Oh well..... could have been worse!

Stuck in Broken Hill for a few more days; blew a brake hose as we left the racecourse. At least we weren't in the middle of nowhere or barrelling down the highway. Parts are so dear here though. $198 delivered from Jefferson Ford in Mentone, but $330 plus freight from Far West Ford in BH! Must drive the locals crazy! 

RACV Total Care just paid for itself through towing, car hire and site fees for a few days.

Mmmm... maybe not.  Better wait for the Terra.

Have fun at school tomorrow 2L!

Have fun going back to school tomorrow 2L (and 6F and TransQ). We'll be thinking of you as we travel from Broken Hill to Port Augusta.

The Historic Daydream Mine, Silverton and Mad Max

Excursion to Silverton today. Visiting the historic Daydream mine and going on the underground tour was first on the itinerary. Followed by  lunch at the iconic Silverton Hotel, then wandering around town this afternoon,  visiting the museums and galleries. Matt and I liked the Mad Max museum the most!

I thought the horizons at Mungo Lake and Mungo NP near Mildura were big, but looking out over the Mundi Mundi plains near Silverton (25 km NW of Broken Hill) the horizons were even wider. Billiard table flat, with not a tree in sight for tens of kms. Mad Max was filmed here, although it was hard to recognise because all of the recent rain had turned the plains green.

Broken Hill

We set up camp at the Broken Hill Racecourse yesterday and woke just before dawn this morning to the sound of horses training; not a bad way to wake and easy to just roll over and sleep-in anyway :-). Had a lovely chat to a retired jockey who showed up a few hours later; he didn't have to train early like the others because he doesn't have to go to work afterwards. I always wondered why jockeys trained before dawn! Spent the day doing the sights

Our First Taste of the Outback

The weather over the last few days has been pretty cold and damp, so we weren't surprised to find that the roads within Mungo National Park were closed; they're dry-weather-only clay roads.  We woke this morning expecting to pack up and head up the Silver City Highway to Broken Hill.  On a whim, I drove around the corner to the National Parks office and checked up on the road to Mungo.  As luck would have it, they had literally minutes before reopened the road. So we jumped in the car and headed off. 



What a fantastic place to visit, well worth the 230 kms of unsealed roads on the round trip.  

The car copped a hiding from the corrugations and is plastered in mud, but it cruised along happily all day without complaining.  







Saw plenty of roos and emus in the park.

Lots of cows, sheep and feral goats on the unfenced roads on the way up and back. Had to dodge a few, mostly on the way home in the late afternoon.










We found the horizons soooo big when there are so few hills and only low malley scrub for tree cover. 

The actual lake bed is impressively large too. The road from the visitors centre across Lake Mungo to the lunette Walls of China is 10 km long! 





The Walls of China are pretty special. They have formed from sediments and sand blowing off the lake bed during dry periods.  

It was easy to spot the coloured layers from the different materials.








For all of us, the highlight was the magnificent mobile dunes.  

These were in effect the dunes that formed behind the beach of the lake.

Absolutely spectacular!

Wandering Along the Murray

For the last few days we've been exploring the towns along the Murray and ended up in Gol Gol, just across the Murray from Mildura, for a few days.  Yesterday we completed the self-drive Chaffey Brothers Trail.  I hadn't realised that in the late 1800s Alfred Deakin was appointed by the Victorian parliament to visit America on an irrigation system fact finding mission. He met Canadian brothers George and William Benjamin (WB) Chaffey, who were developing an irrigation settlement in Ontario, California.  To cut a long story short, Deakin invited them to visit Victoria with the idea of creating an irrigation settlement on the Murray River.  They came, liked what they saw, stayed and created Mildura. The tour took in a number of places that were significant to their story.  We particularly enjoyed seeing a paddle-steamer come through one of the locks they built nearly 100 years ago. 

First Few Days

By Friday afternoon we finally completed everything we wanted to get done at home before we left and Bron moved in, so we headed off to Andrew's brother Nathan and Chris' in Tallarook for the first night. Great to catch up with them. This morning (Sat) we headed off north, caught up with Ray and Cheryl and the kids for morning tea at Garry and Barb's in Numurkah, lunch at Bunnings in Cohuna, called into Echuca for a spot of shopping before calling it quits for the day just outside Swan Hill at Pental Island. We've made a conscious effort to try and slow down; there has been very little traffic on these roads, so we sat on only 85-90 km/h, which Andrew is struggling to do! Lots of chatting with the boys, with no screens! Great first day! Matt and Tim set their swags up for their first night.