Burra - Hawker

Awoke to a very brisk and overcast morning, with the occasional shower of rain. Had thought we would spend more time at Burra exploring the Historic Township, but as weather conditions were not very pleasant, after a quick tour around the town and a trip up to the open cut mine lookout, we left Burra to head north. Today we saw many wind farms in the distance dotting the hill line, with their slow moving blades. The scenery was constantly changing from open flat plateaus to saltbush and hills.

W e made a slight detour into the old railway town of Teowie, the population is only 150 and many of the buildings are boarded up and deserted, which is a typical depressing sign of many outback towns. Teowie was once a busy railway town where the rail carriages had to be unloaded and reloaded as the railway lines changed from narrow to a wider gauge. Our next stop was Peterborough where we had a guided tour of the Steam Town Heritage Rail Centre with the only remaining triple gauge turntable in the world. Steam trains and carriages are all housed and displayed in the 23 bay Roundhouse building.

Leaving Peterborough we headed further north before stopping for a quick lunch break at Orroroo. Arriving at Hawker we quickly settled in to the caravan park and then it was time for walk around the township. The weather has improved slightly, not so chilly and damp

Open cut copper mine Burra

Miners Dugouts

Burra Town Hall

Roundhouse Peterborough

Mildura - Burra

Woke to a blue sky this morning so headed off, but it was not long before the weather deteriorated with intermittent heavy showers. Stopping along the way at Renmark which is located on the banks of the Murray River, a visit to the local Chemist to get the drugs that will keep us going a bit longer. The next stop was Berry, where we found a nice park beside the Murray to have our lunch, a very heavy shower of rain passed over while we were there so did not get to explore too much. The next little town was Morgan a lovely Heritage town with a vehicular crossing over the Murray. We arrived here at Burra just after 3pm, at least the weather was fine but a bit chilly, so rugged up and went for a hour long walk after being car bound for so long. We are looking forward to exploring Burra tomorrow as it has many Heritage buildings and a old open cut copper mine.

Murray River Renmark

Berry waterfront

Old bridge Burra

Hobart - Mildura

As we were very organised this year we managed to get away nice and early Saturday morning, stopping off to say goodbye to Tan, Greg and boys. We also left our dog Doug with them to have his holiday for the next four months. We met up with our friends from Cobram (Vic) that have been travelling Tassie for the last month at the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm for a very enjoyable lunch, and hope to see them on our return journey through Cobram in September.
On board the Spirit we had drinks with Gladys and Graeme who we had met when we were both staying at Bargara Beach two years ago and have kept in touch since. Helen & Vince whom we also met at Bargara were on the boat as well, it was quiet a coincident, they were again heading straight for Bargara to spend the winter.
We arrived in Melbourne at 6.30am after a very good crossing, to a clear day and a picturesque sunrise. We headed west to Ballarat,  finding it very fresh upon arrival. At the railway station we stopped to have a look at an old Steam Train that was about to leave, then it was a quick look around the old Gold Mining town with it's beautiful Heritage buildings and churches, before heading north towards Mildura.
Feeling quiet tired by late morning we found a lovely little spot to pull into near a old church at Bung Bong, we had a little nanna nap, lunch and decided we would spend the night as the weather had deteriorated and it was raining. Lovely and warm in the caravan with the gas heater!
This morning we were away by 9am after a good nights sleep, heading up the Sunraysia Hwy it was very bumpy a bit of a roller coaster ride, passing through the lovely township of St Arnaud and onto Ouyen where we stopped for lunch. After lunch it was on the road again with a change of driver for the final leg to Mildura,  we were now on the Calder Hwy which was a much smoother ride. We stopped at Red Cliffe to take a few photo's of Big Lizzie, which had been built in the early 1900's to cart wool from outback stations in the Broken Hill area, then later used to clear trees and scrub. Big Lizze is 34ft long 11ft wide and 18ft high weighing in at 45 tons.

Steam Engine Ballarat

Free camp Bung Bong

Bazza cooking the snags

A couple of Big Lizzie's