From Shepparton, Back To NQ via Broken Hill.
Saturday 16th March was my last day at Spc for the season. They had been putting people off for the last couple of weeks, with the winding down of the fruit season . A wonderful friendly group of people to work with. Once I was trained with the grading of peaches I worked on the cocktail lines, grading the fruit and doing the components of what was in the tins. Very interesting work. We are looking forward to going back next year for another season and visiting more of that region.
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| Ulysses coffee meeting Saturday before we left. |
We left Shepparton on Sunday morning after a lovely morning tea with Pete , Barb, Ray and Christine, and Phil. Time to make our way back to Malanda in Queensland. We are planning on it taking us around 2 ½ weeks to get there so we can relax and have a look around this vast land.
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| from left Ray, Christine, Barb, Marg, John, Phil, Peter |
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| Chris & Ray and Scruffy by their 5th wheeler |
We travelled through Echuca and swan Hill and our first night on the road we stayed at a stop over at Balranald. Then we made our way into Robinvale for lunch then onto Mildura where we parked at a wonderful caravan park named Buronga Riverside Caravan Park on the Murray River (NSW side) next door to the house boats. We went for a walk at night around the park. The management have put a lot of solar lights in the gardens of different animals beautiful to see hope the Iphone photos do it justice.
On the river edge here you can hire Houseboats for the weekend or week. Many different ones to choose from. (Photos below)
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| This one is for sale |
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| Houseboats moored along the Murray river. |
After packing up the van ready to go it was time to check the lights etc on the van and make sure they were working. We had a blinker that decided to not blink on the left hand side of the van. John spent some time trying to fix it with out any luck. This would be interesting we had to find an auto electrician that was not too busy to help us. Yes we found a very helpful person from Phil Scott electrical that was very helpful and managed to find that the wires were back to front on the light and had been that way for sometime . They did work but not very good the guy said.
A stop off at Orange world was interesting and refreshing. We were met with a lovely cold glass of orange juice. There are two basic type of oranges Navels and Valencias, however twenty different varieties of Navel and nine different varieties of Valencis are grown in the area around Mildura.
As citrus prefer wet climates , Orange World needs to irrigate with Murray River water. Nearly 200 million litres are needed annually to supply the 10,000 trees. Irrigation leeches salt from the soil which contaminates the Murray, using an under tree drainage system removes the salt to an evaporation pan behind Orange World. They spray a cooper bordeaux to control Sooty Mould, however an introduced wasp parasites on citrus scale so no insecticides are used. The trees are planted in rows in a North/South direction at a distance of 20 feet and are trimmed at a hight of 12 feet to maximise sun exposure. All trees must be fed and watered in a band two feet from the trunk out to one foot past the leaf edge, As the roots near the surface , do not grow under the tree, mulch or bark chips under the trees can be detrimentalAll the trees are harvested by 4 family members. The season runs from May to October. Also included in this are a few avocados trees.
We left here with our very own Murray Valley citrus peeler and a bag of oranges.
After leaving Mildura we made our way to Wentworth to have a look at the joining of the two rivers . The Darling and the Murray (photo's below). The river is quite wide where they join.
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| Darling River on left, Murray on right. |
In the 1880's this river traded as Australia’s busiest inland port in the area. It still has the Colonial charm of yesterday with the old buildings and displays around the area.
The old Wentworth Goal is a very interesting place to visit . It was built during 1879 – 1881 and operated until 1927 .With the very large concrete walls that divide the cells and the small court yard that was for the prisoner’s to exercise. It would of been a very cold building especially in the winter. There were quite a few woman prisoner’s held here for distributing the peace. The were Sallies and were just singing songs in the street and some people took offence to it. They usually spent 7 to 14 days in jail for this. The slate for the roof was imported from Wales.
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| Exercise court yard around prison. |
Leaving here we travelled north for 100kms and found a very quiet place to park up beside a river for the evening. Freedom camping is great.
Time to put up a clothes line and do some washing. Yes we cheated, we went out and brought ourselves a Sphere washing machine . It has a 2.5 kg capacity and a stainless steel bowl and works great. Half a hour to complete a wash. When the spin has stopped the washing is nearly dry so it quickly dries between to trees.
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| How far can you see. This was our view for many ks |
Refreshment time
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| Washing machine in use. |
Broken Hill is an artists paradise we have been told. If you want to paint this is where you go for inspiration . We visited Pro Hart's studios and gallery. He painted the outback as a child and continued this way until he went down the mines then his art worked changed. He found school very boring and was put to the back of the class where he used to draw , when he should of been doing maths. As far as he was concerned maths did not interest him, drawing was more important. Pro Hart died in 2007, and completed around 100,000. pieces of work, many of which have gone overseas to different galleries. There are many lovely old building being used today that are from the 1850's onwards. Pro Hart paintings below.
We visited the Silverton mining area. In this area many movie's were made i.e. Mad Max (They still have the truck and the car that was used in the movie there in a museum.) Prisclla Queen of the Desert was also another one made there and many TV advertisements. We had a glass of dark ale which was on tap at the Silverton Hotel.
Movie making area for Mad Max & Priscilla of the Desert
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| Mad Max Museum from the movie Mad Max |
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| Old cottage still in use |
Donkey resting undercover
More residents of Silverton
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| A little information about the town |
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The Ghost Town Bar at the pub |
The Silverton cemetery was rather large, 42 acres of which is a small part has been put aside for the local people. The old buildings are worth going and visiting. It is only 25 k from Broken Hill.
The cemetery entrance at Silverton
Spent a night in Broken Hill at a lovely quiet caravan park. Only $25.00 for two. It is up for sale, had a think about it and decided no, we wanted to keep on looking around Aussie. $230.000. would of
brought it.
SCULPTURES IN THE DESERT.
Below are some photo's taken by Tina O'Malley of the Sculptures in the Desert, 10 kms out of Broken Hill. These were done by 7 different artists from around the world. We did not make it to see them sad to say, but thanks to Tina we did.
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| Our Friend Tina |
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