Day 69 – Clare to Mildura

My last blog entry today, as we are now back in Victoria, although still a bit more than five hours  drive and a few days from home. This morning we packed up the caravan for the last time, and headed back up through the rolling hills filled with various lush green cereal crops and the radiant yellow canola, to the historical town of Burra.

 

Burra is a beautiful old town, complete with lovely old stone buildings, and a lot of Cornish mining history. We stopped for a short wander down the street, enjoying the spring sunshine on this cold day.

We followed the Goyder Highway, across to the tiny town of Monash, famous for its kid’s adventure park. We weren’t disappointed – it is one of the best free kids parks we have ever encountered, and we had to drag the kids (and Brendan) away. From giant swings, to a flying fox, long slide, obstacle course, wooden maze, and lots of other things to give them a good run around and wear them out before the next part of the journey homeward bound.

 

 

After a quick visit to the chocolate shop across the road, it was back in the car and then we stopped on the outskirts of the Murray River town of Renmark at the Almond factory. This was a huge factory, with a small outlet shop where we tried out some different types of almonds – smoked, salt & vinegar, tamari, roasted, etc. Yum. Then after a look around the busy, large town of Renmark, we headed back across the SA / Victoria border (dumping our fruit and veges in the quarantine bins) and changed our clocks (again!) half an hour forward. At around five pm (after another big days travelling) we arrived at our good friends the Stewart family in Mildura, and it was lovely to sit down to a home cooked meal, and some friendly conversation.

So that’s it for my travel blog for now, as we now have a couple of nights in Mildura, then two nights on the way home in Swan Hill at my sister Janeece’s house. Then it’s back to Sunbury, to stay in a friend’s granny flat at a farm between Sunbury & Riddells Creek for the next few months while our new house is completed.

So after travelling more than 20,000kms, spending over 69 days on the road, staying at numerous caravan parks, and experiencing many sights, sounds and smells all around our beautiful country, what is the verdict?  We would do it all again in a heartbeat!  In fact, we are already planning what we would like to do on the next trip around.

We may be a bit travel weary right now, and after spending 24/7 with the kids in a small box for 10 weeks, we may be glad to have our own personal space for a while, but we are hopefully more tolerant of each other, and after enjoying a family meal out at a restaurant to celebrate the end of our journey, we enjoyed listening to the kids favourite things on the trip.

Lily especially enjoyed the long and difficult (but very rewarding), gorge bushwalks at El Questro cattle station (Kimberley, NT) and Mt Tom Price (Pilbara WA). She is a little powerhouse that just keeps going, determined to do anything her big brother can. She also loved seeing (and holding) the crocodiles in Darwin and seeing the dolphins and dugongs (on a boat trip) at Monkey Mia. Sam was very taken with the snorkelling at Ningaloo reef on the Coral Coast in WA, and the boat trip and swim in the middle of the enormous Lake Argyle.

Lily summed it up nicely when asked which was her very favourite experience of the trip. “Well, as much as I liked all the yummy food we tried, and the walks, and the animals we saw, the best thing about the whole trip was that Sam and I  became very good friends!”   And you can’t ask for better than that!

Thanks so much for following along, I’ve enjoyed your company and your comments. Until next time… J

Michelle

Day 68 – Clare Valley, SA

This morning it was nice to have a lie-in, and get up when we felt like it, although as Brendan said, we won’t miss the early morning wakeup call of a diesel car, somewhere near us, packing up and heading off to their next location, which seems to happen every single day.

After a pancake breakfast, we headed due south to the tiny town of Sevenhills Jesuit Monastery and Winemaking Centre. This is the oldest winery in the Clare Valley – and they have been making sacristy wine for churches all over Australia for almost 150 years. They have a beautiful old winery building, with attached guest houses and a huge cathedral St Aloysius also in the landscaped grounds. We had a look around the winery, and went down the stairs to the very old stone cellar, while the kids kicked a footy out in the lovely grassed area outside.

 

The winery tasting rooms came complete with a fluffy pussy cat curled up in its wine barrel basket.

On our drive through many tiny towns we enjoyed looking at all the buildings and gorgeous cottages which are beautifully kept, with iron lacework on sandstone, and sloping verandas and rose gardens. The vineyards are so picturesque everywhere you look.

We also called in at a well known winery Annies Lane, also a very old one, with beautiful old buildings, cellar, museum and gallery. Tried some lovely shiraz, and thought I should bring home a couple of bottles.

Our destination for lunch today was the mini golf centre at Auburn. After lunch in the café we all enjoyed a round of minigolf in the spring sunshine. The days are lovely, but the nights are very cool – down to just 4 deg last night, so it is preparing us for our return to Victoria.

Back into the town of Clare for the afternoon, although the main street is much like any town shopping street these days. We did enjoy a lovely afternoon tea in the town bakery – good weather for a hot chocolate today.

 

Back to the van park, for dad and the kids to play a bit of cricket (often on our families agenda for some reason!), while I strolled next door to the van park to the Information Centre, which has a variety of local produce for tastings and sale. I couldn’t resist some smoked pistachio nuts and some dill & mustard dressing – must stop all this produce tasting!

Day 67 – Wilmington to Clare, SA

This morning we left our lovely bush campsite, and drove the few kilometres into town and then to the local CRT store, where we purchased a National Park pass ($10), and unhitched our caravan to leave it there. We then drove the 12 km out to Alligator Gorge, in the South Flinders Ranges National park. On arrival we headed firstly to the lookout and enjoyed the view out to the sheer rocky, red cliff faces.

 

We then started on the walk down 250 stone steps, through the beautiful bush, past many varieties of flowering wildflowers, and then arrived at the bottom of the gorge. Firstly we turned right and walked about a kilometre through quite thick bushland, over rocks, across the creek several times, until we arrived at an area known as The Terraces. Having a look at the photo below, you will see why…

We then retraced our steps back to the bottom of the steps, and then walked a kilometre the other way up to The Narrows, where the gorge narrows to a very small gap between the cliff walks. It is a very beautiful walk, and the weather was very pleasant this morning. The kids were happy to look for tadpoles in the river, and jump across the rocks.

 

Then it was back in the car for the drive back out to the store, to collect our van, and head over to the historic town of Peterborough, for a quick lunch. Peterborough is known as a railway transfer town, the only town in Australia where all three railway gauges (narrow, standard & broad) met, so they could transfer goods between the trains. Brendan had been looking forward to this visit the entire trip, so was rather pleased when we finally arrived at the Steamtown museum.

Inside we purchased a family ticket, and joined a guided tour (the only way to get outside to the steam trains), and spent an hour or so walking around the giant turntable, roundhouse, and in and out of lots of different train engines and carriages.

After a couple of enjoyable hours here, we drove up through the rolling hills of the Clare Valley, passing through the lush green fields of wheat, and other crops, and the bright yellow canola fields.

We checked into the Clare Discovery Holiday park, a delightfully gum treed park, and set up the van, while the kids wandered over to the lovely open area beside the jumping pillow, to have a play. After an hour or so, Sam came back to tell me he had made some new good friends (kicking the footy), and that they were from Kyneton (1/2 hours drive from our house in Sunbury). The boys worked out they had even played footy against each other. Small world.

Day 66 – Ceduna to Wilmington

Up bright and early and off by 8.00am this morning. It’s always quicker to get up and going if you get a drive through site, so don’t need to unhitch, and then re-hitch the following morning. We can be up, dressed, breakfasted, lunch and snacks packed up, water bottles filled, and ready to go in half an hour now. (Lots of practice).

It was a long drive again today, mostly through tiny little towns that consisted of a railway siding and a silo (this is the wheatbelt), and green pastures (mostly wheat).

At the town of Kimba we passed the Big Galah. Nope, I’m not sure why either. I guess every town has to hang its hat on something these days.

Further up the road we stopped at the mining town of Iron Knob for lunch. The big open cut iron ore mine is obvious as you drive into this rough old town. Apparently even emus cruise through the town (according to the sign in the main street). Surprisingly they have one of the best free camps we have seen on the whole trip all set up ready for people to use for a donation. Camp kitchen, bbqs, hot showers, good toilets, a playground and nice flat sites all provided for free. Nice one!

 

Eventually we made it to Port Augusta, back where we started the trip north, so felt like we had completed that part of the circle. We decided to call into the Botanical Gardens again to see if there were any different flowers out since our visit almost 3 months ago at the beginning of our trip.

Last time the area was covered in the beautiful red Sturts Desert Pea, but today, I could only find a tiny specimen in a different part of the garden. It was nearly all finished flowering. But in its place were the lovely egg flowers (yes, they really look like a poached egg), and many other beautiful varieties of spring flowers.

 

After grabbing a few groceries at Coles in town (because we had to get rid of/eat all our fruit and veges at the Ceduna quarantine station), we headed out through the range, and the scenic Horricks Pass.

 

We arrived back at one of our favourite campsites which we discovered the first night we left Mildura at the start of our trip at the tiny town of Wilmington. A few kilometres out of town is a lovely bush camp at Stony Creek. Sam, Lily and I gathered ourselves some firewood, and put my girl guide skills to use, and showed them how to carefully build a fire.

 

Sam was a bit disappointed that we used a match to light the fire, as he thought I should have rubbed some sticks together!  Anyway, after our steak and veges, we enjoyed toasting some marshmallows, and Lily was heard to comment “Mum, this is the best thing we have done on our holidays”.  Oh, the simple things….