We’re currently in Adelaide, staying just north of the city close to our friends Jill and Steve. David and Steve are having fun in Steve’s shed working on a couple of projects David has come up with for the van. I’m using the time here to get doctor and dentist visits out of the way. The rest of our time is spent eating, drinking and catching up. Having lots of fun.
Berri
After Mildura we spent a couple of weeks in Berri just relaxing, fishing, walking and stuff. Berri is in the riverland area of South Australia and there are numerous wineries and orange groves. There is a great farmer’s market in Berri where local producers bring cured meats, fantastic fruit and veg and cakes and biscuits. It was a really enjoyable couple of weeks.
While in Berri, we visited the Cobdogla Irrigation and Steam Museum, a very interesting place. They say they have the only working Humphreys Pump in the world and it is only started 4 times a year, today was one of the 4. It is a pump that was used to draw water from the Murray for irrigation of surrounding properties. For the technically minded this is a very quick explanation as I understood it, it is an internal combustion engine of sorts that uses water as the piston, the incoming water is pumped into the cylinder, as the water level rises and falls the inlet and exhaust valves control the air into the combustion chamber, at the correct time residual fuel from a wood fired engine (see photo of stacks and startup pump) is mixed above the water (combustion chamber) and is fired electrically, forcing the water out into large tanks and then into the irrigation channels. Apparently using residual fuel from the wood fired engine makes for a very slow burn which moves the water rather than blowing the head of the Humphrey Pump. If I heard the guys correctly it can pump up to 40,000 litres per minute. This is a great place to visit with a man’s shed with all sorts of stationary engines, a steam train, steam tractor and many other exhibits. Whilst at first it seems to be a blokes place, Maggie said that she had a great time as well so it must have been good.
Mildura
Well, we’ve been in Mildura for nearly 2 weeks now. We’ve been doing some tourist stuff, but not a lot. It’s just been nice hanging out in the park, reading, watching tv etc. Nothing very exciting I guess, but just, nice.
We went to Mungo National Park yesterday – it’s nice, but I think our expectations were too high, so we were a little disappointed. We had seen photographs of the park in a magazine which were just stunning, but I think the time the photos were taken as well as the lens used made the photo’s much more dramatic than it really is. The main feature in the park is The Walls of China which is a lunette formed by the wind into an almost lunar type landscape on the western side and sand dunes on the eastern side, and is worth seeing. The rest of the park is mainly made up of saltbush, blue bush, rosewood trees and belah’s (causarina trees). The area used to be a series of lakes which dried up approximately 18,000 years ago, then Europeans moved in with their sheep and cattle for a while before it was declared a national park in 1979. To get to the park you have to drive over 100km on dirt roads. The road is maintained very well so the drive wasn’t too rough although I’m glad we didn’t take the van in, I think we would have had a few broken dishes!
Cowra
After our week with Marg and Terry we started heading towards Lake Mungo National Park which we wanted to see, deciding to stop at Cowra on the way there. We drove to Cowra via Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (beautiful views) and Bathurst. David has been to Bathurst a few times for the car racing but I’ve never been there so David took me (and the van) around the track. While I’d heard that it was really steep in parts I didn’t realise how steep some of the track was until we went round it. I also found it interesting that for people who live in the area the race track is the main road to their property. I’ve got a photo of David tearing round the track with the van at an incredible speed of 40 km/h! We spent 3 nights in Cowra visiting the Japanese Garden and the POW Camp. I really like Cowra – it’s a really pleasant town and the people are really friendly. For those interested in the craft side of things, there are 2 patchwork shops and a patchwork ‘lesson centre’ here – very impressive for a small town. I spent probably an hour in each today and the owners in each of them are lovely ladies. I had a great morning and now have some more fabric to find projects for! We went looking for a good fishing spot (we’re pretty determined!) and ended up at the Wyangala Dam – unfortunately, as you can see by the photo there’s not much chance of finding fish here! The dam capacity is down to something like 5% at the moment. They need rain up here desperately.
Port Stephens
We had arranged to meet up with David’s sister Margaret and her husband Terry for a week and we all decided that Nelson Bay at Port Stephens would be a good place for that to happen. We couldn’t get into the park we originally wanted to and had to find another one to go to and we are really pleased that it happened that way – the park we stayed in was great, right on the beach and within walking distance to shops, cafes etc. We had a lovely week with them, walking on the beach every morning then balancing things out by having a nice morning tea at one of the café’s, fishing (again, the fished just about jumped out of the water laughing at us!) winery tours in the upper Hunter Valley and generally having a great time. One of the highlights was a dolphin watch boat tour which was fantastic – the dolphins come into the bay and the boat is surrounded by dozens of these beautiful creatures. The hard part was taking their photo – they move very quickly. There were quite a few with a young one and they seem to dive in tandem. The water in the bay is crystal clear so you could see them under the water too. There were also a couple of huge manta rays in the area that day. It was a really good tour and the Daniel the skipper was really good to talk to and passed on lots of information about the area and the dolphins.
Casino again
After we left Hervey Bay we headed back down to Casino where we caught up with some friends we met in Tamworth. We had a lovely week with them before they headed off north. We will be catching up with them later in the year in WA. The second week at Casino was really quiet. Just caught up with routine domestic chores etc. I also got an opportunity to join in the craft groups at the village which was really nice – they are a lovely bunch of ladies and I always enjoy meeting up with people with similar interests as me.
Maryborough
Now this is a tree! This tree is in Queens Park (Botanic gardens) in Maryborough and is absolutely stunning – in fact the whole of the parks are stunning. While we were in the park (Valentines Day) there was a memorial service being held at the War Memorial and while there weren’t a lot of people there, a number of them were quite young and obviously were there in respect to their parents/grandparents. It was really moving to watch.
All up we spent 5 nights in Hervey Bay. It’s a beautiful area – I really love Queensland country towns – they’re different from towns in Victoria and NSW, and while we also really like the places we’ve seen in those states, there’s something about Queensland that’s unique! Not sure what it is yet, but will let you know once I work it out. While Hervey Bay is a large town, with all the shops, café’s and restaurants you find in our cities, it still has the atmosphere of a small town – we’ve found people to be really friendly and welcoming. So far we’ve visited Childers and Maryborough – both gorgeous towns, very historic and with beautiful buildings and parks. Another moving experience is in Childers at the memorial to the 15 backpackers who died when the Palace Hotel in Childers was (deliberately) burnt down. We’ve also been to a few of the beachside towns that are still unspoilt (like Burrum Heads) and next time we’re up here we plan on spending a lot of time in the area. David and I also bought ourselves some fishing rods – we like the idea of catching our dinner. Unfortunately the fish just laughed at us and ate our bait! The guy who sold us our fishing rods told us it was really easy, anyone can do it. I thought at the time, if it’s so easy how come there are so many books and dvd’s on how to do it!! I probably should have listened to that little voice. It’s fun though and we’re planning on practising a lot more as we travel around.