Tuesday 11th August 09

We visited the Silver City Mint Gallery which is a picture Gallery combined with a silver jewellery shop. The paintings were by local artists, of which there are many, as Broken Hill seems to attract artists like honey attracts flies and ants. It was claimed that this is because of the red colour of the soil, etc, at sun rise and sunset but if that were the case they would all be in the Pilbara. I think it is more likely a case of numerous vacant rundown miners’ cottages available at lower rental or purchase cost, unlike the Pilbara. However, some of the paintings were good enough for me (Barry) to admit to being prepared to hang them in my home (mainly by Paul Anderson), but this was made non-viable by ridiculous price tags. The gallery boasts to having the ‘Big Picture’ being the largest picture in the world (12m x 100m), by Anderson, effectively including scenes of the surrounding area of Broken Hill within a 300km radius. It is very impressive but we actually prefer the slightly smaller ‘Panorama’ at Hawker, of the Wilpena Pound, plus this had the addition of three other exceptional outsize paintings. In Anderson’s favour, his paintings of birds in close up view are hard to believe they are paintings and not high definition photographs.

We moved on to both Jack Absalom’s and Pro Hart’s Galleries and came away disappointed in both cases. Pro Hart has never appealed to me and Absalom’s paintings seemed very dull and drab. Pro Hart’s offspring have also gone down the same arty path and some of the paintings by the daughter look like a copy of the old man’s; highlighting the same trees. It would appear that the Hart family have only ever seen one type of tree.

In the Visitors booklet there are 14 art galleries listed and I suspect there are many more.

We then drove up to Mullockers Memorial and Miner’s Memorial on top of the slag heap behind the railway station, the former being a café and souvenir shop and the later being a tribute to many unfortunate miners as a result of a vast variety of accidents. Many of which simply could not happen nowadays due to improved safety regulations and the fact that mining is almost all open cut, rather than tunnelling.

Wednesday 12th August 09

I dropped the car off at a garage in Broken Hill South for its 70,000 km service and collected it after lunch.

After shopping for a few items, we visited the Geo Centre which is a museum displaying 300 mineral specimens which includes a 42kg silver nugget (not the largest found in Broken Hill by any means but the only one that was kept in original form) and a rather special silver tree which is about 3 feet high.

There was a display of some of the rocks under black light which was really spectacular with some amazing iridescent colours. Just before 4.30 we went to the station to watch the Indian/Pacific come in from Perth but after waiting ½ an hour we realised that it wasn’t coming. Merry rang the number shown on one of the boards and the recorded message said the train left Perth on time on Wednesday morning at 11:something am. We realised that it couldn’t possibly get to Broken Hill by the afternoon so a further study of the time table showed that the train arrived at 4:30 pm on Fridays, so we will try again then.

Thursday 13th August 09

We had to do some more shopping so we took the opportunity of calling into the Silver City Mint Gallery again so that Merry could have a new silver charm added to her bracelet, which we left there for collection the following day. We then called into the visitors centre and acquired the key for ‘The living Desert and Sculptures’.

After lunch we headed out to view the sculptures.

We then drove to the living desert which Merry walked around alone. I started the walk but there wasn’t anything of interest for me as there were no flowers, animals, insects, etc, so chose to wait in the car, which Foxy appreciated.

The key for this little expedition was supposed to be returned within 5 hours which we only discovered after the 5 hours had elapsed, and by the time Merry returned from her walk we were also too late to return it, as the visitors centre closed before we could get there.

Friday 14th August 09

In the morning we collecting our mail from the post office in the

northern part of Broken Hill and then we drove into the main town area and returned the key to the visitor centre. We then went to the Silver City Mint Gallery to collect Merry’s bracelet and also have 2 other charms which she bought when we toured New Zealand, added to it. Fortunately they were able to do this straight away which allowed us to walk around part of the Heritage Trail that includes the CBD, which didn’t do a lot for us as it mainly involved the Pubs on every corner (some still in use and some now shops or private residence).

In the process we dropped into a store and bought a new laptop which may solve some off our computing problems, or possibly even add to them. On returning to the caravan, Merry played with the new toy until it was time to greet the Indian/Pacific train, which we successfully managed this time.

Saturday 15th August 09

We drove round the Heritage trail, both through the CBD and the outer lying parts which took in more pubs, churches, numerous miners’ cottages, a quarts outcrop and several lookouts, including another visit to the top of the slag heap behind the railway station. On this occasion it gave us some photo opportunities of the City (sun in a better position) and the ‘Southern Aurora’ train standing in the station.

We spent the afternoon packing up the annex and awning in readiness to move on in the morning, and achieved this before the gradually rising wind made it too difficult.

7 August to 10 August 09

Friday 7 August 09

We left Peterborough fairly early so that we would get to Broken Hill at a good time. The trip was uneventful with no scenery that was worth a photo stop. We are moving back into arid country but there is still a little green around so there has been some rain. We arrived in Broken Hill around lunch time and went for a bit of a tour around the town to look at a couple of the caravan parks. The one that was suggested in the Camps 5 Australia book as a cheap one didn't look to good at all so we drove back to near the entry to Broken Hill to the Broken Hill Caravan Park. This is a big park with lots of facilities but very expensive so we wont be staying here long. We have booked for 2 nights.

In the afternoon we drove out to a site that is shown in Camps 5 as a camping spot with a $ sign which usually means that there is a small fee to pay. The camp spot was 25 kms from Broken Hill and turned out to cost more than plenty of caravan parks so we decided to give that a miss too. We drove around the little town of Silverton which was covered with art galleries. This area must be very popular with artists because there appears to be galleries on just about every street corner in Broken Hill and Silverton. We haven't worked out why yet. There is an old mine near Silverton which might be worth a tour if it is not too expensive. We didn't stop for photographs but I suppose we should have as I doubt whether we will go back to Silverton.

Back in Broken Hill we again checked out the other two caravan parks and discovered that the Lake View park was the cheapest so that is where we will go. In the evening we watched the cricket and for once it was worth watching so I recorded the second and third sessions.

Saturday 8 August 09

Apart from shopping in the morning we spent the rest of the day watching the cricket that I had recorded the night before, which we thoroughly enjoyed for a change. Sorry English and Antiguan family.

Sunday 9 August 09

We moved the caravan from one park to the other and set up the annex and again watched the cricket. We also did the washing.

Monday 10 August 09

Today we watched the little bit of cricket that we hadn't seen last night and I did a bit more washing. By mid morning the wind had got up and we had yet another dreadful sand storm. There will be no top soil left in the desert soon at this rate. My washing got covered in sand. Apart from a trip to Centrelink to drop off forms we stayed huddled in the caravan out of the wind. Barry had to do several trips around the annex putting the awning back in the antiflap bars and we also made sure that the annex was well and truly pegged down. Even still it sounded as if the whole lot was going to blow away and I was surprised that Barry did not suggest getting the annex down and putting the awning away. It survived the night but it was very noisy. Fortunately the wind wasn't as bad during the night as it had been during the day.

2 August to 6 August 09

Sunday 2 August 09

The morning was spent planning where we were going to go from here. I put a spanner in the works by suggesting to Barry that we weren’t far from the road to Broken Hill and that it might be best to go there before we head down to Mount Gambia. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal to go to see around Broken Hill if you go from the east coast. It appears it would be a trip just for that. Anyway that is what we have decided to do.

After lunch we drove out to take a look at Burra Creek Gorge. This turned out to be a really pretty spot which would have been a lovely camping spot where we could have stayed for a few weeks to veg out and recoup some money. Not worth the bother now though. We walked along the river bank for a little while and got a few photos and then walked back through the camping area. The creek is flowing probably due to all this rain we have had over the last couple of weeks.

There wasn’t a great deal else to see so we drove on to have a look at Robertstown and Eudunda. Robertstown didn’t have anything that we could see worth stopping for but Eudunda was the home of Educator and Author Colin Thiele. This man wrote among other things ‘Storm Boy’ the novel from which the movie was made. If you haven’t seen the movie you have missed some of the most amazing scenery.

There is a statue of him at Eudunda, which he unveiled during the 150 year South Australia celebrations in 2001. This statue is situated in some rather nice gardens which are featuring the two schools – Eudunda and Robertstown. The actual children’s play area has stepping stones each with two names of what appears to be the children who were attending the schools at that time. There were also a couple of the teachers’ names.

The actual town of Eudunda is about the same size as Burra and probably has some interesting history. Unfortunately the gallery where we could have obtained information was closed and we could not see a visitor centre.

We decided to travel on and do a loop through Marrabel and Saddleworth and then back to Burra.

When we got to Marrabel we found a statue of a bucking horse with a man on its back, so we stopped to take a photo. It turns out that Marrabel is famous for its annual rodeo where the brumby ‘Curio’ who was mustered in 1945 and due to her unusual bucking action unseated most riders within 3 seconds. The statue is of Curio and the now famous man, Alan Woods, who managed to stay on for 10 seconds. I took a photo of the history board but it was leaning back and is only just readable. The rest of the town wasn’t really worth much of a look but that bit was good. Somehow we took a wrong turn here (although we don’t remember turning) and missed out Saddleworth. We went through Waterloo and Black Springs most of the trip on dirt roads which of course we hadn’t expected and ended up on the main road to Burra. We decided not to worry about Saddleworth and headed back to Burra.

Monday 3 August 09

We took the annex down in the morning because the cloud was starting to come up again and the annex was only a bit damp. Our intention is to get an early start in the morning to reach Broken Hill in one go.

We took a walk along the creek bank in the afternoon which took us back past the dugouts that we mentioned earlier. There is a garden along the creek bank which was made up and is maintained by the senior citizens of Burra. It is quite a pretty garden and some of the spring flowers are starting to open. We continued in a circle going back down the other side of the creek and through the town. A walk of about 30 minutes, probably not enough for our exercise regime but something. We had an early night to assist our early start in the morning.

Tuesday 4 August 09

As I mentioned we were up and on our way by 8.30 today. I put a corned silverside joint into the Dream Pot before we left with some vegetables so that we will have a cooked meal when we get to Broken Hill. Barry is actually not keen to due the journey straight through so we might stop on the road somewhere. As we were nearing the turnoff to Peterborough I suggested that we stop of for an hour or so in Peterborough as we hadn’t seen much of the place when we drove through in 2002 on our way to see Garon and Sue in Melbourne. When we got to Peterborough and stopped at the very unusual visitor centre (a railway carriage) we discovered that there is quite a bit to see in Peterborough so we decided to pull into the caravan park for one night. This is the great thing about having no itinerary; we change our minds as the mood takes us. Actually that is not quite fair it is me that changes my mind and Barry goes along. Not that I think he regrets it generally.

After we parked the van and didn’t bother to unpack anything we headed back into town to look at the various points of interest. We bought a little book which had a map and a write up about the various tourist things to do.

Our first stop was at “Meldonfield”, a house with a museum in the shed at the back. The museum was filled with various different horses and wagons with people and various other accoutrements.

Absolutely everything in the museum was handmade by Eldon and his wife Mary, completely to scale. There was some fantastic stuff in there and Mary talked us through some of the wagons, where the originals were or are and what they were used for etc.

After this she took us through to another shed where Eldon is building a replica of the Peterborough train station. He made the bricks in exactly the same way and with the same materials as those used originally and he showed us the tiny template he made to make sure the bricks were all the correct size. They were also able to obtain a piece of the original rock from which the station was built so absolutely everything is authentic. Eldon showed us all round his work shop, the various tools he uses and what he has done to miniaturise everything.

He told us that he and his wife started this hobby after they retired from the ‘Agri vation’ industry fourteen years ago. It was hard to believe that he has taught himself to make these wagons so perfectly in such a short time. He also told us that if there was anything wrong somebody was always quick to point out the error which was why he was so careful to do it right. He gets a lot of clubs, bus tours and enthusiasts visiting so he is particularly vigilant. Barry and I though this museum or collection was one of the highlights of our trip so far. Eldon showed us how he steams the wood to bend it into the shape he wants and the various templates he has for the different size shafts. He also showed us how he makes the spokes for the wheels – they are whittled – and how he gets the spokes to fit into the wheel rim. He even showed us how he shrinks the metal band around the wagon wheel by heating the metal and then cooling it once it is round the wheel. I learned so much while I was there about making wagons and how wood can be bent to make different shapes rather than cutting through the grain which weakens the wood. He showed us a shaft and the grain of the wood going through it so that you could see that he had not cut through it. I looked out through the window and saw what looked like a tree with miniature oranges on it and I asked Eldon if it was a miniature orange tree but he said it was a cumquat which of course I remembered as soon as he said it. Actually I think Barry said it was a cumquat.

From Meldonfield we went to get some photographs of the train engine which is a feature of Peterborough and the war memorial. Everywhere you look in this town you see trains or wagons. This is because this is where the three rail gauges met for many years. The town was originally settled as a service town for the agriculture in the area but before long the narrow gauge railway came through the town, later the broad gauge railway came through from Adelaide and the narrow gauge came through from Leigh Creek to Port Augusta.

Eventually the standard gauge was added which brought the India Pacific train through Peterborough between Sydney and Perth. During its zenith the town had 100 trains a day passing through and many had to change gauge at this point. The railways were the life blood of the town for 110 years. There was a huge rail yard in the town providing work for over 1000 people. The “round house” which was the largest in the southern hemisphere is largely still in tact; with several old carriages and engines either restored or well looked after, and there is a depot turntable (the only three gauge example in the world) according to the literature provided. The town is now a small rural town existing largely on tourism although we heard that the town is growing again with twice as many children in the primary school as in the high school.

There is a memorial to all the railway workers who died whilst on duty and were based at Peterborough (originally called Petersburg until 1918) and there is a paved area around the memorial with what appears to be some of the workers’ names.

After this we visited the Motorbike museum. This was quite small as the couple who own the collection have only been going for less than a year. Lynn and Ian own the collection and Lynn was telling us that they came to Peterborough from Adelaide and found a church for sale and Sue told Ian that either they bought the church and started a museum or some of the eight bikes he had in his garage had to go. So they bought the church and set up the museum.

They have bikes from 13 different countries and their aim is to get representation from as many countries as possible. At the back of the museum there are quite a lot of other interesting items which they bought as a job lot from an old man who was retiring in Peterborough. There were dozens of different tins in the kitchen area of the church. Lynn was telling us that they eventually intend to turn part of the church into their home as funds allow. They intend leaving the pulpit area as it is, which will become a focal part of the residence. What a good way to make use of old buildings. I told her about our friends in Manjimup who have turned the village hall into their home. There was only one British bike, a James which Barry was not impressed with. I recognised the name of a Ducati but that was about all. There was one Belgian bike there, quite a few French and Italian bikes and obviously other countries to make up the 13. Lynn was really nice and told us quite a bit about their lives which was really interesting.

There is a penny farthing sitting outside the museum and Lynn told us it was stolen from its original owner and when they started the museum somebody found the 2 wheels in an old shed and offered it to them. Ian made a frame and handlebars and Lynn put a saddle on it. They then placed it outside the museum. The original owner saw it and said “Hey that was stolen from me years ago” but they said they didn’t want it back when Lynn told them that her husband had restored it and all that they were given was 2 wheels.

Our next stop was the Steamtown Museum which was where the railway yards are situated with the turntable mentioned earlier.

This track shown on the turntable has all three gauges. Note the centre rail which is the standard gauge is skinnier than the other two. This was done simply to accommodate the rail between the other two gauges.

We did a guided tour here and most of the tour was very interesting. We climbed inside several carriages and saw how things changed over the years. The original sleeper carriages were really opulent but gradually over the next 20 or so years the opulence disappeared and more functionality took over. We walked through the workshop and lifted some of the tools which weighed a ton. We climbed up into a steam engine and looked at the cramped conditions that the engine driver and fireman worked in.

Interestingly the spotter was the train guard who sat on a very high ledge in the brake van at the back of the train. It was only him who could see the rail half a mile ahead and he applied the brakes if something or someone was on the track. The round house where the carriages and engines were held was a huge area which is actually only a part of a circle going around the turntable.

The last part of the day was spent driving to the four entries into the town to photograph the miniaturised locos that were built and donated by Colin Campbell, a retired blacksmith, to the town of Peterborough at no small cost.

Dinner from the Dream Pot was, as usual, a success and saved such a lot of energy as it had been cooking away in its own heat with the dream pot sitting in the sink while we were travelling earlier in the day. The notes from the caravan park said that the TV reception was poor so Barry set up the satellite dish and he managed to find the satellite in about 3 seconds which was a relief. We still didn’t do much in the way of unpacking, just put the chairs and table outside and made do with a wash rather than take all the washing and baskets out of the shower.

Wednesday 5 August 09

We decided that we would stay another day to look at the rest of the attractions the town has to offer and the other nearby towns. We started at 10.00 with a visit to the house of Colin Campbell. He was not there so we didn’t get to see his workshop but we did take some photos of some of the things he has made that are scattered around his garden.

His house is very modest but he has the most ostentatious wrought iron fence you are ever likely to see. In the garden is a train which will eventually be placed in front of the train station that Eldon is building when it eventually goes on display. From what Eldon told us this could be some considerable time in the future because bureaucracy is getting in the way.

We then visited the Dragon’s Rest gardens but on looking at the fees and the garden from the street we decided that it was the wrong time of the year and the garden was not worth a visit. Our next stop was the government tank lookout which was very disappointing with trees blocking out most of the view. We did not bother to get out of the car.

We went on to take photographs of the visitor centre and visit the town hall where there is a quilt hanging which depicts the history and business of the town. There is a talk which runs giving you a run down of all the pictures in each of the three panels. The quilt is really beautiful and the work that went into it is quite something.

I took a few photos of the buildings in the town and then we did some shopping.

After lunch we drove to Terowie. We had picked up some trek notes from the visitor centre but we didn’t realise that the trek started in Peterborough so we hadn’t zeroed the trip meter. This meant that we got confused about where various buildings were but we eventually worked it out. On the way into Terowie we came across a paddock filled with tin men and women and an obvious invasion from Mars which was a bit of a worry.

I took photos of just about everything in the paddock much to Barry’s disgust. He sat in the car while I played. Terowie’s claim to fame is that it was “The Hub of The North” being a major supply centre for the developing areas to the north and northeast.

Even before the railway reached Terowie there were as many as 50 hors and bullock teams arriving in the town daily. Shortly after the broad gauge railway reached Terowie it was linked to Petersburg (later Peterborough) and Broken Hill by the narrow gauge line. The narrow gauge line was eventually extended to reach Quorn and then Alice Springs. All transfers, of people and goods, from the broad gauge to narrow gauge occurred at Terowie. The arrival of the railway coincided with mineral discoveries in the Broken Hill and Silverton regions who looked to SA as an outlet and for development and transportation of the vast north eastern pastoral regions of SA. As a result Terowie became the centre to which all supplies were drawn and produce delivered. The railway yards in Terowie were immense with the population of the town reaching 2000 at its peak.

In March of 1942 General McArthur gave his first Australian press interview in Terowie after his escape from the Philippines and it was here that he issued the now famous statement “I came out of Bataan and I shall return” which are depicted on a plaque at the station. In 1969 the broad gauge railway was extended to Peterborough and the station became a whistle stop. The Barrier Highway constructed at the same time bypassed the town and the population dropped rapidly to 130. This was almost the demise of the town but the Citizens Association fought to obtain heritage listing for the town as an historic town. We actually thought it was just another scruffy little country town and other than the station we did not bother with photographs.

We then drove back to Peterborough and after remembering to reset the trip meter to zero we travelled on to Orroroo. We soon discovered that the distances on the sheet bore no resemblance to our trip meter. I don’t know whether our odometer is miles out or their sheet is miles out possibly a combination of the two in opposite directions but it was still difficult to pick up the land marks and some we didn’t find at all.

We drove through the town of Orroroo and in the process of trying to get our bearings we discovered a picnic area built by the local Lions Club and the town swimming pool which dammed part of Pekina Creek. I noticed that there was a walking trail which appeared to go around the pool and I suggested to Barry that we take Foxy for a walk along this trail. While I visited the lou Barry read the sign board and said that there was a bridge across the creek which we could cross to get back down the other side of the creek. We headed out with one bottle of water between us. It was not cold but it certainly wasn’t hot so we didn’t think to get water for what looked like a short walk. Barry said the sign board did not mention a distance. We walked up one side of the creek and eventually came to what we though was a crossing, not a bridge. Eventually we came to a reservoir and we discussed walking across the wall but decided that as the board had not mentioned this we had better not so we carried on down the side of the reservoir. We followed some pink marker pegs which took us right round the reservoir and back past the other end of the dam wall, and then picked up the path on the other side of the creek. When we eventually arrived back at the car park, we studied the notice board a little more thoroughly and discovered that what looked like a bridge actually represented the dam wall. If we had used it the walk would have been 2.9kms long and about an hours walk which would have been good. We estimated the reservoir added about another 3kms, and the walk took well over 2 hours. Foxy walked all of the way and slept like a log afterwards.

During this walk we, of course, ran out of water and as quite a bit of the walk was by the creek I decided to refil my water bottle. The edge of the bank was very muddy and slippery and I ended up with one foot in the water. I managed to fill my bottle but the water was a bit muddy. Nevertheless we drank it on the way back. Fortunately we found some puddles for Foxy. What a good job there had been rain in the area recently. A dry creek bed and no puddles for Foxy would have been a very different story. We obviously need to check what we are going to do more thoroughly before we start in future. The most worrying feature was that we didn't know where we were going and as we appeared to cross the creek several times (actually they were run ins we discovered later) we had a nagging feeling that we were just walking along the creek and were going to end up hours later in another town. Barry didn't have a jumper of jacket and it was starting to get quite cold by the time we eventually arrived back at the very welcome car.

As it was gone 5.00 pm by the time we got back from the walk we decided that we could do without seeing the rest of Orroroo. Six kilometres should not wreck us but it did which just goes to show we need more exercise.

Thursday 6 August 09

As I had slept really badly which meant that Barry did not sleep very well either, we decided not to drive to Broken Hill today. Instead we had a lazy day, a bit of shopping and writing up the blog.

Thursday 23rd July

Thursday 23rd July 09

In the afternoon we visited the Unicorn Brewery which is across

the road from the caravan park and checked out the underground storage areas. The Brewery building is currently a private residence. We then crossed the creek via the footbridge alongside the caravan park to visit the Town Hall which was just closing for the day, so we went next door to the Art gallery.

This included digital photographs as well as oil, water, pastel and acrylic paintings. The photographs had been processed to poster size and printed on canvas, creating a very effective finish. The gallery was presenting two themes, one of which was ‘looking through’ and the other ‘light’. Both themes were quite clear in the displays.

Friday 24th July 09

We walked into town to pick up some groceries and found a hairdresser that was not busy and Merry had her hair cut. After lunch we began the Heritage trail, starting from the market square and proceeded out to the copper mine, passing several of the heritage items but as they are within easy walking distance will do them later.

At the mine we checked out the lookout over the open cut pit with its constant level of water which apparently changes colour subject to time of year and therefore temperature. Last time we saw this in 2002 it was emerald green but this time the colour is not so striking.

The colour is not due to the copper, just simply the light refraction.

We looked over some of the ruins and chimney stacks and then discovered the museum in the Engine House had closed at 1,00pm and we had missed it, so left the mine via the town lookout and proceeded to the Bon Accord mine where their museum was open.

Some of the equipment used in those times is quite fascinating and achieved monumental tasks. There was a woman providing a guided tour and she was quite knowledgeable about the mine. In its day the Burra mine was known as the Monster Mine as it was the largest copper mine in the world at that time. According to the literature the Bon Accord Mine never found any copper so to recoup some of their investment the mine owners built the small town of Aberdeen.

We continued on checking out old buildings such as churches, pubs, shops, bridges and residences (some still in use privately or used for bed and breakfast).

We were about to visit the old Redruth gaol but decided to call it a day and continue the next day.

Saturday 25th July 09

We returned to the copper mine at about 11.00am (opening time) and checked out the Enginehouse museum which gave us access to an underground adit tunnel leading to the top of the pump shaft, and surface equipment and buildings, such as boiler house, mine captain’s house and some rather good views of the lake in the open cut mine.

We also took some more photographs of the town of Burra from a rather good lookout near the museum. The standout feature being the community school.

We returned to town at about 1.00pm for lunch at Polly’s café (weird open sandwich (actually it was a club sandwich) and awful coffee, burnt) and then drove out to where we had finished yesterday.

This old gaol at Redruth which had also been a girls’ reform home for a while as well as a private residence, was used to make part of the film Breaker Morant.

This film was actually about South Africa but this part of South Australia was deemed to be a suitable place to film. From there we preceded to the remains of Hampton township, and the smelter ruins.

The smelter was built quite late in the mines history with the copper originally being shipped to Swansea in Wales for final processing. The rest of the day was looking at various old buildings around the town which in the main are still in use today.

One other interesting spot was the dug out houses which were built into the side of the river bed. Apparently quite a lot of the miners didn’t want to live in company housing so they dug out the banks in the dry river bed and made houses in there.

This of course worked perfectly well until the river flooded which it occasionally does. Then 100s of people were suddenly homeless.

Monday 27 July 2009

Today when we turned on the computer we had a message saying that the hard drive was almost full and we needed to clean up. This meant that we needed to back up our photographs on to the 3 hard drives we are carrying and clear out some programs we aren’t using. Also clearing the temporary internet files gave us some space back. I am sure there is other rubbish in there somewhere but I don’t know how to get rid of it or what to get rid of. Because the computer was really slow with the hard drive being full this took the whole day. This didn’t matter as the weather was awful but I had meant to spend the day working for my 2 clients that I still have left.

Tuesday 28 July 2009

I spent the day working for my couple of clients, finishing end of financial year stuff. Barry basically watched me and went for a couple of walks with the dog. Most of the day was a miserable drizzly rain and very cold. We were quite happy to stay in the caravan with the fire on.

We received some papers from Timbercorp Growers Group who are a group trying to salvage the various Timbercorp investment projects and stop them from being wound up now that Timbercorp is in liquidation. This could save us a chunk of the $100,000 they owe us to date. We spent several hours this afternoon discussing the situation and trying to decide whether we should put money into the fighting fund to try to save the projects or to forget the whole thing and write it off as a bad error on our part to invest in this way in the first place. We have to make some decisions soon as we only have until Thursday to lodge a proxy form to keep the Almond Project going if we choose to do so. We are a bit scared of chucking more money down the drain, but hopefully somebody has put a plug in. One of the things that really annoys us is that we lose $150.00 a fortnight because Centrelink deems that we earn that much from these investments and we cannot get them to remove them as assets because Timbercorp won't commit to any decisions and state that it could be more than a year before anything happens.

Wednesday 29 July 2009

Today we spent the morning with the washing and emails. We decided that we would pay into the Timbercorp Growers Group fighting fund and we emailed the proxy form with our votes to keep the almond project going. We received another email today which stated that there is another group interested in rescuing the Olive groves so we might be alright with the olives and the almonds.

We drove into town to do some shopping. We both needed pills, this is another of our pet hates. We take pills every day not because we feel ill but because the doctors deem it necessary for various reasons. I suppose we could ignore them and not bother but as we are really not sure what high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels really do to the body we keep taking the pills.

After lunch we walked back across the river and visited the Town Hall which is open from 11.00 am to 3.00 pm. This is a lovely old restored building with some of the furniture from council meetings, etc, still in place. There is a photo gallery in one room with photos of then (late 1800s) and now, another has photos of prize rams and ewes of the area, with some of their history such as how many lambs the rams sired. One ram at the age of 2.5 years was claimed to have sired 267 lambs in that year. He must have had a good time.

The main hall had a mural painted on the back of the stage so it looked as if a play was about to start. When walking back stage we found the dressing rooms as original with some lovely old clothes hanging in them. The idea being that you dress up in the provided period costumes for photo shoots in front of the mural. There is also a kitchen area which was obviously used for other things originally. This building was obviously a picture theatre as well because the projection room was still in tact with the old projectors still in place and a rewinding room on the side. I forgot to take photos of this room so I can’t add a photo of this here.

From the town hall we walked into town to visit the Old Sweet Shop museum which was the last museum included in our passport to the town.

The sweet shop had old style jars of lollies just as they were when I was a kid. The only difference was the little bags of lollies cost $2.00 instead of the ½ penny I used to pay.

The rest of the museum was the house behind the shop which has some lovely things in it including 3 wedding dresses which didn’t look anything like wedding dresses to me. It was interesting to note that the woman brought up 5 children in this little house which only appeared to have one bedroom. The original cash register is still there although it only opens/closes the till, but doesn’t state the cost because of the change to dollars and cents from pounds, shillings and pence.

We weren’t sorry to head back to the caravan because it has turned really cold again.

Thursday 30 July 09

This morning I spent sending emails for my business and setting up an old file for Barry’s olive business in the hope that I can prove to Centrelink that our Timbercorp interests are businesses not investments. After a time I decided that I was wasting my time and stopped. As it was raining once again we stayed in the caravan trying to keep warm. Barry set up the satellite dish so that we could watch the 3rd test match in the evening. A wet ground made this a waste of time as there was no play at a time when we could watch.

Friday 31 July 09

This morning we spent several hours listening to a meeting of Almond Growers which was webcast from Melbourne. Some of what was said was interesting and quite positive. One company is offering to exchange your rights to crop proceeds in the future in place of shares in the company. There would be some cost involved but less than paying the next lot of fees due in October and we would have a saleable asset which could be traded on the stock exchange. Apparently you would be offered shares equivalent to the number of lots you hold and the year that you purchased your almond lots. This would be a lot better than having the project wound up whereby the best we could hope for would be what is left after the wind up costs are paid. The estimate was about $1,500.00 per lot. As I own 2 lots and am owed about $36,000 for them winding up does not seem the best option. If I get the chance I will be accepting the share offer. There may be other offers made for the almond orchards because from what the experts said once we get over the next 2 years, with the world down turn and the drought in Victoria continuing and causing severe water problems with the Murray River, there is a very bright future for the almond industry in Australia. There was a vote and the end of the meeting to vote for the project to continue and although we didn’t get a result from that vote it appeared from the proxies that were held that there would be a positive outcome. Whether the courts will uphold this is yet to be tested but we are certainly feeling a bit more positive about the almond project continuing in some form and us not losing all our money.

According to the Timbercorp Growers Group which we have paid into there are also people interested in salvaging the olive projects as well, so hopefully we will have some positive outcomes there also.

That took up all the morning and was followed by a call from Centrelink telling us that we can’t change our Timbercorp holdings from investments to businesses. He said they are valued at what we paid for them which is different to the way we valued them so we have to sort that out too. We will not be any better off and until there is something definitive from Timbercorp regarding the projects Centrelink considers that we have an income stream from these investments and there is nothing we can do about this.

Anyway enough of the doom and gloom, lets talk about something more interesting. Ann called in the afternoon and we had a bit of a chat which was nice. We also went into Burra for a bit of shopping and to pick up the mail.

Apart from a couple of walks with the dog Barry didn’t do much. We did watch the cricket highlights for an hour in the afternoon and things were quite positive, which is more than I can say about the first session of today’s play. I don’t want to watch any more. It is looking like we will have a repeat of 2005.

Saturday 1 August 2009

Once again we have woken up to rain and grey skies. South Australia can definitely say that the drought is over but apparently the Riverlands are still in trouble with nowhere near enough rain to break the drought. This is a real shame as this is where the River Murray runs which appears to supply almost the whole of South Australia with water. There are pipes running all over the place including right out into the desert.

This morning we made up some sandwiches filled the flask and after some shopping we took a drive to some of the small out lying towns around the Burra area.

We had been told that there was a homestead which was the birthplace of Sir George Hubert Wilkins, who is renowned for being part of several of the expeditions to the North Pole. Once as a photographer, once as an environmentalist, and he also had a failed attempt to go under the North pole ice in a submarine but the equipment failed (must have been a Collins Class). He was also an official photographer at the front in France during the 1st World War. He received several awards including a knighthood and was going to be buried in Westminster Abbey but his wife wanted his ashes to be scattered at the North Pole. We found the homestead but it was locked up and we discovered later that we could have got a key from one of the garages in one of the small towns but as we didn’t know this at the time and we had driven about 12kms on muddy gravel roads we weren’t interested in going back with a key.

We looked at the little towns of Hallet, Mt Bryan and Jamestown. None of them had anything of real interest to look at and there were no visitor centres to get any information about them. I found a café in Jamestown which had some brochures but there was nothing that called to us to drive to apart from Magnetic Hill which claimed to apparently make your car roll up hill. We decided to drive out to this hill which was about 50kms away and see what it was all about. There was nothing much to see but when you stopped where the sign told you to, turned off the engine, put the car into neutral and released the brake, sure enough the car ran up the hill to where there was a big imitation magnet sitting at the top. We went back to the bottom and tried again and the car rolled up the hill again. It must be an optical illusion but when you come over the brow of the hill where the magnet is sitting you definitely appear to look down into a gulley. We carried on past the sign back up the hill on the other side, turned around and came back down to where the sign was and once again we turned off the engine, put the car into neutral and let off the brake and the car this time appeared to be rolling forward up the hill. We met some other people who said “We have been had, it isn’t rolling up hill” but we said that is definitely down hill into that gulley but they said it was up hill so they obviously saw it differently to us. There loss as far as we were concerned because we found it quite fun. It reminded us of a time when we were in a fun house in New Zealand and we sat in a seat that ran up a hill. We took a few photographs back in Jamestown and as it was still drizzling we headed home.

Saturday 1 August 2009

Once again we have woken up to rain and grey skies. South Australia can definitely say that the drought is over but apparently the Riverlands are still in trouble with nowhere near enough rain to break the drought. This is a real shame as this is where the River Murray runs which appears to supply almost the whole of South Australia with water. There are pipes running all over the place including right out into the desert.

This morning we made up some sandwiches filled the flask and after some shopping we took a drive to some of the small out lying towns around the Burra area. We had been told that there was a homestead which was the birthplace of Sir George Hubert Wilkins, who is renowned for being part of several of the expeditions to the North Pole. Once as a photographer, once as an environmentalist, and he also had a failed attempt to go under the North pole ice in a submarine but the equipment failed (must have been a Collins Class). He was also an official photographer at the front in France during the 1st World War. He received several awards including a knighthood and was going to be buried in Westminster Abbey but his wife wanted his ashes to be scattered at the North Pole. We found the homestead but it was locked up and we discovered later that we could have got a key from one of the garages in one of the small towns but as we didn’t know this at the time and we had driven about 12kms on muddy gravel roads we weren’t interested in going back with a key.

We looked at the little towns of Hallet, Mt Bryan and Jamestown. None of them had anything of real interest to look at and there were no visitor centres to get any information about them. I found a café in Jamestown which had some brochures but there was nothing that called to us to drive to apart from Magnetic Hill which claimed to apparently make your car roll up hill. We decided to drive out to this hill which was about 50kms away and see what it was all about. There was nothing much to see but when you stopped where the sign told you to, turned off the engine, put the car into neutral and released the brake, sure enough the car ran up the hill to where there was a big imitation magnet sitting at the top. We went back to the bottom and tried again and the car rolled up the hill again. It must be an optical illusion but when you come over the brow of the hill where the magnet is sitting you definitely appear to look down into a gulley. We carried on past the sign back up the hill on the other side, turned around and came back down to where the sign was and once again we turned off the engine, put the car into neutral and let off the brake and the car this time appeared to be rolling forward up the hill. We met some other people who said “We have been had, it isn’t rolling up hill” but we said that is definitely down hill into that gulley but they said it was up hill so they obviously saw it differently to us. There loss as far as we were concerned because we found it quite fun. It reminded us of a time when we were in a fun house in New Zealand and we sat in a seat that ran up a hill. We took a few photographs back in Jamestown and as it was still drizzling we headed home.