Day 4 Silverton

 

I woke up to this this morning,The photo doesn't do it justice the colours were quite intense.

 

The plan was to spend the day in Broken Hill on Sunday, then before we left on Monday spent a few hours out in Silverton.  For some reason we ended up going out to Silverton, Sunday morning. 

Silverton is a little town about  25km from Broken Hill, population is less than 60. Following the discovery of silver and lead it was proclaimed a town in 1885 at it’s peak the population was 3000.  As Broken Hill’s larger mines were established Silverton fell into decline.  The municipal Chambers ceased operation in 1899 leaving Silverton under the control of the NSW Government.  With building materials in short supply many of Silvertons buildings were transported to Broken Hill on jinkers, pulled by teams of camels or bullocks.  That is the reason there are so few buildings remaining today.  These days Silverton is managed by the Silverton Village Committee , the town has many art galleries and is a popular destination for movie and commercial locations.  Mad Max 2 , A town like Alice, Pricilla, Queen of the Desert .  Mad Max 4 is going to be filmed there but was postponed for a few months as the surrounds was too green with all the rain they have had.

First stop was the Mad Max Museum

 

 

 

They had the most amazing collection of photographs, thousands of them, original and replica costumes and memorabilia  Unfortunately . We weren't allowed to take photo’s inside the museum.  The owners kindly posed for a photo with us.  They were the nicest people.

Loved this old church, it has been renovated into a private residence.  It was built in 1886 and was the Catholic Church, St Carthage

 

 

Silverton School 1884 -1970

Courthouse and Memorial Youth Camp

Silverton Gaol

I really enjoyed visiting Silverton it was a really interesting place the museums in the school and gaol were fascinating.

After we left Silverton, we drove a few kilometers to Mundi Mundi lookout were you can see the curvature of the earth, fantastic view.  Then we went to the historic Day Dream Mine  which was discovered in 1882 and did an underground tour,  What a hard life those miners hard no wonder they didn't live to be very old.  I wanted to go to the Sculpture Symposium which is a short drive out of Broken Hill to take some great photos of the sun setting on the Sculptures, we left it a bit late we got there just in time however then the sun decided to go behind a cloud and didn't get the photo’s I had hoped for.

 

I would recommend  a visit to Silverton, well worth the drive out there. We were so tired and had planned to stay at a  caravan park but was unable to so we drove about 30km out of town and parked at a rest stop so we decided not to head back the next day but to keep going.  Hopefully we will get some time to call in on the way home.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY

MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL is 15 years old today.

As I'm using Lucy’s laptop these were the “youngest” photo’s I could find.

Hope you have a really great day. xxxxx

Day 3 Near Moree to Broken Hill

It was really good to be back on the road we spent the night at a rest stop outside Moree, we pulled in to Maccas at 5.30am for coffee and pancakes, our aim today was to reach Broken Hill. 

Here’s home for the next 18 days it might not look much but it’s really comfortable and warm too.  Hardly have the heater on as it heats up too much,  Has two bunk beds and a double, kitchen with fridge, microwave and oven, plenty of cupboard space and most importantly shower and toilet.  In the back is the racecar and again plenty of “workshop” space.

 

About 30 kms outside Broken Hill we called it a night and pulled up at another rest stop.   The fridge has a small freezer compartment  (think bar fridge) so I was able to premake meals and freeze them so we have been eating really well as long as I can freeze things as flat as I can we have fit heaps in.  I even froze several bags of chicken soup, spag bol, rissoles and various cuts of meat to make satay chicken etc.  I did a menu plan up for the time we left until we got to Alice Springs, then a rough one up for the rest of the time away.

IT’S ALL PART OF THE ADVENTURE

That became our mantra on our trip to Alice Springs in 2007 when we drove and did the touristy thing with a group of friends.  Well we are just into twelve hours of our big adventure and we are stuck.  Stuck at the bottom of the Toowoomba Range and as I have been telling Lucy it’s all part of the adventure. With so much to do yesterday we didn't end up leaving until 9.30pm.  All was well we made it through Brisbane and had a stop at Gatton to grab coffee, Tony was feeling a  bit tired then plan was to make it to the other side of Toowoomba where we were going to stop for the night.

Just as we were approaching Toowoomba range the truck started to make a funny noise, that’s alright we knew what that was a hose fell off the turbo, Tony  pulled over and fixed it, unfortunately what he didn't know was that a small piece of something hose or clamp fell off into turbo which got into the engine, we weren't going anywhere .  Lucky Tony has his brother Michael who came to the rescue as he always does (lucky it was a public holiday Maleny show day) he assures me we will be gone by 3.  Gary, Tony’s navigator who lives in Brisbane grabbed the parts that we needed so I'm confident we will be gone sometime this afternoon.  With trips like this it pays to be flexible so I'm going to have to do some rearranging again the reason we are going this way through Broken Hill, Flinders ranges, Cobber Pedy is we didn't get to spend much time  there last time.  I had even booked a flight for us over Wilpenia pound for Monday.  Despite having to rearrange our aim is to reach Goondiwindi tonight.  Our original goal was to be in Broken Hill sometime this evening :)  I've actually had a good day despite being a bit bored but I had a really good read of my camera’s instruction manual  shame we didn't break down somewhere with more interesting things to take photo’s of.  Lucy has slept all day, if Tony did decided to drive through the night which he wont be because he hasn't slept since Wednesday night at least Lucy could have stayed up with him and kept him awake.  Lucy and I got to bed at about 3am I had no idea how many semi’s drove past but they were so noisy.

 

 

 

A Day At the Zoo

 

Australia Zoo that is,  I haven't been there for years and it’s still very impressive.   What I love about it is it’s so clean and the animals are so well looked after, the Sunshine Coast is so lucky to have this wonderful attraction. I remember first going there back in 1996 it was so small compared to what it is today.

When I used to work the early shift at the bakery the old men would gather outside in the car park and stand there and talk for 30-60minutes nearly every day, these guys on the rock just reminded me of that.

Love the otters, I could just stand and watch them for hours they are so entertaining.

The girls were waiting in line for their turn when Tess saw the Koala poo on the girl that was nursing him so when it came to their turn she promptly made Lucy hold the koala, not that Lucy minded at all.

The Irwins.

The croc in the throes of a death roll.

I would be running too.

That feels soooooo good.

This little one had an itch that just wouldn't quit .

A little Tasmanian Devil.

A gorgeous dingo, just love them.

The tigers were hard to photograph as they were behind glass or thick perspex. As you can imagine I took hundreds of photos, haven't even touched on the birds    It was pretty yucky weather but we had a great day.

Fashionista? I don't think so.

We were very grateful for these raincoats.

That’s it for now

Bye