16 to 22 July 09

Thursday 16 July 09

We spent the morning doing the washing and once again the weather turned nasty so we had to put up our little camping line in the annex. In the afternoon we went to Centrelink to lodge our rent assistance form and to find out if we could get our Timbercorp investments off our asset list. Unfortunately Centrelink still had no information about Timbercorp going into liquidation.

We then called into various tyre companies to find out which tyres would suit us best for replacement. When we found the tyres which we decided were the best for our purposes we had to wait for them to be sent from Adelaide so we arranged for them to be fitted on Monday. This was the first day of the first Ashes Test and what a disaster. Our strike bowler has forgotten how to bowl at a crucial time in his life and the other bowlers aren’t much better. I would like to stop watching but Barry wants to watch it. Fortunately we are only able to sensibly watch the first session because it gets too late to watch anymore.

Friday 17 July 09

Neither of us can remember what we did today but it can’t have been much for us both to forget. We did watch a bit of the first test again in the evening and the disaster continues.

Saturday 18 July 09

We left home and Foxy at 9.30 am to do the Pitchi Ritchi Railway trip to Quorn and back. This is a narrow gauge railway steam train that travels up through the Flinders Ranges using original Ghan wooden carriages and steam locomotive.



The narrow gauge railway (the original Ghan) closed in 1956. According to the literature the train was originally called the Afghan Express because the track was mainly built by Afghan labourers. It was later shortened to the Ghan and the name stuck. The actual history of the Ghan is very interesting. The track eventually reached Alice Springs and was never built all the way to Darwin. It was frequently affected by washouts and rail buckling due to intense heat in the desert. The train was more often than not late arriving. The conductor told us a story of an occasion when the train arrived at Marree at 10.00 am on a Wednesday and a man looked at his watch and remarked that it was good to see that the train was for once on time. The conductor said yes it is a pity it should have been here last Wednesday. During the war the track was very busy with as many as 6 trains a day leaving Adelaide to take troupes and goods up to Alice. After the war it fell into decline again and when the coal mines found it impossible to transport a reasonable amount of coal on the narrow gauge rail a standard gauge rail was built. The standard gauge rail went as far as Marree and then everyone had to disembark to change to the narrow gauge train which continued on to Alice Springs. The standard gauge rail closed in 1980 and a new railway line was built 150 kilometres west of its original position to make use of modern rail technology and trains. This is also away from the Flinders Ranges and therefore not subject to the floodways. I think they have also overcome the rail buckling problems but I haven’t seen any literature explaining how. The train now goes all the way through to Darwin but it takes 3 days and 2 nights to get there and costs a fortune to travel on. Even the situp carriages are beyond our means. I would love to do either that trip or the one that goes east west across Australia. The India/ Pacific or IP as it is called these days travels from Sydney to Perth again with some interesting history. I don’t know any of the stories but I do know that a some point in its history it used narrow gauge, standard gauge and broad gauge so you were on and off the train like a yoyo as you travelled across the country. Modern rail has meant that you do not need all the little towns to service the railway so many of them have died and are just ghost towns now. Some have survived to become tourist towns and others of them service there areas in other ways such as farming and mining. This country has a relatively short history in terms of European settlement but it is rich and varied.

Our train left on time at 10.30 am and we travelled through some pretty scenery and because of the recent rains everywhere was lovely and green.











We had the train captain and the conductor with us for a fair bit of the trip and both were great fun and full of stories. The other people we were sharing the carriage with were also fun and interesting. Once couple from Gidgeganup near Perth in WA and a man who appeared to come from everywhere from the way he spoke.

We spent most of the trip either hanging out of the windows or standing on the little outside balcony things taking photos and getting covered in coal smuts. It reminded me of the trips I took on the train as a kid to Folkstone where we frequently took our annual holidays.

The train was different because the seats were facing each other along the length of the carriage where our English ones went across the width of the carriage with a corridor along the length of the carriage to reach the toilets.

We arrived in Quorn on time and walked through the town to find a café for lunch. We had lunch in the Quandong Café.

As usual we had focacias for lunch and I bought some quandong pies to take home. I also found and bought some dried quandongs so I can make my own pies at some point in the future.

We then went for a wander around the town and took some photos of various buildings.

On one shop wall was a list of various films that have been partly shot in and around Quorn. The Shiralee and Robbery Under Arms were two that I recognised but the list was much longer and included at least one fairly recent film. It was not really surprising that the area attracts film producers because it really has some beautiful scenery and some of the shops and buildings being quite old lend themselves to film makers.

Travelling back to Port Augusta was just as good as the trip out but with no photographs this time at least not for me. We arrived back in Port Augusta on time and dashed home to rescue Foxy who as usual had been kicking up a great big fuss. We forwent the Ashes to watch The Bill and New Tricks and I am not sorry because it was another awful day with the Ausie batsmen and the umpires letting us down.

Sunday 19 July 09

The morning was spent doing nothing much but in the afternoon we took a trip to Wilmington to take a look at Alligator Gorge. This trip takes you up through Horrocks Pass which is a pass up through the southern Flinders Ranges and has some quite steep, winding sections in it. We have travelled this way once before when we went to Melbourne to see Garon and Sue and we stopped off at the lookouts on that occasion so we didn’t bother this time. The gorge is in the Flinders Ranges National Park so we had to leave Foxy in the caravan and pay to get in once again. I wish we had found somewhere to buy an annual pass at the beginning of this trip. Fortunately it was worth paying for as the gorge creek was running.

There are a couple of lookouts at the top but you don’t get a very good look at the gorge from either. The trip down into the gorge was quite easy although steep because stone steps have been built all the way down.


At the bottom it was quite difficult to get to the part that was called The Narrows because the water was quite high. We struggled through some using stepping stones and by wading through water on occasions, but after about 200 metres we decided we had gone far enough.

We walked the other way along the gorge until we reached the Terraces which water looked quite good with running .







I would not rate it as one of the best gorges I have been in but it was quite nice.

The trip back up the steps gave us a nice work out. We met a mother coming down with a toddler. The mother was wearing high heels and the toddler was finding the steps hard going. I didn’t fancy the mother’s chances of getting back up without carrying the child and heels are definitely not the right footwear for this kind of terrain. I enjoyed the drive to the gorge through the ranges more than I did the gorge. Some of the views were beautiful with the lovely green valleys. We watched a bit of the Ashes in the evening but we turned it off before it got to the point where Haddin and Clark started to make a game of it at last.

Monday 20 July 09

Barry took the car into Port Augusta to get the new tyres fitted, and I did some washing while he was away. Cleaned the caravan and added some photos to the last blog we published. In the afternoon we went back to Centrelink to see if we could get something done about Timbercorp as we had printed off the emails we had received stating that the creditors had voted to liquidate the 41 companies making up Timbercorp Investment Securities. This time the person we saw said that they had some information about this and he found it on his computer. Unfortunately you need a degree to understand what the information was saying and as he and nobody he asked for help had one we were no better off. The info did state that Timbercorp was in liquidation but it said that this did not necessarily affect the investors. More info would be coming. Paul the man we were talking to said that he would pass the question to the local FIS (Financial Information Services) officer who would call us when he had some info for us. Meanwhile we wait and one thing we have discovered about Centrelink is that they do not back date payments when things need to be updated. We watched the ashes until Haddin and Clark were out but then we gave up as it was clear that we were done. When we checked back it was all over.

Tuesday 21 July 09

We packed up once again and headed for Burra. This used to be a small copper mining town but the copper mine is long gone and it now survives on tourism and farming and very well by the look of things. We were going to stay at the free site on the town oval but when we got there it was obviously not commonly used for this purpose and the toilets were roped off so we decided to use the caravan park. As it turned out we were lucky to get in because throughout the rest of the day the park filled up and I don’t think there was a spare spot anywhere by early evening. We put up the annex as we had decided to stay for a week and took Foxy for a walk along the river. We then drove into town (we could have walked because it is only a 2 minute walk away) but we didn’t realise this until we got there. We bought bread at the local bakery and called in to the visitor centre to buy a passport and key to look at all the various spots around the town to view including the old copper mine. We have done this before but last time we were rushed so we thought we would have another try now that we have no call on our time.

As it was turning cold again we turned on the little fan fire and settled down with the tv for the evening.

Wednesday 22 July 09

This morning the weather is very windy and it rained during the night. I have spent the morning writing up this part of the blog and trying to keep warm.

Reading through the booklet that came with the passport and key we got from the tourist bureau, I discovered that Burra is made up of several small townships

The first township to be established was Kooringa in 1846. This was the first company town in South Australia to be built. The second township was Redruth which was a government town, built to accommodate the police station, court house and lockup, in 1847. There were other government workers housed here also. Aberdeen was built in 1849 by the Bon Accord Mine to recoup some of their losses and to provide housing for miners who didn't want to live in the company houses and other people who were starting to settle in the area. Llwchwr 1849 no information about this place, Hampton 1857 was founded by Thomas Powell, I don't know his history, and named after the home town of his wife in England. It was home to 30 miners but when the mine closed this town virtually died and was abandoned in the 1920s with its last inhabitant leaving in the 1960s. There are only ruins to see now. This harsh country does not take long to get rid of anything man made, until plastics came along of course. Copperhouse 1858 no history about this place either, Lostwhithiel 1858 and New Aberdeen 1872. The name of Burra (an aboriginal word) was officially adopted in 1940. The townships of Redruth Aberdeen and New Aberdeen are often referred to as Burra North. Burra is heritage listed and a large number of the buildings are in the hands of the National Trust.

Going by the number of people who pour in and out of the caravan park it is a thriving tourist destination.

The rest of today we did nothing much.