On the road again! Melbourne, Victoria to Morgan, SA

---

NOTE:For anyone who is interested we decided (belatedly) to blog the NSW Road Trip we completed in December/January. Use the ‘Previous Entry’ button to navigate to those entries.



On the road again! After our road trip to NSW in December/January we are off again - this time heading west across the Nullarbor to explore south-west Western Australia.

Because we are both obsessed (Tracey a little more so!) with achieving all of the goals set for us by our Apple watches each day, the plan was to leave at 7.05am after we had achieved a stand hour for the 7-8.00am hour! We were not far off schedule pulling out of the driveway at 7.20am on a cool Melbourne morning.

Bernie took the first spell at the wheel and drove us as far as the Services at Ravenswood. It was too soon to need fuel so we only made a quick pit stop at the facilities and continued with Tracey driving. Tracey was amused that scrawled on the back of her cubicle door were the details for a horny 27-year-old man … if she had been spending more time in the area rather than just passing through, ha, ha.

Only a couple of Ks further on we turned onto the A790 which is the Alternate Calder Highway that bypasses Bendigo, rejoining the Calder Highway proper at Marong. At Bridgewater we made the difficult decision to not stop for vanilla slices at the Bridgewater Bakery. We have purchased vanilla slices here in the past and they are pretty good, but today we planned to travel a little further for our snot block fix.

In Wedderburn we pulled up in front of the beautifully painted Uniting Church. After photographing the front of the church and the mural on the adjacent wall we swapped drivers again.

Arriving in Charlton Bernie spied a BP Servo and decided to refuel. He had planned to travel as far as Berri, but decided he would rather keep the tank topped up. As we drove into town we had noted that the first motel had its NO VACANCY sign out. Perhaps people are basing themselves here to explore the Silo Art Trail we surmised? Nope, when Bernie paid for the diesel he was told that the town is booked out this weekend for a music festival.

At Wycheproof we turned left onto the C268 (the Birchip-Wycheproof Road) heading for Sharp’s Bakery in Birchip. We were really looking forward to our vanilla slices now after only eating fruit for breakfast at 6.30am this morning! It had been a bit hazy to this point, but as we neared Birchup we realised that it was smoke haze and quickly turned the car’s a/c to recirculate. With the wind blowing from the south it seemed likely that the smoke was being blown up from the Beaufort fire. We searched the Vic Emergency website to check if anything closer was listed, but couldn’t find any information about a fire emergency on our route.

So we HAD to schedule our morning tea stop in Birchip this morning to sample yet another vanilla slice purporting to be ‘The Best’. Sharp’s Bakery was nominated for the award in a Herald Sun ‘Best of the Best’ list that Tracey read a couple of months ago. We purchased two snot blocks and two salad rolls for our lunch since we were unsure about exactly where we might be at lunchtime. Best to have salad rolls in the fridge rather than have to start on our crossing the Nullarbor supplies!

We scoffed our vanilla slices and they were indeed excellent! They were divine blocks of super thin, super crisp pastry encasing smooth as silk custard. Even the icing on top was just right. Just enough without being sickly sweet. In fact they were so good that we purchased two more to take with us for the later in the day! Well, we are vanilla slice aficionados!

Before leaving Birchip we photographed the Big Mallee Bull which is not very big and probably should not qualify as a Big Thing?? Then we turned our lenses to the street art. There are a number of murals in Birchip and, as we were photographing those – on opposites sides of the street – we both spoke with locals who confirmed that the smoke is blowing up from the Beaufort fire. The gentleman who Tracey spoke with said that Birchip District sent five tankers down to Beaufort yesterday to help with the blaze and current reports are that it may not be under control until Wednesday.

With Tracey back at the wheel we proceeded to Walpeup having learnt that there is some (relatively) new silo art there. Certainly new since we ‘did’ the silo art trail in February 2021. We ventured as far north as Patchewollock on that trip so retraced some ground through Lascelles and Patchewollock before heading another 20 minutes north to Walpeup on the Malley Highway (B12).

Just over a month ago we drove past the Australian Light Horse Sculpture Parade at the interchange that links the M4 Motorway with the Westlink M7. That memorial commemorates all the men who served with the Australian Light Horse. The GrainCorp Silo at Walpeup portrays the story of Harold Thomas Bell who was born in Walpeup in 1901 and signed up for for the Light Horse Regiment on the 17^th of March 1917. Of course he was only 16 so he falsified his name (joining up as Harold Thomas Wickham), his age and his family circumstances to enlist. Harold was critically wounded in the Battle of Beersheba and laid to rest in the Beersheba War Cemetery. Completed in June 2023, the silo was painted by Julian Clavijo and Camilo Delgado. It is a beautiful tribute to this brave young man.

Opposite the silo we found the Dryland Memorial Garden that was established to honour the pioneers of the mallee in particular the early women who settled in the area and despite the harsh climate managed to establish flower gardens. All the plants featured are able to tolerate low rainfall conditions and many have ‘bush tucker’ potential. A number of rare Australian plants are also included in the garden.

Walpeup has a small park/caravan park which provided us with a lovely shaded area to eat our lunch and clean toilets that included a shower … if we had wanted (or needed) one. Just three dollars for a shower! The caravan park operates on the honour system with a lock box for people to put their money in for their powered or unpowered site … or their shower.

With Bernie back in charge of the truck we continued west on the Mallee Highway heading for Pinnaroo. After managing to stay awake all day so far, Tracey dozed off in the passenger seat! About five kilometres from Pinnaroo, Syri decided that we should should turn right onto the Panitya North Road. Okay? So we are not going to drive through the quarantine point at Pinnaroo then? We wondered whether she was saving us time/kilometres or if her algorithm is written by smugglers who have designed the SatNav to always navigate around quarantine points whenever possible??

Of course, very soon into this alternative route the bitumen came to an end and we continued on an unmade road. We do love the interesting short cuts that Syri comes up with?! I was just happy that Bernie was driving as I don’t have much experience on gravel roads. At Mulcra Road we turned west again and headed into South Australia. So, no quarantine checkpoint, no ‘Welcome to South Australia’ sign, no photo of our border crossing!!

We rejoined the bitumen at Browns Well Highway (B57) where we turned right (north) to continue on our way to Berri. Bernie suggested stopping in Paruna for another driver change so that I could drive the last 60 kilometres into Berri. Hmmn, when the SatNav told us we only had 55 kilometres left before reaching Berri we figured that we must’ve blinked and missed Paruna. Bernie pulled over by the side of the road and we jumped out of the truck completed three circuits each around the MU-X (to complete another stand hour!) then onwards to Berri.

Syri guided Tracey through the back blocks of Loxton which had us driving through hectares of grape vines, citrus and stone fruit trees and almond trees. Located so near the Murray River this is a very fertile area. Syri then guided us to the BP OTR where Bernie topped off the fuel tank again. With a full tank it was time for Bernie to drive the last 100 kilometers of today’s journey along the Sturt and Goyder Highways towards Morgan and Crystal Brook.

We arrived at the Colonial Motor Inn in Morgan just before 5.00pm. The owner was running other guests into town so we had a short wait before we were able to check-in but we were just happy to be out of the car! After unloading the cars it was already time to think about dinner. The owner was cagey about which pub was the best, but with a few hints we figured we should go to the Commercial Hotel.

It was still warm but after so many hours in the car today we decided we could manage the 12-minute walk into town. Of course Bernie then recommended that we should take the scenic route via the river lookout. We walked all the way down a hill to be confronted with a fence saying that this riverbank area is a restricted area. Of course what goes down has to go up again. Now riverside in an area that couldn’t be accessed we needed to climb back up the hill to reach a viewpoint looking out over the river, the Mighty Murray and the pubs for our dinner. Groan!

We enjoyed our meals at the Commercial Hotel. I was particularly happy that they offered full or half schnitzels with toppings. The half beef schnitzel with Mexican topping was delicious. Bernie tells me it was just as good in the full size, ha,ha.

By the time we walked back to the motel via the historic buildings in town we had reached our stand goal (having moved for at least one minute in each of 12 hours today) and had almost achieved half an hour of exercise. A turn around the oval opposite the motel helped us to reach our exercise goal. On such a long travelling day we think that achieving two out of three goals is enough.



Steps: 8,938 (6.02kms)

---