We have had a couple of days here at Arno Bay. Before leaving Port Augusta we drove to their clifftop lookout where the sign told us we were standing at the exact spot where explorer Matthew Flinders stood when he discovered the area. Nearby were the Arid Botanical Gardens. I thought it a bit pointless to go through them, considering we'd been looking at nothing but that sort of country for days, however it proved to be very interesting seeing the plants close up - and surprisingly there were many different ones, some in flower, with markers saying just what they [View Full Entry]

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We continued on our trip up the western coast of the peninsular yesterday, the road leading just a bit inland although the coast was visible. The wonderful farm country continued, the few small hills we saw to the east were dotted with wind turbines and many in the course of being erected. We stopped at Port Broughton for a look around - quite a nice waterfront, jetty and main street with an funny country clothing shop where everything was bundled together, summer, winter, men’s and women’s and shoes piled in boxes, lots on ‘display’ outside on the footpath. I thou [View Full Entry]

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We have booked into the caravan park on the water at Walleroo on the western coast of the Yorke Peninsular. After a day of catching up on washing and being lazy in the sun, we left Port Vincent this morning and drove down the east coast and across to the western side. The scenery was mostly farming with the very green paddocks and a few sheep, with lambs, and always the ocean in view. It's a stoney coast and the paddocks have many stones piled up, made into rock walls and the ever present stone houses - it reminded me of [View Full Entry]

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We had a good day around the Barossa yesterday, driving around the little towns and the vineyards. We once more went to Maggie Beer's farm shop for coffee and to see her verjuice cooking demonstration. This time it wasn't in the TV kitchen but in a corner of the shop as the kitchen was in service for some earnest people setting a photo shoot for a plate of quince jelly and a piece of cheese. And so we left the Barossa and are now touring the Yorke Peninsular, keeping the ocean to the left as it will be for our trip [View Full Entry]

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We had a long drive yesterday. We left Mildura in the rain, entertaining campers no end as the motor home slid all around in the mud as we tried to drive up the next level of the caravan park. People were outside with umbrellas watching and offering advice - not a lot happens in caravan parks! Once we'd finally left the park, we went into town and into Stefano’s cafe for morning tea and delicious cake. The shelves were full of breads, pasta, sauces and all sorts of interesting food in jars - I bought some Mildura pink salt and we [View Full Entry]

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We are back at the riverside caravan park at Mildura and it's raining! We've had such warm weather, especially here where it was quite lovely last night as we sat watching the paddlewheeler coming and going on it's dinner cruise, the lights reflected across the river. Victoria has been in drought forever so needs the rain. After watching the floods in northern NSW on TV, I'm ready for a quick getaway in case the river floods - slight paranoia! The trip yesterday alternated between scrubby country to lush farmland when the road was near the river - grapevines in gold and [View Full Entry]

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This morning we walked along the riverfront and had a look at the smarter Echuca shops before heading back to the motor home to pack and get on the road. It was a rather uninspiring drive west, windy with scrubby country most of the way. Once more we were surprised as we were last year when we came to the town of Cohuna where water is plentiful - lakes, full canals, waterslides, fountains in the park - I don't know if they have a spring but strange to see so much water amongst such dry country. There are a few salt [View Full Entry]

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We have crossed the NSW border into Victoria and are at Echuca on the (once) mighty Murray. We left Sydney yesterday morning in wet and windy weather and had rain on and off to Berrima. From there it eased and we were in sunshine from then on. We stopped last night by the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai, a pretty leafy spot near the old long bridges (see photo). As we are almost following the same path we took from Adelaide to Sydney last year, this leg isn’t so much a sightseeing trip as just getting there. The country was green and [View Full Entry]

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