This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.


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2004 Travels April 2

FRIDAY 2 APRIL     STREAKY BAY

John still had not managed, whilst in Mildura, to get the phone/computer/ data download set up to work, so spent much of this day communicating with Telstra, to try to achieve what he wanted.

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We could see the sea – sort of!

I went for a walk up to the town shops, which were not too far away. I did not need to buy anything, just went for the exercise, and also to get an idea of what shops there were.

Eventually, John got sick of the phone thing, so we went and practiced bowls for a while.

Bought fish and chips for tea – much nicer than the Mildura ones had been.


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2004 Travels April 1

THURSDAY 1 APRIL   PORT AUGUSTA TO STREAKY BAY   390kms

It was a pleasant drive west, to reach Streaky Bay, through grain farming country and several small towns. The early part of the journey, on the Eyre Highway, was broken up by the Iron Knob hill area in the distance, gradually becoming larger, until we were past it.

We stopped for a break and leg stretch at Kimba, where I took the photo that most travellers  must take – of John with the Big Galah, and one of the sign that says “Half way across Australia”. I was rather tempted to label one photo “Big and small galahs”! The galah photo should amuse the grand children, at least.

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At Poochera, we turned off the Eyre Highway, onto a local road that would take us across to the coast and our destination.

Booked into the Foreshore Caravan Park, for a week. We wanted to explore the area, where we’d only previously passed through. Also, we were able to slow down now, because of being booked at Ceduna for Easter. The park was a FPA one, so we joined that association on the spot. After the resultant discount, our site was $18 a night, with the 7th night free. We thought this very reasonable for an excellent location, and a very pleasant and clean park.

Their site layout, though, did not allow much room for maneuvering when parking the van – and ours was only a small van! We were one row back from the beach front, so had glimpses of the sea from our outside area, through the gaps between the opposite vans.

There were fish cleaning tables set up by the beach – a really good idea that saves a lot of mess. There were lots of pelicans hanging about these tables – easy meals for them!

Seems that Streaky Bay was so named by explorer  Matthew Flinders because he saw great streaks in the water – perhaps an effect of the light, perhaps masses of seaweed? Did not look streaky to us, now.

After setting up camp, John went off to suss out bowls. He came back saying we could hurry up and get to play this afternoon. Bad luck about lunch! The people we met there were very pleasant. There was one almost blind lady, who was a deadly bowler. We met a Qld couple there, who were also going on to Ceduna for Easter. They told him there was a bowls tournament happening there, and John arranged to pair up with them for some events.

The park had good TV reception, so John was happy. The mobile phone signal was also good, so I was able to text our location to the offspring.

It had not even occurred to me, this morning, that it was April Fools Day!

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2004 Travels March 31

WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH   MILDURA TO PORT AUGUSTA   580kms

The day provided pleasant travelling weather. It was about 22 degrees, and cloudy. There were a few spits of rain.

It was a fair distance, but we reached Port Augusta comfortably. This was a route we’d travelled before, so there was no motivation to dawdle and sight see.

At the quarantine point east of Renmark, we had no fruit to surrender – I’d made sure we had no surplus vegetable matter. But I’d forgotten about a few onions, and they were surrendered.

As planned, we stopped in Renmark, and I did a big re-stock of fruit and vegetables at the supermarket.

Refuelled at Terowie – 96cpl. And again at Port Augusta, on the way into town, at the place where the trucks stop – also 96cpl.

Near Orroroo, we’d had a chat on the CB radio with a Trakmaster van that was behind us. It was a similar size to ours. They now hailed from Quorn in SA, but on the VKS Radio Network had a Romeo call sign, as they used to live in NSW. They had noticed our large aerial on Truck, and asked us if we belonged to the network. That was a pleasant interlude, while we drove.

We went into the usual Big 4 Holiday Park in Port Augusta – on the western side of town. After discount, this was $19.80 for the night. We were able to keep Truck and van hitched up, as the park was not too busy. It was a gravelled site now – we were in arid country.

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Travelling west, we’d “gained” half an hour of time as we crossed into SA.

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2004 Travels March 30

TUESDAY 30 MARCH     MILDURA

We went to the Post Office where John sent off the pens, to Adels Grove, and I mailed off the jumper I’d finished yesterday. If I kept it with me until reaching home again, she’d probably be grown out of it!

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John bought two new heavy duty plastic diesel containers.

Refuelled truck – 94cpl. He filled one of the new jerry cans – he always tries, on trips, to have a 20 litre container full, “in case”.

After lunch, we played bowls at the Mildura club. We were not much good in the first game, but won the second well. Received a prize for the best score of the day – two packets of Sara Lee dessert pies. We also won the raffle, and acquired a new knife set. It was a rewarding day! But maybe not the best one for the waist lines, though.

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One afternoon at bowls……


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2004 Travels March 29

MONDAY 29 MARCH     MILDURA

In the morning, John worked on the information slips for the pens.

I walked around the streets for an hour or so, for exercise.

Later, we went to the shops again. Bought a couple of books – one on Windows XP, which had been fairly newly installed on our laptops . And one on digital photography. This was needed because John gave me a Pentax Optio digital camera, for my birthday and Xmas. Some functions were similar to my old Pentax SLR camera, but there were many differences, too.

John was convinced I would get good photographic results from the Optio, but I still felt very reliant on the old film camera. I planned, this trip, to use both, and then see which way I’d go in the future. Had to admit that the concept of not being limited by the cost of having same developed and printed, was appealing. The need for economy had been a major limitation on my photo taking, to this point.

I did some knitting, finishing the jumper I’d been making for grand daughter.

John was having trouble getting an internet connection for the phone and laptop, and wanted to get that sorted out before we went any further. So he spent some time on the phone to Telstra, and seemed to make progress.

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2004 Travels March 28

SUNDAY 28 MARCH     MILDURA

After breakfast, we went shopping again. Most places were open on the Sunday. Bought John some trousers and walking boots, and some walking boots for me. We were browsing about in a Rays Tent City shop and saw these Land Rover boots that were 20% off. They seemed very comfortable, hence our unplanned boot purchase.

At Spotlight, I bought three lots of wool, to knit each of the grandchildren a jumper. That should keep the hands occupied whilst I was a passenger on long driving stages.

Back at the van, John worked on the computer. Before we left home, he’d made a batch of 25 wooden pens, using woods found in the Qld Gulf country. These were to be sold at the Reception desk at Adels Grove, as tourist souvenirs. He’d also made a display presentation box to hold some at a time. He had still to prepare a price list and a description of each type of wood, to go with each pen sold. Hence the computing.

Getting the pens finalized and mailed off was the main reason we were staying more than a night in Mildura.

Since we were here, John drove off, after lunch, to suss out about any bowls games.

It was a hot day – 35 degrees. I went for a swim in the Park pool – very pleasant.

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John came back with the news that the annual bowls Smith Cup event was played yesterday. This was the event that we surprised ourselves by winning, in 1999. If only we’d known, we might have managed to depart home a couple of days earlier, and played again in it.

John phoned his cousin M, to find out where they might be travelling, and found they were currently on the Eyre Peninsula.

I thought that we needed to plan ahead, for Easter, and discussed this with John. It seemed prudent to make a definite booking somewhere, and we decided that Ceduna would be a safe bet – in terms of being there by then. I phoned a caravan park there and booked us in.

John still had pen things to finish, so I extended our stay here by another two nights.


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2004 Travels March 27

SATURDAY 27 MARCH   MARONG TO MILDURA   386kms

Today’s was a comfortable stage.

Refuelled at Wedderburn. Diesel was 97cpl – making it 7c a litre dearer than at home.

Along the way, John realized that he’d left the plastic diesel jerrycan at home – hence the “empty” space in back of Truck, where he couldn’t remember what normally travelled there.

We took a break at Ouyen, at the very pleasant travellers’ rest stop there. I took a photo of the Big Mallee Stump that had been made into a display. This was a very large root system of the Mallee eucalypt that is endemic to the region. These trees are not all that tall, have multiple trunks, but have these massive root systems beneath the ground. It was evident why it had been so hard to clear this land for farming – and why the stump-jump plough was invented to deal with the problem.

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Big Mallee stump at Ouyen

It did not seem all that long until we were approaching Red Cliffs and then the outskirts of Mildura, moving from the arid mallee scrub country to irrigated farm land.

We booked into the Desert City Caravan Park. It was quite pleasant and adequate, and central. After discount, $18.90 a night.

Although the Park was by the main highway, traffic noise was not an issue.

We unhitched, but did not do a major set up, as we did not intend to stay here more than a couple of nights.

Went off to have a quick look around the shops in the complex across the highway. John bought some sneakers – Colorado ones. Costly, but comfortable on his hard-to-suit feet.

We bought fish and chips, from the supposedly good Sweet Lips shop. Very greasy and definitely not to be recommended by us!

We’d changed mobile phones shortly before coming away, and were still learning its tricks – much more convoluted than our very basic old one. I sent son a message – just to surprise him that I could do so. Received a reply about teaching an old dog new tricks! Also messaged daughter and she replied about how surprised she was!

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2004 Travels March 26

FRIDAY 26 MARCH   HOME TO MARONG   232kms

We left at 12.30pm, after the usual hard work of moving the travel gear from the shed, packing the Truck, and making what seemed like hundreds of treks from the house to the van, carrying shopping bags of gear and supplies to be packed away.

Son, wife and my 2 year old grand daughter came to see us off. It was hoped that, by seeing us drive away with the caravan, young J might begin to understand – maybe – why we had suddenly dropped out of her life, to be replaced by postcards!

We’d already farewelled daughter and the 1 year old grandson – the family having moved from near Bendigo, to an outer south eastern suburb, late last year.

We had some difficulty hitching up the van. It was not quite as bad as when we first left in ’98. Son was helping us then, too! Why did we do it so well when he was not around, then make a mess of it when he was?

There was the usual straight forward drive, via Yea, Seymour, Heathcote, to Bendigo. Our idea was to drive through that town, to Marong, just to the west – thus putting us ready to head up the Calder Highway tomorrow.

Navigating through Bendigo on a Friday afternoon was not the easiest exercise. My road atlas was little help and we finished up in the centre of town, having to negotiate traffic and the tram line to follow the signs to the Mildura road.

We booked into the Marong Caravan Park, for $15. My Top Tourist Parks booklet was two years old, and we found that this park was no longer a member. We could see why – it was full of rather feral, long-term dwellers. It was not pleasant at all.

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Marong Caravan park

We were able to keep the rig hitched up.

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2004 Travels January – March

BEFORE THE TRIP…….JANUARY – MARCH

After last year in the Gulf Country, we’d had some possibility of working the tourist season at the Pungalina safari camp. John was quite keen on the idea. I was somewhat ambivalent.

A tough decision was postponed – or maybe avoided altogether – when we received a phone call, early in the New Year, from O at Pungalina. He told us that the plans for the place, for 2004, were uncertain, and that he was not in a position to arrange workers.

Later, we were to find out that the personal circumstances of the main owner of Pungalina had changed, and he had to sell the property. That was actually to become good news for us – but more about that in 2005!

We were both quite pleased to not have any work commitments  for this year.

Much of the early part of the year had involved the hard work of renovating our kitchen, family room, lounge  and laundry. A kitchen fitting firm did the fit out, but demolition, tiling of floors and walls, painting, was done by us.

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Removing the old flooring nails

John had the extra stress of ensuring that the Tasmanian silver wattle we’d chosen in 2000, was shipped across Bass Strait, and used by the cabinet maker for our new cupboards.

The process, together with the usual  “unexpected delays”, not of our making, meant that for several weeks, my cooking, food preparation and washing up, was done outside, using our camping table, stove and washup bowl. Meals were very basic, over this time. At least, summer lent itself to lots of cold meats and salads. Meals were eaten sitting in the camp chairs, wherever they happened to have been put. After weeks of this, the prospect of heading off in the caravan was distinctly attractive.

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Makeshift kitchen

Plan B for 2004 quickly came into being – a trip to Western Australia.

Back in 2000, we’d planned to spend much of the following year exploring parts of the vast WA, that we had not been to in 1993 (our long service leave trip) or 2000. Lots of unfinished business there, after we’d had to return home instead, at the end of that year.

L, our lovely resident house sitter, was happy to continue our arrangement. She had missed the renovation chaos by spending the long uni break back home in NSW.

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The new kitchen – laundry too

 

Departure date was dictated by the end of John’s bowls season.

There was no detailed plan – just to make our way to WA, in our own time.


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2003 Travels September 30

TUESDAY 30 SEPTEMBER   TOCUMWAL TO HOME   280kms

We crossed over the Murray River and back into Victoria.

Today’s was a relatively short drive south. It was pleasant to travel through country that was progressively greener than we’d been used to.

Refuelled at Yea – 85cpl.

We were home by lunchtime.

Our house sitter was at uni, but had left us a welcome home note. The place was immaculate.

We commenced the arduous work of unloading the van and packing away the contents for however many months it would be before we headed off again. Trips would be so much better if they didn’t end in all the unpacking, sorting and cleaning!

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THE STATISTICS FOR 2003

Kms travelled:     9,534

Kms towed:         6,594

Cost of diesel:        $1,367.24

Average fuel consumption:   6.95kms per litre

Dearest diesel:     $1.33cpl – Hells Gate Roadhouse

Cheapest diesel:   $0.85cpl – Yea

Accommodation cost:   $675.90

Dearest accommodation per night:  $25 – Pungalina Station

Cheapest paid accommodation per night:   $16 – Blackall Caravan Park

Number of different places stayed:  14

Longest stay in one place:  20 weeks – Adels Grove

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