The vegetable tour – Quorn to Berri

A recurring town on our travels - Orooroo!

Time is running out for us to see stuff and still be in Melbourne before Easter so we hitch up and make for Berri in the Riverland area of South Australia. In the last couple of years we have traipsed over these roads quite a few times and despite the fact that there are a number of roads that will get you through this country we always end up going through the little town with the intriguing name of Orooroo. It reminds me of the old Australian word for good-bye (Hooroo) so it says good-bye to me even as we’re driving in. Maybe that’s why we have never stopped there. It’s always a great drive through that area however as there are lots of old farm ruins of great character strewn along the roads as a testament to the tough life in this marginal farming country.

The Murray River at Berri

 

 

Maurs zeroing in on a pigeon or something

 

 The area around Berri is another iconic part of Australia with the Murray River looking magnificent, and plenty of interesting birds (as I‘m continually reminded). We were recommended to try a caravan park very close to the river. The present inhabitants appear to be obsessed with the ritual of caravan and vehicle cleaning. There is row after row of pristine gleaming rigs and then there is our poor old thing, covered in dust and dried-on mud from country roads and tracks (and will be staying that way for a while yet). Consequently we didn’t get invited to five o’clock drinks while we were there. The caravan park is a bit Stalag-esque with boom gates and high wire fences and an entry code to get through the gates. I suppose this is a plus for those people who need that feeling of extra security but for us who have just come from camping areas in the bush with nothing adverse happening to us, it felt more like an impost. There is also an entry code required for the ablution block overnight that would guarantee anyone with mild dementia and a pressing bladder an unhappy experience at 2 am.

It must be good golfing in the area as there was a large group of enthusiasts who opted to tow their golf buggies behind them rather than a caravan and then stay at the cabins in the caravan park. Now that’s different. No sooner had they left than they were replaced by another group of golfers.

                              Golf buggies a-go go

We had arranged for a guy to come and fix our gas leak. I was given the choice of two names – Perry Casey and Greg Brown. Which to choose. Here’s how my logic ran. I used to work with a colleague, Kerry Casey, whose father was a POW on the Burma Railway. I am currently reading Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North which is centred on Aussie prisoners working on the Burma Railway. Greg Brown never stood a chance. Perry was great actually and turned out to be an old blues player (drummer) so we chatted on about playing in bands and, oh yes, he fixed the leak.

We took advantage of being in fruit and vegetable growing country and went out to a roadside stall for some fresh food. We encountered a lady who was very helpful but who also went to pains to tell us how honest she was (just ask anybody) – usually a sign of just the opposite! The produce that we got was excellent and the prices not too bad but really, I would pay anything for peaches that taste like peach instead of the bland excuses that are offered up at supermarkets these days.

 

       Floods we have had  - Lock No 4 at Berri

The healthy look of the Murray River here comes in part as a result of the system of locks that keep water levels stable and it’s always worth a look-around how a lock works etc. There was a nice record of floods they have known as well which appealed, to me anyway (for Maurs, not so much). It was a coolish day so I took a slightly shivering wife to a local restaurant (The Berri Lavender Farm – Italian family concern) for lunch. The mezzo plate was good fare washed down with a local drop of red. Time to leave the Murray. We’ve got friends to visit in Mildura and family waiting in Melbourne.

Lunch (and Table 19 - that's prime!!)

Quorn, Trains and Kangaroos

The Talcum Powder Conundrum has raised its head yet again. On our previous meanderings I mused whether the large signs in ablution blocks banning he use of talcum powder were from fear of inhalation or slipping on the stuff.  Well the last couple of shower blocks haven’t clarified the situation, even though explanations are now being provided rather than the usual plain “Verboten”. As I suspected, different caravan park owners warn for one or the other; I’m waiting for the sign that warns about inhaling the talcum and then collapsing and slipping onto the tiles to await certain death.

Home among the Gum Trees - Quorn

I find it fascinating that just about every cubicle around the country has a sign that you must read. All different, and all I suspect to do with some past “incident”. We’re in the “Three minute shower” zone at the moment. I think it’s a trust system but I‘m unwilling to shower more than 3 minutes lest the Shower Police break down the cubicle door and frog-march me out into the middle of the camping area, leaving one dripping and naked as a sorry lesson to the other campers.

Outside the Railway Station

The Barwell Bull - "All Aboard"

We were lucky enough to be in Quorn on a day they run the Pichi Richi Railway, which is a vestige of the old railway system now long gone. Sometimes they run steam engines but it’s fire season and it’s hot so we had to settle for a diesel job known as the Barwell Bull (after a politician naturally). The volunteers who run the show dress in authentic costume and assume roles of Conductor, Guard and Driver, and generally take things pretty seriously (as they must do to make everything work I guess). There’s whistles being blown and tickets being clipped and coloured flags to wave as well. We had a great time travelling the 20 or so kilometres to Woolshed Flat and then back again, although it might have been a little more comfortable if we had the train with round wheels rather than the elliptical ones we seemed to have fitted. Whether it was the wheels or the track, the effect was such that ladies with ill-fitting bras were having a lot of trouble remaining intact and gentlemen needed a minute or so to “compose” themselves before alighting (took me back to being a 13-year old on the rickety buses that we caught to school).

"Mo'im Back!" - shunting manoeuvre underway

Enjoying the view from the Barwell Bull

Fossils in the cutting! (we went back the next day for a closer look)

End of the line - Woolshed Flat

 

The change in the weather that I mentioned would have blown us off the beach at Baird Bay came through Quorn and dropped the temperatures from 35C to 22C the next day. That made it a good day to visit Warren Gorge about 20 km out of town. There was just no one around at all and we followed a trail that took us past big old River Gums, through Cypress Pines and into Yakka country (native grass trees, or as some old recidivists call them, blackboys). We were looking for a colony of rock wallabies but they proved elusive; however there were quite a few big red kangaroos hopping around us, plus a few birds although none to get excited about. There are lots of great walks in the Quorn area. We were told about Dutchman’s Stern Conservation Park close by and then told it was closed for ‘goat eradication’, which explains why we saw heaps of goats at Warren Gorge (asylum seekers of a sort I suppose). I was interested to see whether there was a rock formation there resembling the rear of a Dutch sailing ship or less kindly, just the back end of a Dutchman! But now I may never know.

River Gums at Warren Gorge and a roo in the right hand corner of frame

Back in town that afternoon, we went to the local Rural Traders store and asked the lady there if there was someone in town who could look at our gas leak problem. She pointed and said “The guy in line behind you!” There was nowhere for the local plumber to hide. Actually he was very obliging and came around to the camper. It took a while but he finally identified the source of the leak – the regulator – of which he didn’t have a replacement part, but at least now we knew. With the help of Uncle Google we located a guy in the next town to which we were heading – Berri – and placed him in our cross-hairs. We slept well that night (actually we sleep well every night – out here on the Returd Highway).

The Mother-in-Law house (farmer built it for his MiL a good mile from the farmhouse) - just sayin'

 

Crossing the Nullarbor

The highway to Caiguna boasts the longest straight stretch of road in Australia – constructed by mindless engineers for mindless drivers and gee, watch that first curve at the end, it’s a dilly! You think, “What do I do now? Oh yeah, turn the wheel.” But the Nullarbor is the Nullarbor and it’s mostly long straight stretches and it’s mostly good when it comes to an end. We stayed at Eucla that night. The only mildly interesting aside was the girl at reception telling us, “Park anywhere you like, but some of the power outlets aren’t working and we don’t know which ones they are.” Now there’s a challenge for crusty old campers. Usually you select your site, set up your camper and then plug in the power, but clearly that strategy wasn’t going to work today. Luckily I have a power cord that lights up in an active socket, so I dug that out and proceeded to test for power, rather like a water diviner with a 15 metre long forked stick. I had a miss then a hit. Power! Raise the flag and make camp! Halleluiah! We saw another guy wandering around with an electric hand-mixer, obviously on a similar mission. Malcolm Fraser may be dead but he’s still right, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy”.

Keeping on the straight and narrow

 

It’s funny how you make plans sometimes only for them to be broken, and we fully expected that our next long leg, from Eucla to Baird Bay (some 600-700 km) would be too far and that we would stop somewhere in between, especially seeing that you turn your clocks forward 2 ½ hours when you cross the South Australian border. We got to Ceduna and figured that we could still make Streaky Bay (another 100 km on). We made Streaky Bay and tried to check in to the caravan park – they were full up. We did a hasty shop, fuelled up and sped on to Baird Bay, encountering yet another road works area that coated the car and camper in thick mud.

                                          More roadworks - 5 km of wet clay

 

There was a space in the small camping ground and as we were backing into position our friend Alan (the reason we made for the place) showed up and told us to park over the road on the beach (right in front of a large “Camping Prohibited” sign). Great spot, and Alan looks after the camping area in his “spare” time so who are we to argue. There’s no power, limited water and drop toilets – just perfect for us to test out our new solar power gear and general set-up (and test it, it did). It turns out that we had developed a gas leak (well the camper, not us – well, for the purposes of this story it was the camper…) which put us in danger of gassing ourselves at night while trying to run the refrigerator on gas. The solar system worked well but running the fridge on 12 Volts overnight would only drain the battery. So we only had an Engel to keep things cold and no ice cubes for drinks (I know, First World problem). Something to fix at a later date.

View from our camp site

The locals eat fish around here

Alan and Maurs - friends for over 50 years

 

Alan and Trish run Baird Bay Eco Experience (Google it if you’re interested) that offers people the chance to get up and personal with wild dolphins and sea lions in their natural habitat. We did the tour last time we were here and found it really special. We noticed a lot of European tourists (French, Spanish and German mostly) so word is getting around about how special this place is - it is so remote you have to want to get here. Alan has nurtured a relationship with the local seal colony over 23 years and they have rescued a few orphans in that time. At the moment Alan is helping “Johnno”, a 9 month old male who lost his mum and has been rejected by the colony. He was badly emaciated so they milk-fed him for a while and then weaned him on to fish. Johnno likes it at their place, a little too much. Alan takes him by boat back to the colony and releases him and then Johnno finds his way back to Alan’s place, sometimes ahead of Alan. He is such a cute thing but Alan is trying to maintain him as a wild creature so that Johnno can have the future that he ought to have. We wish them both good luck.

Alan hand-feeding Johnno

Quite a mob wait on for any scraps

White-bellied Sea Eagle

Johnno (so cute). He's about 17 kg at the moment.

It was okay leaving Baird Bay really (we would have loved to stay longer) but a change in the weather was on the cards that promised to blow us off the beach anyway. Our next stop was planned to be the town of Quorn, and the journey there was particularly uninspiring – it’s flat and dry country – although as you get closer to Quorn you’re in the hills and it becomes much more interesting. The town itself is quaint (another Q word!) and the surrounding country is quintessentially Quorny (I’ve just run out of Q words).

If you're ever through Baird Bay drop in and say Hi to Alan and Trish!

Off again

I had a few requests to start up the blog again seeing as I was on the road and not doing anything! So here it is. I’ll begin (fittingly) with a tropical cyclone story. We had set a date a long time before to leave Perth on 15 March and suddenly on 12 March TC Olwyn looms up on the scene with the chance of delaying our start as it moved down over the south of the state. As it was Olwyn moved past and weakened on the Saturday (14^th) and we happily set sail on the Sunday (not much of a story really but there you go, it’s early yet). However it did produce some dust-settling rain and cooler weather for our travel.

Roadside lunch stop.

Kinda quiet at the Carabin Pub

We made for the little town of Southern Cross which is 380 km from Perth on the road to Kalgoorlie and the Goldfields. Maureen’s sister Noeline had lived in various towns in the area when husband Mike was a teacher so it was a bit of a nostalgia tour, remembering different places – and we just had to stop at the Carabin Pub, which was the scene of a few crimes from those days – it was a pretty quiet Sunday as we passed through – very different to what we remember.

Kinda quiet at Southern Cross as well

Southern Cross itself was quite a pleasant town. It looked very innocent but it’s a mining town, a truck stop for the big rigs, and a grain town – there has to be a wild side to it somewhere! Probably luckily, we didn’t find it.

There was an early casualty. I lost the tow-ball cover when I left it loose on the camper and it simply blew away as we drove east. Consequently there is an exposed grease-covered tow-ball at the end of the X-Trail so Maurs has all these black stripes on her legs (she never learns). Don’t worry though – she keeps letting me know every time she brushes against it. And every servo I stop at doesn’t seem to have a replacement.

That loss paled into insignificance the next day. The highway had been converted into a fifth rate country track courtesy of the Main Roads Department’s efforts to improve it. While bouncing around at 40 km/h my Anderson Plug (electrical connection to the trailer) popped out of its socket and ran along the dirt, then bitumen, until we hit Coolgardie and discovered the damage of which there was plenty. We drove on to Norseman, found an auto-electrician who replaced it for us. “Second one today!” he said.

One dead Anderson Plug

All better!!

We had only stopped at Coolgardie to buy me some deodorant (might have forgotten to pack it). When I went to use it that night, the top of it snapped apart and what I thought was plastic packing turned out to be – sticky tape. The bums at the store had obviously busted it and bodgied up a repair job, selling it at full price – and I didn’t have enough principles to travel backwards 200 km at night to get my 5 bucks back. I’ve now re-repaired it and sucked it up.

My ripped off deodorant - this stinks!

We stopped at a place called Widgiemooltha for lunch, partly because it was our 41^st wedding anniversary and I wanted to treat my wife to a chicken and salad sandwich, and partly because it’s a place from my past. As a forecaster in the 80’s I used to get calls from weird sounding guys wanting the winds below 1000 feet and the weather between Widgiemooltha and Perth. Why? For pigeon racing! Widgie (as they called it) was a mecca for the pigeon fancier back then but according to the young guy who served us, not any more. The chicken sandwiches were very good by the way (at least I thought it was chicken! It couldn’t have been pigeon, surely!)

Widgiemooltha - and not a pigeon in sight!

Fraser Range - not all fences are this old

We made camp at Fraser Range that night. We do like the station stay there but they have charge showers - $1 for 5 minutes – feed the meter. Do you know how hard it is to count “one Mississippi, two Mississippi…up to 300 Mississippi” so that you get your money’s worth from the shower (and not be left covered in suds when the water stops)? It’s not all beer and skittles on the road, let me tell you. Onwards to the Nullarbor!