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Steamworld at Peterborough
the turntable with 3 different rail gauges - one for each state railway line May 26 - a warm sunny 25 degree day - we were on the road by 8, a big drive ahead of us - Wilpena Pound to Broken Hill, 450+ kms. Stopped at Peterborough to visit Steamworld. Prior to standard gauge rail, there were different size rail tracks in each state of Australia, and Peterborough, being central to 3 states, has a turntable with 3 different size gauges (fascinating stuff for train buffs!). We got a personal guided tour from Peter, one of the volunteers there - they have lots of old engines and railway carriages, including one which the Child Health nurse lived and worked in across the Nullarbor.
One thing we noticed in Broken Hill, the sun set about 5.15 and it was pitch dark about 20 minutes later - probably because they run on Central time, rather than NSW time. We had a look around the city the next day, pretty much a mining town but with a lot of art galleries - interesting mix.
Really noticing the cost of fuel now - since we left Perth the price of diesel has risen about 46 cents a litre. Funny thing is - you can have 2
looking over Broken Hill
known as the Silver City (main mineral mined there) petrol stations next door to each other here and 6 cents difference in the fuel price!
Our next 3 days were spent following the Murray River down from Wentworth, through Mildura, Swan Hill and Echuca - each with its own character, all based around the river. At Mildura we enjoyed watching the paddle steamer Melbourne go through the lock. Echuca was rather picturesque but very touristy. Left our favourite river on Thursday after following it almost to its source at Cooryong (near the Snowy Mountains). We stopped the night at a small town called Tallangata, which was moved to make way for the Hume River power scheme (like our Cromwell). Our caravan park was right on the lake front - but it was dry (see photo)!
Our drive through to Canberra skirted around the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, very pretty green countryside but lots of hills! Arrived in Canberra just in time to meet Steph arriving from the other direction on the Sydney bus. Parked the caravan outside Joy’s place and took over Lee’s bedroom for the duration of our stay (thanks Lee). Had a good catch up in Canberra with friends and family - we also
caught up with Blu’s sister Liz and her family and Fiona and Jonno Khoo and their wee boy Michael. Weather was cool and we also struck a few miserable wet days - we took Steph back to Sydney airport and drove through fog, rain and wind over the Scottish Highlands to Kiama - stopping in Wollongong for the night to take Steph out for an early birthday dinner. We were rather impressed with the Seacliff Bridge and the engineering work there- the road sits out over the sea (see photo) - why don’t we build one like this in NZ, from Pukerua Bay to Paekakariki?
Didn’t do a lot of sightseeing in Canberra as we have been there before - did revisit the War Memorial and Museum which is awesome and has a new section on post WWII, and took Steph on the Australian Institute of Sport tour - no wonder they win more medals than us - the place is amazing! Stayed on in Canberra for the long weekend to spend time with Joy, as George is currently in Brisbane for work. On Sunday we had a bit of an adventure - we went camping at Simon’s -
the paddlesteamer "Melbourne
going through the Mildura lock who is a friend of Joys - he is building a house on 70 acres in the bush about 2 hours from Canberra - the last 23 km on a narrow winding gravel road. Very interesting - he is using his own timber (milled on site) and also large stones from the property for walls, plus solar power which was due to be installed the week AFTER we visited. We had a lovely time out there - pitched our tents under the shelter and luckily it was a fairly mild night. Loved Simon’s shower which is in a burnt out gum tree - very stylish, and hot water too! (see photo) On the way home we went out the coast and drove home via Moruya and Bateman’s Bay. Nice coast - but will have to explore this region more on another visit, as the weather is getting colder and we need to move north!
Set off for Sydney in the pouring rain - and based ourselves at Parklea Caravan Village out in the west of Sydney for the next week. Probably the best camp facilities we have struck so far - including a 30 person spa - and hardly
anyone else there! It was good to stay out of the city although it took about 1.5 hours to get into the centre of Sydney by train. We did try to drive to the zoo one day but got ourselves lost and confused by the motorway/toll system and ended up going whale watching instead! Spur of the moment decision on a nice sunny day walking around Darling Harbour - turned out to be a lot of fun - the boat was a 27 seater speedboat and goes at 90km an hour once out on the harbour - and we saw a few pods of whales up close which was a bonus! We did end up getting to the Zoo eventually (by public transport), but we were a bit disappointed on the whole - a number of exhibits were closed for renovation.
We spent some time in Sydney doing family research on the NSW branch of the Lang family and met up with some younger reles as well -Peter and David for drinks, and spent the day with Mum’s cousin Margaret at her lovely wee terrace house in Paddington. Actually we had quite an epic journey to Margaret’s - the
trains all went down halfway through our trip into the city and we ended up walking 15 mins to another station, and onto a crowded bus that stopped at every station to Central, then another bus to Paddo - took us 3.5 hours to get there!
On our final night in Sydney we went to see the “Phantom of the Opera” at the Lyric Theatre. This was a real highlight, despite the fact that we could only get “restricted view” seats in the gods as it was pretty well sold out every night. We still got to see 80% of the stage and the show was fantastic. Blu hadn’t been that keen to go, but he was converted by the end of the night.
Sorry folks - this has been a long one - but I was keen to catch up a bit on the blogs! So only about 2 weeks behind now!
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