Had a butchers at WB Chaffey's house, Rio Vista. WB was one of the two Canadian brothers who came to Mildura in the 1850's to set up an irrigation project. The house is beautiful, but unfortunately only the main dining room has been fully refitted with the original furnishings and the rest of the rooms are either just bad guess work, or empty. The name of the house translates to River View, but rather like our caravan park, the river would need to be in flood to actually be able to see water from any part of the house other than the roof top.
Also walked around Lock Island where there is a lock (no, realy!) to allow boats to pass up and downstream past the weir. As luck would have it we were in time to see a smelly deisel powered paddle wheeler pass through with a load of tourists on board.
After all that excitement it was back to camp for a well earned bottle of bubbly and dinner.
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| Hazel Made me do it! |
Up well past sparrows the next day for what was supposed to be the last long drive before we get to the start of the Oodnadatta track. The late start, and a bit of geographical discombobulation in Renmark due to an intense period of "Spot the Prado" (more later, but suffice to say at the end of day three, the scores are Len 22, Hazel 20), we wound up cutting the trip a little short of Leigh Creek and pulled in to Hawker instead. Got to say the drive was beautiful - all the grape vines though the Renmark area where even single blocks between houses are covered in vines was an eye opener, and the drive through the through the Flinders ranges is stunning. It is truly amazing how many ruins of old stone homesteads, houses and sheds there are along the side of the road, sometimes not even a kilometer apart. Must have been a tough decision to walk away after all the effort of building so far from civilization.
Couldn't help thinking of Rhys today as we traveled from Orooroo (if it wasn't Australia, you would swear I made that name up) to Hawker on the RM Williams Way. Saw several signs to Quorn, and though the desire was there to turn left, there was that ever present felling that the price on our heads might still be active. If you don't understand the last sentence, you are probably not meant to - what happens on the central oz trip, stays on the central oz trip :-)
Would have loved to have spent more time in some of the towns along the way (Burra is especially pretty, despite the stupid woman on the motorbike at the servo who had to finish her phone call before she filled the tank, paid, put her purse back in her bag, tried to do up her leather jacket then gave up, put on her helmet, put on her gloves, tried three times before successfully putting her bag over her shoulder - the helmet kept getting in the way, before finally straddling her awe inspiring 250cc's of power, fumbling with the keys, double checking the stand was up, and finally firing it up and getting out of the way so we could get to the deisel pump, only to be blocked in for five minutes by a cattle truck while the driver picked up his newspaper and gossip fix before we could get back on the road....... Maybe that bit about being on holidays was a tad optimistic, still a little way to go in the relaxation stakes -oh well, tomorrow is another day.
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| After taking all out fruit and veg off us, this is the welcome sign to SA at Renmark - Vroom Vroom! |
Oh, Prado Spotto: A fun exercise to help pass the time. 2 points for spotting a Prado, 5 points if it is towing a Jayco of any description -
just don't play when spotting sign posts should be your primary goal.
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