Today was a much warmer day, and I’m not going to lie, the flies were horrendous! I really hope this won’t be the start of us being embedded in flyville for the next 3.5 months… We all did our own thing this morning with bike rides, runs and walks and had an overall very relaxing day. Karen and Kieran went out to the hot spring for sunrise and the mist on the water was beautiful. Hammocks were laid in and…
A very big and very welcome change of pace today. There were no alarms to get us up and we had a relaxed morning with a cooked brekky and plenty of time for the maintenance tasks that have built up over the last week or so. Karen updated her trip diary, Bob fixed the 12V power in the car after I pushed the travel charging power station to it’s limit yesterday… I fixed the 2 way radio aerial that has…
Today was another travel day. We had a casual 320km drive stopping at any sight seeing opportunities and any little towns we passed through. First stop was The Great Wall of China – a ridge that resembles the real wall, followed by Blinman where the boys grabbed a coffee. We then drove through Parachilna Gorge and departed the Flinders. We called in to Leigh Creek which is a town built to support the mines feeding the power stations that no…
Wow! What a day… We were up and out of camp by 730 this morning, heading for a full day of 4WDing at Skytrek on the Willow Springs Station. We (Bob and I) were keen to try but also a little apprehensive as we’ve never really done any real off road driving before. Karen and (especially) Kieran were up for it the second the option was mentioned. We were off on the 80km circuit just after 8am, and the early…
Another very chilly start this morning. Karen and Kieran had some maintenance on their car drawers so Bob and I set off on our planned hike as we expected to be much slower than them. Bob’s leg is continuing to behave and we did quite a bit of climbing on today’s walk which is very comforting. After an unfortunate incident where I managed to drop my phone off the bridge we were crossing and it settled at the bottom of…
The light and sound show last night was really interesting. We rode our bikes the 1.5km to save unhitching the cars from the vans, but man it was cold! The show didn’t start until 845pm so it was a late ride home afterwards. In recently developing news, we are very excited that Jason and Sue are going to be joining us for some of the trip. They are currently part way around their lap and are planning to converge with…
After a very cool night at Broken Hill we packed up for a later than anticipated departure – thanks to Kerri’s bike that decided to respond to the cat head lodged in the tyre overnight, and which required replacement prior to going on the bike rack. We were soon across the border into South Australia and the roads became long and straight. Much less evidence of roadside animals – even the goats weren’t to be seen. A ‘mob’ of emus…
We spent today in and around Broken Hill. A chilly 5 degrees this morning and we all headed out to the Line of Lode memorial lookout which overlooks the city. We spent some time perusing the memorial to those who have lost their lives mining in the area over the previous 100+ years. We can be so glad that safety standards are what they are today… A quick photo on the big park bench before we headed in different directions…
This morning Karen, Kieran and I headed out for a second hike in the national park. Bob, very sensibly decided to stay at camp and continue to give his leg some more recovery time after yesterday’s mammoth effort. Our destination was Split Rock – a 7km walk to an Aboriginal culturally significant location – which had a number of interesting rock formations with more rock art. Then it was back to pack up camp and head for Broken Hill for…
Our first no travel day today. It was so good to sleep in past 6am. To round off the anniversary day yesterday, Karen celebrated her birthday today. The weather was appropriately glorious and we decided to head out on a hike this morning. It was a lovely day – aboriginal art in rocky overhangs, walking through the dry river bed, up along the ridge, rock scrambling and rope descents. We seriously underestimated the time it would take to complete the…