St George

We arrived at St George a short trip of 240 Klm's from Lightning Ridge. The road in places was like a roller coaster, and a bit broken up by all the rain recently, consequently the cupboards were re-arranged again. The rivers and dams looked very healthy along the way. We are sure the temperature jumped about 5 degrees as soon as we crossed into Queensland.
We had a look around the caravan parks and decided on one just outside St George which has nice grassy sites with plenty of room. The amenities are excellent too, they provide bath mats for the showers. All this for $26. We decided to stay for 3 nights to catch up with a bit of car and caravan cleaning, laundry washing, grocery shopping and a hair cut for me (Baz), and also just for a break from travelling. Tomorrow we will probably go for a drive to a fishing park and camp ground about 9klms out of town, will also visit a winery for a taste of the local drop.

Lightning Ridge

We set off for Lightning Ridge with a promising sunny day but it soon deteriorated along with the road conditions to cloudy sky with intermittent showers and a roller coaster road which rearranged a few things in the caravan cupboards. We arrived a little after lunch, so it was off to the information centre to find out the best sights. We acquired a map of the area along with a set of instructions to follow the coloured car doors which is an initiative of the Lightning Ridge Tourism Assoc. for self drive sightseeing. Lightning Ridge is best known for it’s black opals, so you can imagine the large number of shops selling opals to the tourist’s.
Today the weather has been lovely and warm with lots of sunshine, so it was off to follow the trails around the area going past underground Opal Mines, the open cut mine, Amigo’s Castle, Art Galleries , House of Bottles, and The Hot Artesian Baths. This afternoon was spent lazing in the Hot Baths at a cool 41.5 degrees, could not keep all the body immersed for long. It was an entertaining time listening to the old local miners chatting and voicing their opinions, especially on politics, best to keep your mouth shut ! I was wondering why people kept looking at me on our return to the caravan park, only to look in the mirror and see a bright red beetroot face , had certainly cooked myself.
Tomorrow we head further north crossing the border into QLD to St George.

Cobar - Bourke

Broken Hill

We spent a couple of days at Broken Hill, looking around the town, going up on the mullock heap where there is a miners memorial to all the miners that have died in the area. The exhibit listed the miner’s names, date and cause of death. It highlighted how hazardous the occupation was in the early years. We also had a trip out to Silverton which is about 30klm out of Broken Hill, the Mad Max movie was filmed out there and there are numerous vehicles that were featured in the film scattered about the township. We also checked out the Heritage Museum that is located in the old Silverton Goal which had an impressive amount of items from the past exhibited. Back in Broken Hill we had a cultural experience visiting Pro Hart’s Gallery. There are four Rolls Royce vehicles that he owned displayed outside, one had been painted in the true Pro Hart style.
Monday we said goodbye to Sharmon, Jack, Vicki, Peter, Lyn & Wayne they were heading off in the direction of Petersborough on their adventure to Lake Eyre & beyond, it had been great travelling with them, will miss their company & the drinks around the camp fires. We headed out in the opposite direction on our way to Bourke, we had thought we would stay overnight at Cobar but changed our minds 60klm east of Cobar & spend the night at a roadside stop. We enjoyed a happy hour with a fellow Tasmanian whom we had met earlier in the day at a rest stop, just happens that he was known to me as he used to come into the Rosny branch of the Credit Union.
Today we arrived at Bourke around lunch time, so we were able to spend the afternoon checking out the town and surrounds. We went out to the local cemetery where Fred Hollows is buried, and looked at many of the early grave sites. It was very depressing seeing many graves of infants and young children also the early settlers didn’t reach a very old age.
Tomorrow we intend to travel to Lightening Ridge.

Mildura

After recommendation from fellow travellers we took a punt on a cheap caravan park opposite the airport at Mildura, only $15 a night for a powered site. It turned out to be a nice quiet park even with numerous dogs and permanents. The facilities were clean, we certainly had our money's worth in power, Lyn blew the fuses a couple of times with too many electrical appliances on. The last plane was around 7pm until 6.30am so they were not a problem.
We had three days there looking around and was surprised at the size of the town it was larger than we had expected, produced in the area are grapes, oranges,almonds and vegetables. We had an enjoyable trip on the MS Melbourne Paddle Steamer on the Murray River which passed through Lock 11, it was very interesting entering the lock and being lowered 2.5mtrs and on the return trip being raised up again.
Friday night we went to The Working Mens Club to see a group called The Beach Balls, it was a great night listening to the hits from The Beach Boys, Beatles, Frankie Valley and many others.