After saying goodbye to our UK visitors and the newlyweds we set off with my sister Gill for a couple of weeks in the outback. The plan was to start at Hill End, spend a few days in Broken Hill then onto Lightning Ridge to visit the opal mines and hot springs before wending a slow path back home. We had two weeks before Gill was due to fly from Newcastle to Melbourne on her way to connect with one of the first non stop flights from Perth to London.
The photos in this post are taken in Broken Hill.

 Hill End was marvellous, we were only there a few months ago but it was still fascinating. Once a thriving gold mining town it is now only home to a very few people but is being thoughtfully restored and the buildings, information boards and excellent information centre, really gave us a feel of how life must have been in the, not so distant, past. 

The only disappointment in Hill End was the National Parks owned camp site which had been a money in an envelope system when we were there at Christmas, had changed so it was now essential to book online. This was easier said than done in a tiny town with virtually no signal and certainly nothing stable enough to make an online booking. Eventually I found a spot where my phone worked for long enough to make a call and managed to pay that way. The whole site reverberated with grumblings from regular visitors about the change and the price hike that went with it, I couldn't help thinking they should have had a transition period. However, we had a great time there exploring the old mining tracks and walking among lolling kangaroos, Ian even went on a mine tour.

 After a couple of days in Hill End we struck off to Broken Hill on my birthday. We knew this was going to be a long day of driving, partly because it takes quite a while to get back onto a major road as Hill End is in the middle of nowhere along winding tracks, so we decided to get as far as possible before dusk when it becomes dangerous to drive because of the kangaroos. We took the Mitchell and Barrier Highways through Dubbo, Nyngan and Cobar until finally stopping in Wilcannia after ten hours of driving.
The campsite at Wilcannia (Warrawong on the Darling) was very pleasant, just outside the town with brand new facilities but Wilcannia itself was a disappointment. Years ago it was a town with real social issues but we came through about twelve months ago and it was busy with a nice cafe in the centre and plenty of visitors bringing their dollars to the town. The council seemed to be driving this change with good, clean facilities and neatly kept parks and public areas. This time though the cafe had closed down, the toilets were dirty and covered in graffiti and the town was dead , such a shame because it is a beautiful place on the banks of the river we had been planning to stop for coffee there but there was nowhere to go so they lost our money too.

About two hours further along a road strewn with kangaroo roadkill, lay Broken Hill the Silver City. Now I love Broken Hill, I don't know what it is about the place but, more than anywhere for me it brings about an understanding of how it must have been to live in the outback in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is a wonderful miners memorial which lists how each miner died and demonstrates how safety improved over the years for them and the superb railway museum has rooms dedicated to the history of the local nurses and tales from migrants who moved to the area.

 Ian and Gill went off to see the Royal Flying Doctor Service (I had only been recently) and Gill came back brandishing fly nets for all of us to wear over our hats. We scoffed at them but soon put them on when we went to see the Sculptures in the Desert that evening which was glorious but also fly central. Unfortunately the starter motor on our car chose this very remote spot in falling darkness to pack up. Luckily sunset was a busy time to visit the sculptures so plenty of willing helpers produced jump leads and tried to help but the car was going nowhere. Eventually the ranger was called and he, along with several other kind folk who had stayed to make sure we were ok, gave us a push and we got started and made it back to the camp site. So Broken down in Broken Hill just like in Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It was Friday evening so, even though we found a mechanic willing to work on the weekend it turned out the part had to come from Adelaide. 

The difficult timing was compounded by ANZAC Day which is a public holiday, falling in the middle of the next week and the breakdown of the TNT lorry bringing our starter motor. The mechanic kindly loaned us a car free of charge(!) so we carried on seeing the sights. We took in the ANZAC Day dawn service, drove out to Silverton, visited Bell's Milk Bar and 1950s museum. Our visit even coincided with a month where the town hall was illuminated and a short history of the city projected as a slide show onto the building, but time was ticking and Gill had a flight to catch. When it became clear the starter motor was not going to arrive until after we needed to leave Gill hired a car and she and I drove back, Ian then had to bring the caravan back once the car was fixed.
It all worked out in the end, Gill made her flight to Melbourne and Ian and Monty rolled back in the day after she departed, Lightning Ridge will just have to wait for next time! 

 It has been a long while since my last post and that is because we have been busy getting ready for The Wedding Of The Year. Forget Harry and Meghan, their wedding won't be a patch on Zoe and Shaun's.
The excitement all began on 24th March with the hen party. We set off in a coach on a wine tasting day around the Yarra Valley with Zoe's Australian friends and family plus some new arrivals from England in various stages of jet lag. It was an excellent day and nobody succumbed to their tiredness in spite of only having flown in the night before. The most heroic effort was by Conor who landed in Melbourne at 5am on the morning of the hen do and was still up dancing with the hens until 3am! 
After a quick flight home, I was back down in Berwick the following weekend to help with the wedding preparations. There was actually not much to do as Zoe had been very organised, so we ended up having a nice week of outings with the English visitors which was a brilliant way of avoiding major stress build up.

 The wedding itself was on Phillip Island, so we transferred from Zoe and Shaun's house to The Silverwater Resort on the Thursday where we met up with our dear friends The Spooner family from the UK.  I cannot express how much it meant to us and Zoe that the Spooners, Conor, Sophie and Peter, Carla and Joel and family members came all this way for the wedding, their presence made it all the more special.
Phillip Island can have quite changeable weather and we saw a bit of rain and some grey skies on the days before the wedding but the big day itself was glorious, perfect blue skies and about 24 degrees so not too hot either. 

The wedding was at The Shearing Shed on the island and the ceremony took place by a charming little lake. Zoe looked beautiful, as did the bridesmaids, and the whole day was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.
The new Mr and Mrs Kent had decided they wanted to spend as much time with the UK visitors as possible so they, along with a large contingent of Brits, all flew up to Port Stephens to spend a week in our little town. 

The weather was kind again with cloudless skies and sunshine. We managed to fit in a 4WD sand dune trip, sandboarding, surfing, plenty of Red Ned's pies and much playing on the beach before waving a sad farewell to everyone as they either set off for home or, in Conor's case, carried on up the coast on his Australian adventure.

 Wending our way slowly home from Victoria we passed a sign we often see, 'Carcour - Historic Town' and decided that we would make time to stop there this time instead of whizzing by and wondering what it was like as we usually do.
I checked Wikicamps and discovered it was possible to camp for free in self contained vehicles at the disused station. This was not a great place to stop because it was just a station car park up a huge hill quite a walk outside the town. So we asked in the pub and were told we could stop there. It was $20 for the night which is a bit steep to park a caravan in a field behind a pub, there was a toilet and shower but usually pubs make their camping cheap in exchange for buying a meal or some drinks there. However, it was ok and we were right in the centre of town so easy for exploring the next morning.
Carcour turned out to be as interesting as the sign on the main road promised. It was an old town, settled in 1830 with the the two main industries being mining and wheat farming. Carcour supposedly has one of the healthiest climates in Australia sitting 3000 ft above sea level. Apparently it rarely gets really hot during the day and, even if it does, the temperature always cools to a comfortable level at night. It was clearly once a pretty prosperous place as the main street was lined with very impressive buildings for a country town.

 Next stop on our journey was a place I have been itching to visit ever since I arrived in Australia, the ghost town Hill End. 
We thought we might have to pay through the nose to camp at Hill End because the town is a listed tourist attraction but that was not the case. There were two main campgrounds run by NSW National Parks and the one we stayed in (Village Campground) was excellent, spotless showers and toilets, washing machines and dryers all for $8 a night. 

Hill End was as exciting as I had hoped it would be with an excellent free museum telling the history of the town. It was settled in the gold rush in the 1850s. By the 1870s it had a population of 8000, two newspapers, five banks, eight churches and twenty eight pubs. Eventually the gold ran out and by 1945 the population was down to 700 and now only 80 people live there.
The buildings are being restored one by one and there are some fascinating walks marked out. We walked along the track to the Bald Hill Mine passing the ruins of Irish Town and Chinese Town (clearly the various immigrants did not like to mix). The track itself was littered with pieces of quartz and there were King Parrots in the trees, huge kangaroos lounging about in the hot sun around every bend, we even saw a deer!

 The surrounding countryside was dry and hilly and reminded me a bit of Greece with winding roads teetering above sheer drops down the hillside, the only difference being that in Australia there is generally clearly room for two vehicles to pass which has not always been my experience in Greece! 

 Christmas forced us to take a break in our building project and not a moment too soon as the builder mentality was rubbing off on us. Ian had started whistling and calling me Mate and we have begun to refer to every break as a Smoko even though neither of us smoke!
We had been invited to Zoe and Shaun's new house for Christmas and decided we could spare about ten days and make a little holiday of it. 
First stop was Lake Illawara to visit our friends Tim and Virginia who took us to Shellharbour Village for a curry. One thing I really miss about England is the easy availability of an Indian meal, I don't care if it is in an Indian restaurant or just a curry in a box from Tesco's it is always the thing I ask my sister Gill for first when I visit. We don't have them around where we live so it was a real treat and Shellharbour Village was a splendid, busy little place full of restaurants, cafes and shops on a beautiful stretch of coastline. 

The next day was the 23rd December and we were due to arrive at Zoe's on Christmas Eve so needed to do some serious mileage and get ourselves well into Victoria for our next stop so we aimed for Benalla, taking the direct (if a bit boring) route straight down the Hume Highway for about 8 hours.

 Our rig rolled into Benalla at around 6pm and headed for the showground as it was easy and a bit late to mess around looking for somewhere to stop. The showground was a bit of a disappointment as it was $12 to stay there for no power or water and only the mens' toilets were open. It was very near a fish and chip shop though and, as we wandered over to get our chips we started to realise that Benalla was a very interesting town. There is a Ned Kelly trail through the town which takes in a shop where Ned hid after giving his guards the slip when appearing in court. The courthouse itself is a beautiful building with the cell on the outside where Kelly was held, this and the neighbouring houses have all been carefully restored. There was so much to see we resolved to stop on our way back.
The showground backed on to the church and we woke on Christmas Eve to the sound of carols, a very pleasant way to get into the Christmas spirit as we set off for Berwick.
After a great Christmas with Zoe, Shaun and his family, we trundled back to Benalla for another look. We had done a bit of research this time and discovered there was a free camp for self contained vehicles at the recreation ground on the banks of Benalla Lake.

 It was a fabulous spot with King Parrots, frogs, bats and countless water birds within a few minutes walk of the town centre. There was an art gallery and the town had definite artistic leanings, with interesting sculptures including a terrific sort of folly for children to play in and an annual mural painting competition for local artists, some of the murals were outstanding, we were very glad we made time to explore Benalla further.
Our journey had to be inland because Christmas is the big holiday season in Australia and everyone heads for the coast so it would have been virtually impossible to find any spots to stop along the coast road, so we headed to the Victoria/New South Wales border where the twin towns of Yarrawonga and Mulwalla sit opposite each other on either side of the Murray River.

 Wikicamps had told us there were several free camps on both sides along this stretch and, although they were busy, we managed to find a spot where we set up, kicked off our shoes and watched holidaymakers playing with their jet skis and inflatable toys in the river.
Although it was great to chill we thought we should get going again the following morning and headed further north past towns with amusing names like Howlong and Burrumbuttock (I really must try to grow up) to a town called The Rock.
Basically, The Rock was shut, we checked again the next morning and, apart from one supermarket, it still appeared pretty closed. It did have a fantastic free camp at the recreation ground, immaculate facilities, hot showers for a gold coin donation so we stayed one night but there was nothing to keep us after that so we hit the road again. 
This time our journey took us through Cootamundra, the birthplace of one of Ian's (and all of Australia's) heroes, Sir Don Bradman. Considering Sir Don only lived in Cootamundra until he was 3 years old they had made a pretty good job of turning his house into a fascinating little museum where Ian was in hog heaven as I am sure you can imagine. 

 With the excitement of the graduation over we started to wend our way back home from Melbourne. Our first stop was Rutherglen, a wine region which is much smaller than the Hunter or Yarra Valleys and specialises in port. It is a very pretty place and we did a bit of tasting before heading off on our way again. 

After Rutherglen we decided to put a few kilometres under our belts as we needed to get home to see how our builders were getting on, so we pressed on until we reached Taralga where we had read that we could camp free behind the Taralga Hotel. Unfortunately this was dud information as the hotel was under new management and no longer letting people camp there. All was not lost however as there was a showground only minutes away from the town centre. Now I am always writing about how quiet showgrounds are and how nothing ever seems to take place in them but this trip has proved me wrong.

 First there were the book and wine events in Bathurst and then Taralga Showground was hosting a charity horse ride. People and horses had come from all over New South Wales to take part in the cross country gallop and were all settling in for a big party before they bedded down for the night. They were pretty much all in the country Australia uniform of cowboy hat, striped shirt and moleskins and they boot scooted the night away to Achy Breaky Heart etc. 
We had chosen Taralga because we wanted to visit Wombeyan Caves which looked sensational on the website and they did not disappoint. There was a nice, easy walkway and plenty of information stops and when we emerged kangaroos were lounging about on the grass, a very good stop, highly recommended. 

 Back in Taralga, we popped into the Historical Society Museum which was full of the usual fascinating bits of history found in country towns. It had some interesting outbuildings which one of the volunteers took us for a tour of on a golf cart, I hope it was not because we were looking old! 

We were itching to see how much our builders had accomplished while we were away and were pleased there had been quite a bit of progress, they had reached the point where we could now join in and help out.

 We were very excited about this at the time but now, several weeks later we have been hard at it and are completely knackered, not least with the relentless 7.15am starts every day, we had got used to no longer living by the alarm clock. I think the end is in sight though and have put a couple of before and after pictures on here to show how busy we have been.

 We took the opportunity to explore the local area while we were staying in Jingellic so headed for Corryong. The road to Corryong winds along the banks of the Murray River offering panoramic views of incredibly green fields with a backdrop of distant, snowcapped mountains. I had never seen snow in Australia before so was delighted. 

We stopped off in Tintaldra and had a look at the Historic General Store which has been beautifully restored and has the original little bakery out the back with a view over the Murray to die for. 

Corryong itself was a very smart little town with references to Banjo Patterson's famous poem 'The Man From Snowy River' everywhere we  turned. Once we had picked our way through the Man From Snowy River statues, tea towels, stubby holders, hats, t-shirts and so on we were ready to look at the splendid little museum in the centre of town. The museum houses an eclectic mix of local historic material and has a marvelous collection of old buildings which have been located in the back garden. The buildings include a school, bank, police station, cottage and the usual barn full of old farm tools. My sister Gill was with us on this trip and she said one of the things she remembered about travelling in Australia in the past was that, everywhere she went, there was always a barn proudly displaying old farming equipment. 

The following morning we set off for our next scheduled stop, Marysville. As we drove in we noticed how new and smart the town looked and found out the reason when we got to the visitor centre. Marysville was one of the towns almost completely wiped out in the bushfires of Black Saturday, 7th February 2009 when 34 residents were killed and around 90% of the town's buildings were destroyed. The townspeople appear to have a very positive attitude about the rebuilding and they have certainly created an attractive town.

 We decided to stop at a free camp in the middle of the forest at Anderson Mill (as you do when you have just read about appalling bushfires). The camping area was in a clearing surrounded by huge, towering Mountain Ash trees and it was beautiful with King Parrots touting for scraps and only a couple of other caravans there, probably because the track in towing a caravan was not for the faint hearted, but that meant it was very peaceful. 

It was only a short drive from Marysville into Melbourne and we had a wonderful time at Zoe's graduation. She missed her first one in the UK because she moved to Australia as soon as she finished at the University of East Anglia so it was fantastic to have a second opportunity, this time at Monash University, to see her pick up her masters. 

 Having visitors has given us an excuse to get back on the road again and ignore our responsibilities at home, specifically The Grand Design going on downstairs. I am sure the builder was glad to see the back of us too as we set off on a road trip designed to take in Zoe's graduation in Melbourne.
We left in pouring rain and drove along the beautiful Golden Highway towards Bathurst where we hoped to spend a couple of nights. It was all a bit damp but still pretty as we passed first the huge open cut mines, then the vineyards and finally incredibly expensive horse country where some of the biggest names in Australian horse racing have their studs. The showground was where we were headed in Bathurst. I have mentioned before that we often stay at showgrounds because they are a cheap and convenient option with the caravan and always pretty quiet. As we rolled into the showground it was clear something was going on there, in all the times we have stayed in them we have never seen anything much happening at a showground but this was different, there were cars everywhere and people queuing for a wine tasting evening. Now wine is one of my favourite things but the entrance fee was a bit steep at $40 per head so we made do with the grog we had in the van. 
When we woke the next morning we found that the wine tasting paraphernalia had been cleared away and replaced with an absolutely enormous book sale, this changeover must all have been performed by elves overnight because we didn't hear any of it. Along with wine, books are my other favourite thing so the Bathurst Showground was really delivering the goods. We purchased a huge box of books and went off to see the splendid sights of Bathurst including Mount Panorama Racing Circuit and Museum and, another Big Thing to add to my list The Big Gold Panner.
We had a schedule to stick to so had to get some miles under our belts to get to our next planned stop, Jingellic on the NSW/Victoria border. There was plenty of time to enjoy the drive though and we decided to stop in Cowra to see the Japanese Garden recommended by our friends Tim and Virginia. Well, what a recommendation, it was sensational!
 Cowra was the location of a prisoner of war camp in the Second World War where 1104 Japanese POWs attempted an escape in 1944. The Cowra Breakout had a tragic outcome as over 200 of the escaped Japanese soldiers were killed along with four Australian soldiers. 
The gardens were beautiful, very calm and peaceful and immaculate with not a blade of grass out of place. Dogs were allowed on the lead and there was a very pleasant cafe at the foot of the hill, an excellent place to recharge the batteries.
Cowra itself was a very attractive town and we could have stayed for much longer but wanted to reach Jingellic in reasonable time so headed off again with a brief stop at Holbrook so I could take a quick photo of The Big Submarine.  I don't know whether it really counts as a Big Thing because it is a real submarine and Big Things are supposed to be larger than life. Anyway, it was big so it gets ticked off my list.

 Jingellic was as gorgeous as ever when we arrived. We stay at the free campground behind the pub on the banks of the Murray River. The pub provides 24 hour toilets and sells $4 tokens for excellent hot showers. We settled in with dinner and a few drinks at the pub, well it seemed rude not to.