Issue 2 March 2018
Brodie’s next 15,000 klm
On th e road again
r u o larb
l u eN
A
h t s s o r c
Blog page at issuu.com/janandkeithtravels
After leaving Bendigo we stayed at Moama so we could catch up with Kerry and Gary. We joined them for lunch at The American Hotel in Echuca and had really enjoyable lunch and a leisurely stroll around Echuca. Back at the park saw an extended happy hour till Jan could no longer keep her eyes open so o to bed.
Sunset ove
er the Murray
Merool Holiday Park Moama
Hay m
between Echuca a
mating?
and Lake Bolga
During WWII Lake Bolga was the home of a secret flying boat base, it was established after the bombing of Darwin and Broome which destroyed most of Australia’s flying boats. The base had up to 3000 personal servicing and repairing Aust and US Flying Boats. This was the home of the original “Black Cat” squadron of Catalina ..PBY 5's, at the end of the war there were over 60 PBY5 stored here and the government sold them off at 1000 pounds each.
Lake Bo
One of these was discovered on a farm near Swan Hill and after a Lions club project over many years is now on display.
1944
2018
oga
This is our overnight stay, just short of Mildura, and if we buy a burger etc its all free including toilets and showers BARGAIN! On the way over we stopped at a couple of towns, Lake Boga had the Catalina’s and Swan Hill which didn’t seem to be as big as Echuca. Although we wandered in the wrong gate at the Heritage Village and quickly left when we realised our mistake.
Hattah Ro near M
oadhouse Mildura
Just into South Australia The most emu’s in a bunch (and that doesn’t include just as many out of frame) we have ever seen!
We had an early start (too early) so I compensated with breakfast at Maccas in Mildura. We had a drive around Mildura but it was just a big city (3 Mcdonalds) and nothing grabbed us. Not long after entering SA we were stopped by the Quarantine Inspectors who had a look inside, including the fridge and confiscated our bananas and tomatoes ..there went lunch!!...What? you have never heard of a banan and tomato sandwich? You haven’t lived. After losing lunch we headed towards our night stay at Cadel. To reach the site we had to cross the Murray by ferry Well the approaches were the steepest and longest we had seen, would the fwd Fiat make it up the otherside, talk about Jan’s white knuckle grip on the steering wheel, but the Fiat made it with no problems despite the rumours spread by rear wheel drive owners! The campsite turned our to be quite dusty and already filling up with young families, with no level sites left we decided to try Morgan’s caravan park ...FULL! 80ks and an hour later we were set up at Burra Showgrounds a great spot in a very pretty town
There goes lunch!
Lock 2 on The
e Murray River
The Ferry a
at Cadel
The Burra Showground
Only $15 a night with power, although when we woke we found there was about another 20 vans and tents squeesed in everywhere. It was so crowded we had to back towards the buildings to avoid a multitude of tents and kids. That being said, they were all so quiet setting up we didn’t know they were there.. A quick bike ride into town before left showed us some real history in the almalgation of 4 towns into !
Solar Furnace outside After our bike ride around Burra we set o for Iron Knob. The road took us above Adelaide and above the wine growing area in fact most of the scenery was undulating wheat ďŹ elds until we reached Spencers Gulf. We called into a few settlements on the gulf, all of them like most of the part of SA we were traversing were dry and dusty certainly need rain. Travelling towards Port Augusta we could see a very bright light many kilometres away, it turned out to be a solar furnace mounted on the 115 metre tower, (too high for a drone photo). There are more than 23,000 mirrors focussed on it (like giant magnifying glasses) creating incredible temperatures that turn water into steam which then produces electricity. The output provides all the power necessary for a huge tomato farm which supplies most of the tomatoes you buy from Coles.
e Port Augusta.
Iron Knob this way
Knobbies campground at Iron Knob with the huge iron ore mine as a background. The camp was by donation which goes towards the village infrastructure, although after riding up every street it needs more than this camp would contribute., but quite interesting. While there we met two cyclists, one heading west and one east.. wow thousands of k’s and they didn’t even have batteries helping them
Iron K
Knob
Kim
mba
There was no potable water in Iron Knob so a visit to Kimba for water, fuel, food and a quick look around. The town is really RV friendly with 3 free camps within the city boundaries.
We were planning on staying at Pildappa Rock, when we arrived we were almost alone ...that didn’t last ! ..2 million flies including thousands of stinging march flies welcomed us. Even 40% DEET repellent wouldn’t keep them at bay. After an hour so it all became too much and we headed further west to a great little community caravan park at Wirulla .. just $10 for shower and power on a huge concrete slab ..Bargain! !
Pildappa R
Rock
Wirrulla Communi
ity Caravan Park
C
We remembered to put the clocks back but it really didn’t make any difference to Jan .. we just got up an hour earlier. It was a pretty good night’s sleep except someone ran their generator all night now I don’t really have anything against generators ( I’ve got one) but all night .... especially when for $10 he could have hot showers and power probably what he used in fuel. There was a laundromat in Ceduna and 15 dollars later we had our washing and drying done and on the road again.
Ceduna
Penong Wi Home of Australia’s l the Comet in the backg
indmill Museum argest surviving windmill, ground, over 35ft in diameter
Signs in the mi
iddle of ?????
About 60k from the Nullabour Roadhouse is a track that takes you down to th Bunda Clis, these stretch for many kilometres along the Great Australian Bight. With a sand dune in our way we had to park and walk, as we walked over the top WOW!! what a sight, with the waves crashing and the wind howling it was quite an experience. There were further viewing spots we called at but with the wind it made for precarious drone ights, hopefully on the way back the sun will be shining and no wind.
The Bunda Cliffs
After leaving the cliffs we had a few more vege’s confiscated at Eucla, this time by WA Ag, although she was very pleasant about it. Then it was across the actual Nullabor (treeless plain) and onto the 90 mile straight, Australia’s longest straight road. Now you could think that with 600 odd klms it could become quite boring but it was quite interesting with lots to see and think about ..... could we find a tree on the treeless plain? could we find camels, wombats and the kangaroo’s that the sign promised for the next 92 klm? The answer was no we couldn’t find anything, there was hardly any traffic either. and when we got bored with not spotting anything there were other interesting things to occupy us. For instance: Did you know if you set the cruise at 95klm ph, not only would you save fuel but you would pass 123 of the individual dotted white lines every minute!! Now that’s something to think about!
Our Jour
rney so Far
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