Most travellers feel they have finally returned to civilisation on reaching Norseman after a westward crossing of the Nullarbor. While Norseman is still a desert town, its importance cannot be understated. It has been a centre for mining and transport from its first settlement. However, life there has been and still is an historical rollercoaster of mines opening and shutting, rail dominating the town and then having minimal impact. Our journey onwards from Norseman underlines really how desert like, or better, how poor the land is agriculturally. It was not until we got close to the town of Southern Cross, at least 2 hours drive, that we could see close to the road good agricultural production. There are many part time lakes in the area, switching between salt beds and large billabongs depending on the season. ... read more

These places are not on the list of destinations on travel blog. To find them, you need a very good map and look for the South Australian town of Minnipa. Now, many of you will have travelled towards Ceduna and stopped at or passed by The Concrete Crappa. If you nodded, then that is Minnipa. If you shook your head, then go find a very good map like Dr Google has. We have gone past this point three times without realising there is a small town tucked just off the highway. When we arrived at Minnipa (2 nights from Wilpena) Marg found a regional tourist information map not far from the Concrete Crappa. (A flush toilet set inside what looks like a concrete water tank with a side door.) She said that in dry weather, any ... read more

Peterborough and Terowie Just as the Murray River had a huge impact on central and North Victoria and South Australia with the paddle steamers making a life line, rail was the life of Peterborough and Terowie. These giants of rail transport firstly worked together, then Peterborough killed off Terowie as the Rail Hub of Central South Australia, but later, even Peterborough secumbed to progress and is a shadow of the former importance as a rail centre. In a well planned country, one would imagine that there would be one rail gauge used everywhere. Not here. South Australia had trains arriving/passing through with three different track gauges. Before getting to Terowie, we diverted a couple of Ks through the little rural town of Burra. This is a beautiful rural town with just a small population. If you ... read more

After enjoying our days beside the Murrumbidgee River, it was time to head south and west to Mildura. For us, we wanted this to be a special highlight with several things to see and do. The journey took us back through dry region pasture (wheat and cattle) until we came back to the Murray River. All of a sudden, we were back in highly productive fruit and viticulture, particularly on the left side of the road which was closest to the river and irrigation system. The area around Mildura is known as Sunraisia. It is just staggering the area under intense cultivation. But Mildura was not about horticulture, but the historical paddle steamers on the river. Putting a time line on the history here is interesting. The six of us were booked for a lunch cruise ... read more

Time flies when you are having fun, and it is surprising the blur in the memory of what happened where and when. Lucky we have date and time on the camera shots, and have found it useful to photograph signs at various places, both for location and spelling. In the area around Koondrook there are a number of red gum carved statues depicting the people and history of the region. We stopped and took a couple of pics, but with the sun still quite low, found the shadows a little hard to deal with. The journey was to take us to Lake Boga, Swan Hill and then to Nyah. The story of Lake Boga really has its origins in Broom WA, and it was there last year we saw the devastation caused by a Japanese air ... read more