Archive | August, 2019
30 August 2019

But its on from White Cliffs

I don’t know where I was but I do know where I am. Lots of time and K’s on, its now other daughters birthday. Happy Birthday Suzie from some lost souls in Yorketown. I won’t stir you about “Middle Age” face to face but I can do it here for the whole world to see but what does this make these silly old farts. Oh!, silly old farts.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE

We moved on from White Cliffs to Broken Hill. We’ve all spent too much time here in the past but had not actually seen the “Mad Max II” ‘museum’ at Silverton. Robyn and I drove out for the purpose. Probably shouldn’t have bothered….

and this should save you the effort in future. In truth about the only thing of interest was the video of some of the stunt set-ups shown on a piss-ant crt TV over the doorway.

Took a few more photos around Silverton and Broken Hill cos they’re date stamped and prove we were here but you’ve seen them all before so I won’t bore you again.

From here the photo trail tells me we moved on to Peterborough. This was just in the way but we hadn’t previously seen the audio-visual show at the Steamtown railway museum so in we went this night. Now muggins forgot the camera so these shitty shots are telephoned in….

Now in fairness these shots do not do justice to the presentation – it is both good and interesting telling the story of rail through the history of Peterborough. Worth a look next time you are here, as is the Steamtown rail museum.

Also in Peterborough that we hadn’t seen before is the motor bike nuseum – quite a private collection…

Having achieved another “new” we moved on to another old friend  -Terowie. This is not new as Judi Dey might attest and we weren’t as lucky this time as the first. We had no guided tour. It is still an interesting little old town even though we had to guide ourselves ….

Terowie on to Burra. Burra is an old favourite having been here four times before. It continues to be of interest and, whilst here primarily for Robyns benefit, it continues to surprise and interest us.

But, it is late in the evening prior to our beautiful daughters birthday and I need to get to bed to call her early in the morning (just to piss her off) to wish her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

 

26 August 2019

On from Newcastle

The plan was to meet Robyn  at Cobar – the plan worked and no-one was more surprised than me. We actually met up within a couple of hours, even though we were delayed on the road with a blown rear tyre. I should have taken a photo of the tyre with its guts hanging out but I didn’t quite have the heart, particularly after changing it on the side of the road (on a slope). Boy, did it go BANG and I won’t disclose what Jude nearly did.

Bit of a task to get a new tyre in Cobar. Firstly had to find a tyre trader. Having done that then had to get a tyre. Came in next day (Saturday) from Dubbo but the tyre guy did the right thing and  fitted it straight away. Turned out he was the president of the local football club and advised that there was a concert on at the club on the Saturday night which was right next door to the caravan park. The park people put on a campfire and we sat out and listened to Shannon Noel (WOOOW!). At least it was a good drink.

Cobar is a copper and tin and gold mining town of some historical note. Still mining but now underground within the old open cut, returning to the original mining format but much deeper…..

 

My photo essay is not complete until a dunny is recorded- this one is in a baby nursing carriage in the mining museum and it has a beautifully restored station thats not in the mining museum.

A couple of nights in Cobar and then on to the first planned destination for this trip – White Cliffs. Now, this is the last of the opal mining towns that we had planned to see in our travels – no reason other than it was there to be visited. Can’t say it was a revelation-its just another grotty little mining town like all the other little opal mining towns but it and they all have a certain kind of character. This one has the first solar power plant in Aus….

but of neccessity, when so confronted, one has to take the dunny shot(s) first…

but this is different cos its sort of “hydro-electric” power – these dishes are mirrors which focus sunlight to a central cone which in turn has a water core thus boiling same and creating steam to turn a turbine to create the electricity. Wondrous and some 30 odd years old, but now out of service in favour of “the grid” which was connected to town about 20 years ago. It was just an experiment because White Cliffs is supposed to have more sunlight than anywhere else but at least it has been retained and maintained for tourists to gawk at.

We all went on a bus tour of White Cliffs. I thought $50.00 per head was a bit much believing we would cover it all in about 3 minutes, but 3 hours later we were returned to the caravan park much wiser and more familiar with the towns colourful history….

Like Coober Pedy people do live underground…

and, whilst this is a hotel, we were taken into a show piece residence but not permitted photos, so you can see it yourself at www.whitecliffsnsw.com  “whats inWhite Cliffs”, “Underground Living” – this place is quite a work of art.

In an opal town one is expected to mine for opals. We were directed to some slag heaps where, so we were told, there was a very good chance of finding opal that had been dumped out with the slag. It was bullshit of course.I guess the locals figure that eventually us fossickers will fill the holes again for them – I mean after all of half an hour I’d managed to dig a hole next to the old one by emptying the diggings down the old hole. I don’t know how anyone has the patience to do this day in/day out …..

There are a few other opal towns but they have no infrastructure warranting a visit so we have actually visited all the opal mining towns accessible to us.

 

 

7 August 2019

Happy Birthday Daughter

Next stop Carey Bay (Oh! alright, Newcastle) to bring best birthday greetings to our youngest, Calinda. Happy Birthday Kiddo ( I won’t embarass you here)

Good to see things happening with the house but it does seem a slow process and we can feel Lindy’s frustration. It seems no-one wants to do much work in Newcastle.

We continue with Winnebago problems, this time another apparent inverter failure, the one that was installed after a lightening strike only 2 1/2 years ago. No 24o volt which means no ‘free’ camping as we can’t run my CPAP or the TV’s or computers etc. We can plug into mains but the system tells us we have problems and keeps ringing alarm bells – bloody annoying. It means we are relegated to caravan parks for the duration.

Couple of days in Newcastle and then on to Cobar to meet up with sister Robyn and I guess this is when the tour begins. The plan is from Cobar to move on to White Cliffs which is the last of the opal mining towns for us to see then work our way down through Broken Hill and into SA and the wine regions thence on to the peninsulars.

Can’t seem to upload pictures at present and the map isn’t working but all of this is on report to the webmaster for rectification so hopefully will be fixed soon