Day 166 of Non-stop Traveling

Mt. Buffalo Vista


Beechworth Street Scene


Seymour Kid


Mansfield Sunset


Clare Sunset



Can you believe that it has been 166 days since we have left Byron Bay on Sept 10? I can’t, unless I look back at my notes and then at the map to see where we have gone. Day 166, and 40,000K later, whoa, no wonder we are tired. But enough, let me catch you up with this last weeks travels.

We sadly left Clare, SA. It is one of our most favorite towns. It is a decent wine region, producing about 10% of Australia’s wine and we love this town. It has wonderful boutique wines, a working town full of graziers, sheep and cattle therefore lacking much of the pretension of many of the wine regions we have been in, and we have been in many, believe me. But move on we must, so we left Clare with heavy hearts, thankful that it was raining because that made it easier.

From Clare, we headed down to Murray Bridge, down thru Pathaway, home of Lindemans wines, maybe they should call the town Lindemans! That is about all there was, vine for wine. Then on thru Narracorte, crossing the border into Victoria and weaving our way to Hamilton at the base of the Grampians where we called it a day.

From Hamilton we went back to Ballarat where we had quickly been twice before, realizing that there was more to see so we stayed at the campground we had been at before for two nights, spending one seeing the beautiful city of Ballarat, and the next day revisiting two of our favorite towns, Daylesford and Castlemaine.

We had a few days to kill so we decided to revisit places that struck us in a good way at sometime during our travels so we went back to Mansfield. This is another great town, sort of the gateway to the snow fields at Mt Buller, but full of its own character. This is known as the high country, full of cattle and sheep on the high plains before the Alpine ranges begin. It is also home to The Man From Snowy River. If you have seen the movie, then you know what the scenery it like, just breathtaking. We spent the day visiting the historic Sheepyard Flats on the Howqua River. They had started to mine gold here, but it just proved to be too difficult for the amounts found, but there are some remnants remaining. Then we drove down to Jamieson to the brewery for a late lunch.

Now we do a bit of backtracking. From Mansfield, we drive north thru the King Valley, another wine region where the Brown Brothers Estate is, along with many boutique wineries. We picked a few cellars to visit and left with more bottles to add to our collection. Up though the valley we drive to Wangaratta, where we head south on the Hume highway to Nagambie for two nights.

There isn’t much to see or do in Nagambie, but it was the closest place we could get lodging because we wanted to go to the Seymour Sustainable Farming Expo that was being held over the weekend. I suppose the closest I can compare it to is the Big E in Springfield MA each autumn. This expo in Seymour was huge, and took us two days to see it all, and even now I think we missed parts. If you want farm machinery, this was the place to be. Toys I didn’t even know what they were used for. But there wasn’t just big farm machinery, there were things for the hobby farmer, wine grower, alpaca grower, chook, sheep and goat and more. Lecture topics ranged from veterinary care, to cutting up the carcass and getting the most dollar value out of it by futher processing of the meat. There were lectures on sustainable home building and just so much more. And yes, we shopped. We now have a new fence pounder, puller, straightener which is cool, but even better, a gizmo for tying down the hay bales so when we get the bales from the field to home we don’t loose any on the road. It was a really good show, and we are very glad we dawdled along the way so we could spend some time there.

That was yesterday, now we are in Beechworth for one more night before we move on. We have been to Beechworth before, so this is our second stay for us. This town for us ranks right up there in books as a keeper with Clare. It is on the edge of high plains and the Alpine Range, and is a historic gold mining village and is just a very nice place to be. Today we were going to do the scenic gorge drive, but we found out when we got there that the drive is closed due to extensive flood damage. So, after breaking out the map, we decided to drive down to Mt Buffalo NP. It was the best way to spend the day. The water was roaring down the face of the mountain, creating all of these beautiful waterfalls, the clouds were doing special cloud things and the temperatures were quite decent which was nice. We weren’t freezing or cooking, so we really got to enjoy the views. And the views! As you will see from Steve’s photos, you look over the Alpine Range. A perfect day.

Tomorrow, we head north crossing the border into NSW, driving up thru Yass, onto Cowra and Bathurst, then just a small jog down to the Jenolan Caves, on the west side of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. We didn’t get to see them when we were up in Katoomba when we first rocked in, so we are going to see them now. Steve promised me.

Time Does Fly By

Hawker Sunrise


Flinders Sunset Tree


Streaky Bay Dunes


Haystack Rocks


Streaky Bay Tinnie



Wow, I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by since my last blog. It was two weeks ago! I have some catching up to do.

When I last left you we were enjoying a beautiful day out on the True North celebrating Australia Day with all of the Australians. The True North is a premier class boat or yacht that specializes on adventure cruises around Australia catering to 36 passengers with a crew of 30. We were on the Ture North for a photo workshop with 100 other photographers out at Rottnest Island off the coast of Perth for the day. What made the day even better as when we were coming back into port, we could see the fireworks of both Fremantle and Perth happening. It was a great way to spend the day.

After spending another full day in Fremantle, we headed back down the coast to Dunsborough, trying to catch up with our allusive car registration. We had paid the fee online, but were trying to get the sticker for the windscreen. We finally were able to pick it up on Saturday, and then we were invited to a barbeque that night at one of the owners of True North at his house in Eagle Bay. What a night it was, we were not only invited for dinner, but to stay the night at the True North Ashore, the house being as splendiferous as the yacht. True North Ashore is for sale if anyone wants to buy it for a cool $5,000,000. You get a view of the bay, a huge house with a waterfall inside, a sauna, plunge pool, Bose sound system, great kitchen, on and on. It was not our style, but we did have a lovely night there. The excitement that night was waiting for the cyclone to hit the area we were staying in, but lucky for us, it petered out to a fizzle, so we had no worries and the next day we began our long drive back east.

There isn’t much to say about the drive back across the plains of WA except it is a long, and very boring drive and we were very glad to finally arrive in Ceduna at the border station four days later. After stocking up on groceries, we headed south to Streaky Bay which had high recommendations from many people we had run into. We can see why, it is a charming seaside town with a few cafes, shops and a pier with a shark cage about the size of an Olympic pool so you can swim safely in the water off the pier. You swim in the cage, not the sharks. We had a lovely two days in Streaky Bay, just driving around seeing the sights like the Woolshed Cave, Murphys Haystacks which are islebergs and High Cliff.

From Streaky Bay, we packed up and continued around the Eyre Peninsula, stopping at the sculptures placed along the Ocean Cliff Drive. Then onwards, we were going to camp at Tunby Cove, but it was deadsville, so we drove on to Cowell, but by then the heavens opened up, so we ended up in Whyalla at the Best Western for the night.

Because the weather forecast was for rain the next few days, Steve got in touch with Neil and Elaine, friends we had met through Jim and Polly Curran, and they invited to stay with them, so off to Adelaide we go for the weekend.

Sunday was spent with new friends we had met through our friend Kate in Tasmania. Maggie and Bob are the warmest and most generous folks. We had such a good time with them seeing their gardens and taking me to the local seed savers meeting where I got to meet more wonderful gardeners. As we left Maggie and Bob at the end of the day, we not only had fresh eggs and plums, but two new friends.

From Adelaide, we went back up north to Hawker, the hub of the Flinders as the sign says. When we were there back in September it was oh so green, and John at the caravan park said that he thinks that it is more dramatic in the summer, so since we had time, we though we would go back. Only two days earlier there had been flash flooding in the area, remnants of Cyclone Yasi that had devastated FNQ. Needless to say, we chose the right road to get to Hawker, even though the floodways were covered with water, brush and silt, they were passable. It was all worth it because John was right, the Flinders are so amazing at anytime of year. We spent two nights in Hawker, just about the only tourists in the area we had the place to ourselves. The next day we drove to Blinman, at the northern end of the Flinders and stopped in town, where we were the only people. The guy at the general store was very nice and said that Feb and March are the slow months in the outback. We asked if the road to Parachilna was open and he said yes, the grader went through yesterday and because we had a 4x4 we should be able to make it with out any worries, besides it was only 30k. Off we go, and yes the road had just been graded, in fact it was better than many of the roads we had driven on in WA, but the flash flood certainly did rip it apart, but we drive on, eventually meeting up with the grader, now we were crossing floodways that really had water running across them, but there was no turning back at this point, and we did make it finally to the other side, hopeing for lunch at he Prairie Hotel, which is supposed to have the best roadkill café, yes, that’s right, they serve up roadkill, camel, kangaroo and emu, but it too was closed for the summer, so back to Hawker we go.

Now we are back down in Clare, our most favorite place we have found yet. We are staying at our favorite B&B and relaxing, visiting vineyards and getting ready to continue on still pointing east towards Byron