Category Archives: Travel

The road to Broken Hill

We departed Port Augusta this morning and saw our first road sign mentioning Sydney for a couple of months. After driving south for a bit we turned east and crossed the Flinders Ranges. As we crossed, so did a cloud system.

FlindersRanges

As we go close, we were struck by the greenness of the land after several weeks of red.

GreenFieldsOfSA

Over the ranges we found a lot of amazingly rich looking farm land, growing wheat (we think) canola and some livestock.

The old and new farmhouse. There were many abandoned stone houses on the road.
The old and new farmhouse. There were many abandoned stone houses on the road.

As we headed east, we were overtaken by the Indian Pacific. (Carmel and I did this trip 20 years ago and loved it.) It should reach Sydney tomorrow morning.

Indian Pacific heading to Sydney
Indian Pacific heading to Sydney

In a few hours we left SA. Carmel and I do intend to come back when we are less encumbered!

Farewell to South Australia
Farewell to South Australia

Farewell NT

TripThroughtNTOur travels through Northern Territory are now complete.

You may have noticed how there are no wildlife posts in this blog about NT. That is simply because we saw none except flies and birds, the latter being very shy. Not a Roo, snake or lizard for two weeks – quite extraordinary. However, we did find an Emu farm at Erldunda as we left the territory, so while not wild, it did give dog something to think about.

I feel like emu tonight!
I feel like emu tonight!

 

 

Road to Kings Canyon

Natural pointillism of the road
Natural pointillism of the road

The road from Glen Helen to Kings Canyon was quite an adventure. It was our first long stretch of unsealed road on the trip. I had driven a kilometre in the Barooga State Forest finding Paradise beach, and about 500 metres to get to Stanton Bend at Rutherglen, and 20 km round trip to get to the Australian Museum of Dinosaurs near Winton, but this was a 120 km rattler. While most of the road was find, the few bad patches were horrible to drive – rattling at 40km/h, bone shaking at 60km/h and deafening at 80km/h. We managed to shake off and shatter one or our driving mirrors and dislocate our toilet flap.

Outback humour
Outback humour

The road was pretty straight, but there were a couple of blind bends when we went through gorges. We found the “politically incorrect” street sign shown in the left. I remember it from last time we drove this road (15 years ago). The tin on the other side had been amended from “Put um back down” to “Take a break”.

Traveling north

MapWe are travelling north again and have reached Toowoomba in Queensland. The weather has cooled down again as Toowoomba is quite high from sea level.

The drive from Brunswick Heads was uneventful after an inauspicious departure. We left in periodic rain showers, and of course its Dad’s job to be packing up the outside! However, once you are wet, you can only get dry again by packing everything away and getting into a car with the heater on.

Clare and Dog
Clare and Dog

A dry dog in the car is more important than a dry Dad, so he was coddled while I got wet!