Day 67 Monday 16th September “Hay..larious” Big Day Driving

We were up early and made a good start driving across the boring Hay plains. When we left Goolgowi the temperature was in the low 20’s and rising. Rob was dressed in his favourite “shorty” shorts and a t-shirt. As we left Hay we saw about 5 road trains all carrying bales of hay to Hay. Boredom set in and we made jokes about it. “Hey, did you see all the hay going to Hay on that truck?” Anyway after surviving the Hay Plains we stopped at Balranald for coffee and then headed to Mildura where we  were stopping for lunch. During this part of the journey the weather started to deteriorate with the temperature dropping and rain falling. It was 9 degrees in Mildura and Rob got some funny looks when we stopped for fuel, dressed the way he was. He changed into some warmer clothes during our lunch stop. We continued on and the rain continued. We had the idea of stopping at Barmera for the night and on Tuesday, Rob was going to play a round of golf while I went kayaking on Lake Bonney. We decided that given the state of the weather, this was highly unlikely and so with Rob feeling fine to continue on driving, headed for home. We arrived back home around 6.15pm all safe and well. The weather seemed a bit better by the time we got to Adelaide but we do have the heater on!

Map finished

Day 66 Sunday 15th September Big Bogans

We had another early start as once again we had decided to drive about 400kms today. We drove through some fairly dry country but stopped at a lovely little town called Nyngan. This town is located on the banks of the Bogan River and hence has a very large metal Bogan on display in one of its parks. Located next-door was the Bogan Café and it was anything but bogan. It was very busy and we enjoyed our coffee and muffin immensely.  By 4:30 pm we had arrived safely at the small town of Goolgowi. We’ve settled into our lovely little caravan park for the night and intend heading for Barmera tomorrow.

Day 65 Saturday 14th September The way to Walgett

A fairly big day of driving today as we crossed the Queensland NSW border to stop here at “The Primitive Bush Camp”, Walgett. The town is fairly small and remote and does not have a caravan park but the local shire has provided this free camp. It says “primitive” but honestly, with clean, flushing toilets, a lovely dam with geese and a fountain, some very interesting information boards and displays plus the cemetery across the road, it is nearly perfect. Once we’d set up I headed over the road to explore the cemetery and it was very interesting. It had the grave of the well-known Aboriginal entertainer, Jimmy Little which I managed to find. Following this, I came back to read some of the information boards and discovered some really interesting things about this town and Australia’s more recent history. This town has a large population of Aboriginal people living in it and this is obvious from the many services offered in the town. It seems that racial discrimination towards the Aboriginal people in Walgett was rife. During 1965 there was a “Freedom Ride”. The group of mainly university students, including Charlie Perkins came to the town in a bus to tackle things like Aboriginal women not being allowed to go into the ladies frock shop, segregation of the Aboriginal people in the picture theatre and no Aboriginal people who had fought in the wars, being allowed to join the RSL. The tour bus was run off the road by an angry local. You can probably find out more about this Freedom Tour if you “google it”. This link tells you a little and the short video of the Aboriginal woman speaking is interesting.   

Day 64 Friday 13th September Not disappointed and we’re still here!

We were up early this morning as we had our morning helicopter flight booked in for 9am. We packed up the van and headed out to the helipad which took us a lot less time than we thought so we were there before the pilots. Anyway they arrived soon after and explained that they had to do a 20 minute safety check before we took off. Rob said seeing it was Friday the 13^th, could they make it a 25 minute check! Anyway all went extremely well and we loved the 20 minutes we spent in the chopper. Our NZ born pilot was fantastic and very informative. Carnarvon Gorge is actually a “no fly” zone so our flight took us over farm-land, past spectacular sandstone ridges to Moolayember Gorge. This gorge is only accessible from the air so we felt very privileged being able to view this spectacular place. After this wonderful experience we drove onto Roma, arriving around lunchtime. We set up the caravan and then headed into town. Roma is famous for so many things but one of them is such a gem and that is Ace’s Haberdashery. We had visited this amazing shop last time we were here and even Rob didn’t mind returning to it again. There was a slight problem in that we couldn’t quite remember where it was so we checked it out on Google. Google gave the address and said it was open but when we walked to the place google suggested it didn’t look right. For one thing it was closed, with the windows all covered in curtains or paper and to us it seemed like it was on the wrong side of the road and too close to the centre of town. Anyway after much confusion we asked a local and she directed us to THE SHOP about 400 metres down the road on the opposite side. We were pretty happy to know we weren’t going mad. Anyway we had fun poking around and purchased a few things. When we went to leave, we were served by the owner and we told him the story. He was not that techno savvy (you could tell by the 20 year old computer he was using) and explained that the family owned the other shop and it was once used many years ago but is no longer used. He had tried to edit the google entry but was not successful. Rob was happy to help him out and altered it so the address was correct and also the business hours were correct as these too were wrong. I think because Rob regularly does google updates and reviews that it happened almost straight away. The owner was very appreciative of Rob’s efforts and sent him a lovely email of thanks. We then went off to shop and get fuel ready for our home-ward journey.

Although it wasn't our flight, this video took very similar flight path to others

Day 63 Thursday 12th September The Long Walk but worth it!

Today we did a long but magnificent walk in Carnarvon Gorge. We decided to walk to the farthest point we intended to visit first and do the other small walks that left the main track on our return journey. First we visited the Art Gallery, a spectacular display of Aboriginal art on a sheltered ledge, next the stunningly beautiful Wards Canyon, the amazing and earie Amphitheatre (a secret oasis hidden inside a gorge) and finally the Moss Garden, a beautiful place full of ferns with a waterfall. My fit-bit went into meltdown and by the time we returned back to the van we have walked over 20 kms and done over 108 flights of stairs. (You can imagine how Rob loved this!) My biggest issue was that we had to cross creeks at least 8 times on the way in using stepping stones. Not my favourite activity but I managed to do all 16 crossings without falling in the water much to Rob’s disappointment. The walk took most of the day and we’d taken our lunch with us. We left around 9am and returned to the van at 3pm. Our dinner was a treat. We had booked in to the Takarkka resort’s roast night and so were treated to roast lamb and pork, veggies and the trimmings and apple crumble and custard for dessert.