We're offSept 25 Sydney (Beahces)Sept 26 Sydney (walking tour)Sept 27 Flight to Brisbane28Sept SPACESHIPSept 29th KillarneySept 30th Killarney to Glen Innes1Oct Glenn Inns to Warren2Oct Warren to White Cliffs3Oct White Cliffs to Broken Hill4Oct Broken Hill to Flinders Rangers5Oct – Flinders RangersOct 6 – Flinders to Port Augusta7 Oct - Port Augusta to Coober Pedy7Oct - What have we learnt so far…7Oct - Next up8 Oct – Coober Pedy to Mt Ebenezer9 Oct Mt Ebenezer to Yulara10 Oct Ayers Rock to Alice Springs11 Oct Alice Springs to Tennant Creek.12 Oct Tennant Creek to CloncurryOct 13 Cloncurry to Karumba14 Oct Karumba to Ravenshoe15 Oct Ravenshoe to Yungaburra16 Oct Yungaburra to Cairns (Palm Cove)17 Oct Palm Cove to Port Douglas18 Oct Port Douglas to Newell Beach19 Oct Newell Beach to CairnsOct 20 Cairns to Bingal Bay (Mission Beach)Oct 21 Bingal Bay (Mission Beach)Oct 22 Bingal Bay (Mission Beach)Oct 23 Bingal Bay - InghamOct 24 Ingham - Home HillOct 25 Home Hill to ProserpineOct 26 Proserpine to RockhamptonOct 27 Rockhampton to 1770Oct 28 1770Oct 29 1770 to Bundaburg (Burnett Heads)Oct 30 Burnett Heads – Tin Can BayOct 31 TinCan Bay to Rainbow beachNov 1 Rainbow beach to CaloundraNov 2 Caloundra to Main armNov 3 Main arm to Byron BayNov 4 Byron Bay to WooliNov 5 WooliNov 6 Wolli to BerrimaBerrima to Eltham (Melbourne)Nov 8 - 22 Eltham (Melbourne)nov 23 Eltham to Ballaratnov 24 Ballarat to Mt GambierNov 25 Mt Gambier to PortlandNov 26 Portland to Port CampbellNov 27 Port Campbell to LorneNov 28 Lorne to JanJucNov 29 Jan Juc to CoolendinaDec 3 Coolendina to Ryenov 30 to Dec 2 Surf Coast
Embed trip
View in Google Earth
Rss news about this trip
GPX Track
Journal
Location
Broken Hill, Australia
We gathered our shower kits and some clean cloths and headed to the lavatories. This is when things started to take a turn for the worst. You had to pay 1$ for 7.5 minutes of warm water… WTF! We discovered that the cold water worked for free but we were already freezing down to our bones so we passed. The drive to Broken Hill was just as depressing. The highway looked like Jackson Pollock had painted it using Kangaroo Blood. We saw well over 100 dead, mangled, splattered, picked over carcases scattered all over; some where in the middle of the road while others had been pulled to the side by dingos. Each passing image of destruction was pushing my breakfast a little closer to the surface so the drive into civilisation was a welcome change of scenery. That is, until we noticed the signs… A series of road signs warning us at first of the potential dangers of bringing contaminated fruits and vegetables over provincial borders as fruit fly contamination is a huge threat to local crops. They were progressively more threatening until finally they mention the 200$ fine for the infraction next to a huge dumpster which awaited our perfectly good produce.
We ate up bananas, passion fruits and as many oranges as we could take and begrudgingly tossed the rest, it was a shame to see the mound of fresh, perfectly good fruit in the dumpster for something as silly as fruit flies but it must be a serious problem here. If I was a homeless person in Australia I would definitely park my shopping cart and cardboard box next to that dumpster. The sign said nothing about veggies so we kept our carrots, garlic and sweet potato. We later found out EVERYTHING had to go.
We had been told that Broken Hill was really a beautiful place to visit, and I had read it was in the top 100 most beautiful towns on Australia so we decided it was more economical to spend the night and cook up our veggies than to throw them away and start over. We will be eating carrot, sweet potato and garlic soup for the next three days… Lets not forget curry since it is one of only 5 spices that we have onboard.
The day in Broken Hill was relatively uneventful. We saw a few art galleries, we skipped out on the mine and sculpture tour, just fatigue setting in, lack of motivation. We found our camp site, before dusk for once and started cooking up all the fruits and veggies in our fridge. We made a delicious feast, met a get lady staying next to us who offered to boil water for tea and dishes and gave us maps and things she no longer needed.
We met fellow travelers from Normany named Fanny and Eric. They have spent the past 7 months in South American and are in the land of Oz for a couple months then off to Indonesia for a bit then eventually back to reality. They are staying in a Wicked van (rental company)although the van itself is far from Wicked. We had looked at their van but Spaceships was a much better deal, newer van, more amenities, better price, more fuel efficient.
We go to chatting about our respective rentals and we have them totally convinced Spaceships is the way to go for their next rental… I think we should get a commission.
Comments |
Log in to add comment |
No comments