Hi Everybody,
I arrived at Hay, and went to the showgrounds which were very pleasant to stay at, amentities were good for the price! I parked near a couple in a 5th wheeler who were having their first trip with it. It was nice to feel superior for a change! I lent them a power cord first and then they were happy to use my great little tables.
I walked over to the Hay railway station, which has been restored beautifully and houses a museum from the days of WW 2 when Hay housed 2000 POW's at a time, variously the Dunera Boys, Jewish mostly, then Italian and finally Japanese prisoners. There is a story about the Dunera Boys on tv or movie. Then I walked over to one of the local clubs for lunch, which while I was waiting I played the pokies and won $52.20! was I pleased!
Later on we had happy hour and had a few drinks. The couple claim to know friends of mine from Victoria, maybe maybe not!
Set off to Griffith, and found my Gps has a defiinite mind of its own. Obviously there are often several routes to places, but mine directs me sometimes over the worst roads it can find! I ended up choosing a sealed road (57kms) over an unsealed road (27kms) and found the sealed road was a goat track with bitumen over corrugations! Maybe i should have chanced the dirt road! I thought the van was going to be shaken to bits!
Then on to Lake Cargellico, a lovely spot, nice people and the caravan park supplies a sausage sizzle and damper on thursday nights, but they also did a pumpkin soup, jaffles and damper on sat night. they have a roaring camp fire going that burnt all day and night. I did my washing as the days were absolutely warm and sunny. I sat out and read and dozed, but when the sun slips down low doeas it get cold!Brr.
Drove off this morning to Parkes , via the Utes in the Paddock, amazing artwork, about 14 Holden utes, upended and painted by various artists to represent all sorts of things, very quirky.
Hope you are all keeping well these cold wintry days, can't believe I will be home in 19 days! see you around!
love vicki
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Swan Hill
Hi everyone,Here I am at Swan Hill , Victoria, having driven over from SA after I needed a wheel alignment and couldn't get it done in SA unless I drove back to Adelaide. So 2 new front tyres later, and a wheel alignment, I was still in Swan Hill as my Dr rang, and was sending me a script so I had to stay in Swan Hill and wait for the mail.
I visited the pioneer settlement, which I had last seen in 1977 when John,(my first husband,) and the kids and I went round australia in a Kombi Van. It hadn't changed much! So I spent a whole day a5t the settlement and did a 2 hour trip on the paddlesteamer Pyap, which was flying the Murray River flag.
Then I waited for 3 days for the scripts which didn't turn up! Something that
I didn't expect was that in Victoria they have already gone digital with tv. which explains why I didn't receive tv once I hit Victoria!, So I made enquiries and decided I needed a new tv/set top box. My tv in the bedroom was not working on dvd so I went ok, one new tv, and that was hangingoff a bracket, so no room for a set top box and the other tv is on a shelf so it could use the set top box. But I bought one too big, so I took it back to retravision, and between all the attempts at parking and getting the electronics people to install, it took all day, but only $54 for instalation. I highly recommend swantronics! They were marvellous! But at the end of that I was sick of Swan Hill, so I drove off to Kerang. Nice park on Loddon River, I met a couple from Pental Island caravan park whom I met a week ago. Also "Cuddles and Co", staying at the park, travelling buskers they were playing at the Kerang markets, we hd a campfire each evening, a few drinks and a song or two. They were very pleasant evevnings. Tonight it started to rain fairly early in the day so we only had a short time around the campfire. But a very pleasant time. There were bunch of dancers, ballroom, staying at the park. Evidently each year they come and stay and dance their little toes off. A dance Friday night, a Ball sat night, another dance sun afternoon and then for those who wish to stay , a club dance on Monday night, these ballroom dancers are really into it!I didn't join them, no partner, but who knows! there apparently is a booklet detailing all the dance club events through out the states. Might have to get one to see when the dances are.
Keep your feet twinkling! and keep healthy
Love Vicki
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Goodbye SA
Hi Everyone,
As you can see from the title, I am finally on the move again.!
When I posted the last blog I was just back from the Lake Eyre trip. I stayed on in Adelaide for another couple of nights, did my washing, etc. But mainly because I was getting Doigs Donga a service as I had driven another 20,000kms and hit 62,000. so it was time.
Not too expensive as when I had had it done at Skippers in WA they gave me the rest of the 4gallons of oil . So I was able to halve the cost of that. However they told me I needed a wheel alignment, and the front tyres were getting quite worn. As I was heading back to Loxton to my cousins' again, I thought i would get it done there. I knew there were quite a few tyre places there and thought great!
Ha Ha!! No such thing! nobody does truck wheel alignments in SA except in Adelaide!!! Did the service people tell me that? No! So here I was in Loxton and faced with the option of returning to Adelaide, waiting til I got to Brisbane, or seeking out somwhere else. The people in Loxton were very helpful and found me somewhere in Renmark that used to do it, That guy passed me on to Mildura, who passed me on to Swan Hill. So guess where I am heading for now? You got it ! Swan Hill! A bit out of my way towards Brisbane but at least it is not backwards!
I had a quiet few days in Loxton with my cousin, we talk non stop about the family tree, our childhood days when she used to stay with us on "boarder weekends", and about Loxton and its history. We stayed mostly in as it was bitterly cold there, ave 13o, and -3 a couple of nights. I stayed in her house but even though she runs a heater, it doesn't get into the bedrooms! brr! We went out for lunch one day, a friend of hers had a birthday, to the Loxton Hotel and on Friday night we went to the Loxton Club. I bought $5 of raffle tickets and won the meat tray! I shared it with Pauline as I didn't have room in my freezer.
We went to the local football match on Saturday afternoon as all 3 of her grandsons play for Loxton, but only one was playing that day. Needless to say Loxton got thrashed!
I took off about 10 ish to Mildura and checked into a nice caravan park, did a load of washing and 5 minutes after I finished hanging it out, it started to rain.
So I thought I would get this out while the clothes were in the dryer. The people parked behind me are Victorians, surprise , surprise! but they know an ex victorian, nurse friend of mine, who worked at St Johns in Geraldton. So those of you from there, please pass on to Nannette, hello from me. ( I don't know their name, but I will get it as soon as it stops raining!) No such luck! but I remember they said they were from Ouyen, where I believe Nannette comes from and they saw her a couple of years ago. In Geraldton (I presume), or at Victoria( maybe when her father died?)
Well the rain is definitely pouring down and I am snug in my little house with the heater going. Only problem is I can't get the TV to work. what about Downton Abbey?? Yvonne can you tape it for me? Can somebody?
I tried real hard to win the 30 million but only managed 3 numbers and a supp! Guess I am still on the pension!
Wishing you all good luck, good healthand good weather!!
Love vicki
As you can see from the title, I am finally on the move again.!
When I posted the last blog I was just back from the Lake Eyre trip. I stayed on in Adelaide for another couple of nights, did my washing, etc. But mainly because I was getting Doigs Donga a service as I had driven another 20,000kms and hit 62,000. so it was time.
Not too expensive as when I had had it done at Skippers in WA they gave me the rest of the 4gallons of oil . So I was able to halve the cost of that. However they told me I needed a wheel alignment, and the front tyres were getting quite worn. As I was heading back to Loxton to my cousins' again, I thought i would get it done there. I knew there were quite a few tyre places there and thought great!
Ha Ha!! No such thing! nobody does truck wheel alignments in SA except in Adelaide!!! Did the service people tell me that? No! So here I was in Loxton and faced with the option of returning to Adelaide, waiting til I got to Brisbane, or seeking out somwhere else. The people in Loxton were very helpful and found me somewhere in Renmark that used to do it, That guy passed me on to Mildura, who passed me on to Swan Hill. So guess where I am heading for now? You got it ! Swan Hill! A bit out of my way towards Brisbane but at least it is not backwards!
I had a quiet few days in Loxton with my cousin, we talk non stop about the family tree, our childhood days when she used to stay with us on "boarder weekends", and about Loxton and its history. We stayed mostly in as it was bitterly cold there, ave 13o, and -3 a couple of nights. I stayed in her house but even though she runs a heater, it doesn't get into the bedrooms! brr! We went out for lunch one day, a friend of hers had a birthday, to the Loxton Hotel and on Friday night we went to the Loxton Club. I bought $5 of raffle tickets and won the meat tray! I shared it with Pauline as I didn't have room in my freezer.
We went to the local football match on Saturday afternoon as all 3 of her grandsons play for Loxton, but only one was playing that day. Needless to say Loxton got thrashed!
I took off about 10 ish to Mildura and checked into a nice caravan park, did a load of washing and 5 minutes after I finished hanging it out, it started to rain.
So I thought I would get this out while the clothes were in the dryer. The people parked behind me are Victorians, surprise , surprise! but they know an ex victorian, nurse friend of mine, who worked at St Johns in Geraldton. So those of you from there, please pass on to Nannette, hello from me. ( I don't know their name, but I will get it as soon as it stops raining!) No such luck! but I remember they said they were from Ouyen, where I believe Nannette comes from and they saw her a couple of years ago. In Geraldton (I presume), or at Victoria( maybe when her father died?)
Well the rain is definitely pouring down and I am snug in my little house with the heater going. Only problem is I can't get the TV to work. what about Downton Abbey?? Yvonne can you tape it for me? Can somebody?
I tried real hard to win the 30 million but only managed 3 numbers and a supp! Guess I am still on the pension!
Wishing you all good luck, good healthand good weather!!
Love vicki
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Lake Eyre Flight Tour
Hi All,
I have had an amazing 3 days starting Friday at 530am. Brr. Adelaide was really freezing at that hour! I taxied to airport, from where we flew to Olympic Dam with qantas. A short(!?) delay and we were picked up by Wright Air in 2 Cessnas, there were 8 of us, and after stowing the luggage, 7.5kgs each, we were off into the wide blue yonder heading for Lake Eyre. The plane I ended up in was initially, a plane and pilot from Arkaroola station, a chap named Doug, (must be a good guy!) He was hijacked to fly us part of the way as Wright Air's pilot was caught up somewhere and couldn't make it until later! I was beginning to wonder about this trip? Any way as it happened this Doug was very good value he was informative and flew us around so all could see and take as many photos as we could. There were 4 of us in each plane, and ir was fairly comfortable, at least as far as 1st day goes! We had a long flight to Innaminka for lunch, almost 2pm, and then we were hanging around waiting for the other pilot to arrive so Doug could get back to his own agenda at Arkaroola, he had 60 guests ariving for an astrological experience!
Eventually Gerrard arrived and we swapped our luggage over into his plane, also a 6 seater Cessna, and we set off for Birdsville via moomba gas fields (in the distance). We followed the Coopers Creek, which is what feeds into Lake Eyre, it has not quite reached it yet, although it has reached a point where the flood waters have crossed the "Birdsville Track" and so the "punt" ie. ferry, has to be used to cross the Cooper. It was really amazing flying over this land that you know in your mind should be dry and barren and red and it is actually green and puddled with water in hundreds of pools. The Coopers Creek is just myriad streams of water flowing across the country! Incredible! Then we flew over the Coongie Lakes which were another astonishing sight, (I am running out of decriptions here!) Again hundreds of water filled lakes in all directions!
We had a good night at the iconic Birdsville Hotel, it was packed to the eyeballs with travellers. Their food was really good, and we got into the bar in time for "Happy Hour" so that was a bonus! We didn't have particularly early starts, which was a good thing, and after a hearty cooked brekky (outback sized!) we flew off towards Oodnadatta, I think we also flew over a northerly part of Lake Eyre again, and landed at Oodnadatta. This used to be a siding for the Ghan railway, until they realigned it. Another great outback roadhouse cum pub, this time famous because it is "Pink" the whole premises is painted a bright lolly pink! After some time spent stretching our legs we were back in the aircraft and off to Coober Pedy.
Got some good photos from the air as we came into CP of the underground houses and of the mines and mullock heaps. We were met by a bus for the ride into town and were taken around the area and saw the golf course with "black " greens, a mixture of oil and dirt, ending up at our "underground" motel, Radeka's, We had dinner at a "famous" pizza joint, which was quite good, and we went over to the Desert Cave, for a drink, and then off to early bed. In the morning we had a power failure!! we were underground!! luckily it only lasted for about 30 minutes or so (at least after I woke up), then we had a visit to Umoona underground mine, and opal shop (of course)! At 11 am we were taken out to the airport again and we were off towards Willim Creek, via the Painted Hills. Fantastic sight of many hills with the most amazing colours in them, I wonder if the aboiriginals got any of their ochre and painting colours from there?
One of my fellow passengers, a young man travelling with his 80 something grandfather, was sampling every place's hamburgers! His final decision was William Creek was the winner. Once again we had some rearranging of our planes, and we continued on to Olympic Dam with a 6 seater and a 4 seater Cessna. There were some disappointments on the trip, considering the price paid, but It was still worth while to do. Maybe more homework on the company running it should have been done, the pilots and planes were charted by the company which we booked with, and I am not sure whether the pilots were supposed to be tour guides as well as pilots, or not. I was glad to get home and back to my own bed!
I will maybe have a rest over the next week as I will be going over places I have already been, I expect to leave Loxton next Sunday and head off up to Brisbane keep well and know I think of you all often.
love vicki
I have had an amazing 3 days starting Friday at 530am. Brr. Adelaide was really freezing at that hour! I taxied to airport, from where we flew to Olympic Dam with qantas. A short(!?) delay and we were picked up by Wright Air in 2 Cessnas, there were 8 of us, and after stowing the luggage, 7.5kgs each, we were off into the wide blue yonder heading for Lake Eyre. The plane I ended up in was initially, a plane and pilot from Arkaroola station, a chap named Doug, (must be a good guy!) He was hijacked to fly us part of the way as Wright Air's pilot was caught up somewhere and couldn't make it until later! I was beginning to wonder about this trip? Any way as it happened this Doug was very good value he was informative and flew us around so all could see and take as many photos as we could. There were 4 of us in each plane, and ir was fairly comfortable, at least as far as 1st day goes! We had a long flight to Innaminka for lunch, almost 2pm, and then we were hanging around waiting for the other pilot to arrive so Doug could get back to his own agenda at Arkaroola, he had 60 guests ariving for an astrological experience!
Eventually Gerrard arrived and we swapped our luggage over into his plane, also a 6 seater Cessna, and we set off for Birdsville via moomba gas fields (in the distance). We followed the Coopers Creek, which is what feeds into Lake Eyre, it has not quite reached it yet, although it has reached a point where the flood waters have crossed the "Birdsville Track" and so the "punt" ie. ferry, has to be used to cross the Cooper. It was really amazing flying over this land that you know in your mind should be dry and barren and red and it is actually green and puddled with water in hundreds of pools. The Coopers Creek is just myriad streams of water flowing across the country! Incredible! Then we flew over the Coongie Lakes which were another astonishing sight, (I am running out of decriptions here!) Again hundreds of water filled lakes in all directions!
We had a good night at the iconic Birdsville Hotel, it was packed to the eyeballs with travellers. Their food was really good, and we got into the bar in time for "Happy Hour" so that was a bonus! We didn't have particularly early starts, which was a good thing, and after a hearty cooked brekky (outback sized!) we flew off towards Oodnadatta, I think we also flew over a northerly part of Lake Eyre again, and landed at Oodnadatta. This used to be a siding for the Ghan railway, until they realigned it. Another great outback roadhouse cum pub, this time famous because it is "Pink" the whole premises is painted a bright lolly pink! After some time spent stretching our legs we were back in the aircraft and off to Coober Pedy.
Got some good photos from the air as we came into CP of the underground houses and of the mines and mullock heaps. We were met by a bus for the ride into town and were taken around the area and saw the golf course with "black " greens, a mixture of oil and dirt, ending up at our "underground" motel, Radeka's, We had dinner at a "famous" pizza joint, which was quite good, and we went over to the Desert Cave, for a drink, and then off to early bed. In the morning we had a power failure!! we were underground!! luckily it only lasted for about 30 minutes or so (at least after I woke up), then we had a visit to Umoona underground mine, and opal shop (of course)! At 11 am we were taken out to the airport again and we were off towards Willim Creek, via the Painted Hills. Fantastic sight of many hills with the most amazing colours in them, I wonder if the aboiriginals got any of their ochre and painting colours from there?
One of my fellow passengers, a young man travelling with his 80 something grandfather, was sampling every place's hamburgers! His final decision was William Creek was the winner. Once again we had some rearranging of our planes, and we continued on to Olympic Dam with a 6 seater and a 4 seater Cessna. There were some disappointments on the trip, considering the price paid, but It was still worth while to do. Maybe more homework on the company running it should have been done, the pilots and planes were charted by the company which we booked with, and I am not sure whether the pilots were supposed to be tour guides as well as pilots, or not. I was glad to get home and back to my own bed!
I will maybe have a rest over the next week as I will be going over places I have already been, I expect to leave Loxton next Sunday and head off up to Brisbane keep well and know I think of you all often.
love vicki
Monday, July 4, 2011
Outback Adventure
Hi Everyone,Once again I am not running to schedule! I have been having some fun with my photos, and suddenly relisd I hadn't sent my blog off. So before I did some damage with my photos I thought I had better settle down and send this off.
Anne and I had a great trip up to Uluru and back and these are some more photos of that jaunt.
The camel and a younger one, just walked out of the scrub on the side of the road and blithely stepped out and across in front of me!
We made good time to Uluru and checked into the "resort" aka caravan park, very spacious and quite reasonably priced.(probably the only thing at Uluru that is!)
The price of diesel was $1.83, but at Eldunda, (the turn off) it was $1.90, and when we got to Kings Canyon, it was $2.20! We spent the rest of out arrival day just resting, reading, drinking
, you know the type of thing! The next morning we took off to the Olgas, there are 36 domes, but you cant get any where to photograph more than a few at a time, except from the air perhaps. Any way it was latish in the afternoon and not very spectacular for colour, at least not with my camera! By the time we returned it was time to go to the sunset viewing area for Uluru. (it is about a 96 km round trip!)So we settled in with our ground sheet (cos we didn't think of chairs!) but at least we had our nibbles and glases and champagne!
86 photos later I have quite a range of colours of the Rock, but nothing like the professionals get! I thought I wouldn't put them all on the blog! Here I am looking sufficiently outbackish I thought! The next photo shows greater colour differences
. It really does look magnificent. The final photo was one of many I took at Kings
Canyon, another 300 kms from Uluru and again we had to backtrack over the same roads to get back to the Stuart Highway. We did the short walk, about 1.5 kms along the creek bed, it was quite relaxing, and Anne (who is a very keen photographer), enjoyed taking lots of photos of the scenery and other things. I even got quite excited over some pretty wildflowers and took lot of photos of the magnificent rivergums in the creek bed.There are also Coolibah trees (from Waltzing Matilda fame growing there too) but we could not identify which ones they were! Oh well you can't be perfect! I can sing the song though!We retraced our steps down the Stuart Highway, but stayed overnight at a couple of different spots, (somewhat fewer mice!) But went back into Coober Pedy, and also repeated Lake Hart. As we came into Port Augusta, we stopped off for a farewell lunch at the Arid Lands Botanical Gardens and there we parted. Me to come on back to Clare and Anne to return to Port Lincoln, her home. I found it a wonderful experience and we were very compatible (on my part any way), and hope we get a chance to join up again for another jaunt when Anne is free of time. I took a beautiful photo of some Dessert Peas but am not sure what happened to them. I am currently trying to put my photos onto a data stick! So anything could happen to them!!
Anyway I must get some sleep and so Good Luck and Good Night to you all
until next week, vicki
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