The trees have just begun to colour and the hay really is in the barn…and out in the paddocks and lined up along the fences. We saw lots of it as we made our way along the Murray to Echuca and Moama. This whole area is now the Shire of Campaspe but it used to be Deakin, named after 3-time Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin. His major local contribution was introducing irrigation back in the early 1900’s and the whole, very…
The best part of a week spent at Yarrawonga was punctuated by car stories. When we weren’t on a golf course, we toured the nearby countryside, all in Helen’s car, all with Mike driving, all with navigational vagaries and all (almost all) highly enjoyable. Mike had come from Philip Island (more cars), picked up Helen at Tullamarine and they’d driven up to the Murray. We’d driven ATGANI over from Bendigo way and parked it in a crowded spot in the…
Many moons ago, Chris and Dasher May, abetted or directed by Gill and Ian Taylor, said “Let’s meet up at the Lost Trades Fair in Bendigo in March”. We, being entirely biddable, said, “Yes”. Well, what an excellent decision. They also abrogated pretty much any responsibility for where we might stay, so we introduced them to Hipcamps and, indeed, to Somerville Park, at Fosterville, about 20km outside Bendigo. It was just a big paddock, it was ludicrously under-priced imho, it…
After an exhausting few days tramping across some of the most beautiful country you could wish for, we spent our last night at the Bright Brewery👍, before staggering off to bed. Preparing to leave the next day, our Melbourne-bound fellow travellers were quickly on the bus and away, while we hitched up, had coffee, thanked our footpath benefactors and departed without hitting anything. Not hitting things was about to become an important part of our travels. There was a toss-up…
Whilst the charms of Walhalla and surrounds didn’t fade, other opportunities still beckoned. So, we went south, just below Traralgon, for another preparatory walk in the Tarra-Bulga NP. The home of the beautiful Mountain Ash, the “tallest flowering hardwood in the world”, which sounds quite a lot like “the highest score by a #6 batsman on a wet Thursday in November”. Impressively tall, nonetheless. One of those ridiculous tees that needs to be burnt (often to death) before it allows…
The next major step on our convoluted travels around Victoria involved revisiting Walhalla, an old gold mining town where we had taken Sally, Tracy and Holly back in what was probably 1979 – close enough to 45 years ago. This was really the first of a series of much anticipated “memory lane” moments, with many more to follow when we eventually make it to Queensland in early-ish May. Ha – putting a timing on it virtually pre-determines failure! Nonetheless, before…
We’ve finally, finally, only just begun. Six months after ignominious return to Sydney, four months after ATGANI’s charitable return (huge thanks to Marlies and Uri), two months after a fabulous Tanzanian trek and one month after caravan vandals derailed us yet again (bring back capital punishment, I say), we’ve said goodbye to Sinney and crossed the border into Victoria. We’d meandered down south through Canberra, staying at the Truffle Farm near Mt Majura where it isn’t truffle season so everything…
Return to Sydney, address unknown…for now, that’s it for ATGANI and our adventures. Trevor’s back had suffered a bit from the walks along the river. Once we hit the dirt 200km outside Newman, a short 10km was enough to tell us that the corrugations were too bad, the road too rough and we’d better head for Port Hedland instead. The next morning, a back spasm generated a drug-infused week in Port Hedland hospital, lots of packing up work for Lesley…
Ever since visiting the SupaPit at Kalgoorlie, we’d been keen to see an iron ore open cut mine – allegedly much bigger, which was hard to believe. From Exmouth, the most accessible was RioTinto’s hole at Mount Price but Mike had demurred and pointed us towards BHP’s Newman, where he had done much of the early infrastructure. So Newman it was. En route, all the travellers we’d met by now were sure that one place we really had to visit…
Lesley and I are now in our seventies. And we’ve been on-the-road for 70-something days. But the big seventy success was the birthday-born arrival of Knoxes, Kingsmills and McGormans to the Ningaloo Holiday Park in Exmouth (say mouth not muth). The lies I’d had to tell were becoming more and more tenuous but surprise was both everything and complete! The poor sods who had parked beside us were engaging us in happy conversation, only to have their presence and serenity…