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Published: June 29th 2008
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And so, sadly we left Linda in Port Augusta and headed off for Iron Knob once again. We managed to catch up with Judy but the other people that we had met including PJ and Michelle were off visiting people around Oz. Still we spent the afternoon with Judy and her two crazy dogs and then headed back to Port Augusta for dinner and the night.
The following morning we set off for Broken Hill, a silver mining town just over the boarder into New South Wales. (Our 5th State!) Broken Hill was the setting for some of the film Pricilla Queen of the Desert and it is strange wandering around the town and recognising places. The other strange thing about the town is the names of the streets, all being named after chemicals, so you may be directed somewhere via "up Sulphide Street, left at Chloride street onto Oxide Street and right at 1,1,1-Trichloroethane Road." (I made that last one up!) As well as silver mining, Broken Hill is nowadays renowned for its art exhibitions one of which is the "Sculptures on the Hill" a strange collection of 'rocks' made by artists from around the world, most of which
aren't that impressive to be honest, only a couple look like more than just rocks!
Close to Broken Hill is a tiny town called Silverton. Once home to about 2000 people, now less than 60 live there. The town has been used as the setting for many films, including Mad Max 2 and loads of adverts. Remember the Castlemaine XXXX ad "looks like we overdid it with the sherry!" A list on the door of the pub lists many famous people who had "taken the test" in the pub. Wanting to know what that was all about i kindly told the bar lady that Tel wanted to take the test! He did, and got the certificate to prove it, can't say more than that tho or we'd have to kill you! But just look at the effect it had on him!
From Broken Hill we made our way back south to Victoria where we first spent a few days in Kerang (cool place name eh?!) and then onto the Yarra Valley to sample some wines! This is also where Emmy and Sarah, who we met in Malaysia live. We spent a night with them reminiscing about our time
in Penang and sleeping inside a house for the first time in 5 months! We were pleased to find out that the girls are just as crazy at home as they were on holiday!
And so we arrived back to Melbourne, having completed our circuit and driven 21,600Km, visited 5 states, swum in 3 oceans, drunk about 200 bottles of red wine, had an encounter with a big shark and several encounters with crocodiles,climbed a big tree, walked round a big rock, gone through 2 tyres, a full service, half a dozen 9kg gas bottles, temperatures ranging from 1 to 40 degrees c, celebrated our 2nd year anniversary of giving up work, met some amazing people, spent approx $5,700 on diesel (and 30 bucks on petrol....nice one Tel!)
Well after all that we thought we deserved a treat and a bit of a break from driving and joined Fran and Paul and the people from the club on a bus trip to visit some local wineries and breweries! We had a fantastic day setting off at 9am with emergency booze supplies on board which were broken open at about 9.05!
We managed to spend a few days
catching up with Tony and Val and Daph and Alb (My Auntie and Uncle) but soon enough, and true to form, our feet were itching to get back on the move. Tony is due to retire this week and they have a few things to organise before they are ready to hit the road and so we decided to spend a few weeks checking out Victoria. As it is winter here now we thought we would head up to the mountains. So we are now in Aubury having driven "up and over" the Great Alpine Road through the ski resorts and Alpine villiages. It has been one of the most beautiful drives we have done, although a little hairy in places, by law we had to carry wheel chains (although luckily we didn't need them) Some of the road seems almost vertical, Tilly didn't much like them, but we loved it. It is really amazing that you can drive just a few Km and be high enough to be somewhere where there is enough snow to ski on!
Not sure where we are heading from here, possibly along the Murray river for a few days and then we'll head
once more back to Melbourne to meet up with Tony and Val and plan our next move!
We've tried out putting on a video on this blog (click on the icon at the top) not sure how well it will work!
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