has a flat main street with a bend in it giving a few easy options. Millthorpe was a bit hilly and Carcoar like the Big Dipper!

Millthorpe

Millthorpe

Carcour

Carcour

Back to the morning, after Canowindra it was off to Orange, heading north. A lovely drive through relatively hilly countryside, the very edge of the Great Divide I guess. En route I went to the top of Mt Canobolas – the highest point in the line between Sydney and Perth it said on a sign there, giving some great views. The netting covering groves of fruit trees look like factory roofs when looking down on them. Having sworn never to drive on unsealed roads again after my “tyre incident” the far side of Broken Hill, halfway up this hill, with no turning space and definitely no warning on the map I was using – gravel! I gritted my teeth and made it, hoping there’s no slow leak puncture I’m going to discover in the morning!!

At the top of Mt Canobolas

Views from Mt Conobolas

Orange proved to be the biggest town (city really, probably a bit bigger than Ballarat or Bendigo) I’ve been to. All the usual shops and chains from home which didn’t inspire me. A smattering of old buildings. I wonder if the locals were aghast when “developers” got their hands on the Wellington Inn of 1871? In the 1930s they turned it into the art deco Royal Hotel!

Main Street, Orange

Instead I enjoyed walking through Cook Gardens, National Trust listed apparently.

Cook Gardens, Orange

I bought lunch and ate it in another green space, Robertson Gardens, across from the civic centre complex.

Robertson Gardens, Orange

After lunch I crossed the road and had a quick look at the library (well patronised) and the art gallery. Three rooms at the gallery: OK stuff, modern 3-dimensional junk, a series of block paintings that suggested the artist might need some help with his obsession.

Orange library and art gallery complex

I was really really glad that a visit to Bathurst got scrubbed in the early planning stages. Time-wise it wouldn’t have worked but more than that, I didn’t need to see another city.

Then it was time to turn southwards again, Millthorpe and Carcour, as above, with Blayney in between. Not as hilly as in the morning, instead pleasantly undulating. The main drag at Blayney was exceptionally wide. I don’t think it was a visual trick because the verandahs had been shorn off most of the shop-fronts. There was one interesting building though – the Catholic Church: it looks like a cinema!!

Blayney Catholic Church

And one more unexpected sight: a wind farm. The viewing point turned out to be at the edge of a lake where people were camping, fishing and water skiing. It looked just the place for it if that’s your thing.

Finally, Cowra. The one motel I’d pre-paid, the one place (apart from with Alison & James in Canberra) I’m staying two nights – and it’s the tiniest motel room I’ve ever seen!! There’s a double bed – pushed up against the wall. There’s a sofa-bed – but goodness knows where you could fold it out. Basically it’s a room and bathroom for one … with nowhere, perhaps fortuitously!, to spread my junk. This was the one place I wanted to wash a shirt that’s had a wear too many. I did – in a basin that’s A4 size and two inches deep! To rinse it I waved it under the shower!!

I arrived in town at tea time, at the local RSL again. I’ve decided these clubs are like Maccas for grown-ups: all the same predictable fare, nothing exciting but it’s not going to kill you, all the same décor, a step up from a pub. I don’t go near the poker machines. I was queueing to sign in tonight when one pokie desperado pushed in to get change for his machine. I couldn’t be miffed at his rudeness, his losses were subsidising my meal. Sad really.
Back to a bakery for breakfast in the morning before exploring the “Cowra Breakout” history.