30 Jan 10 – Mildura / Wentworth

By Craig: Mildura was the first opportunity to stay longer than 2 or 3 days in any one place which should have been an opportunity to rest and kick back all the time. Although the tinny did go out onto the Murray, and Sam had an opportunity to hone his fishing skills unfortunately our stay at Mildura signified the holiday as such had come to an end and real life (school for Sam) was starting.
Ths meant setting up school each morning, attempting to maintain a regimented routine to the day, added pressues to our relaxation.

We had a great trip to Wentworth starting at the information centre where we met a local lady who had a deep passion for the Darling River and could tell a story or two. We were sent off in the right direction and ended up visiting Perry Sandhills
(great red sand dunes, often used as a venue for outdoor concerts)and the amazing rivergums buried deep in sand, defying the natural need for river locations. In fact, Craig was pictured beside one of the big river gums which had 10-15m of tree buried under the sand.
We also visited the junction of the two mighty rivers, the Darling and the Murray and visited Lock number 10 hoping to see both the fish ladder and the lock in action. Unfortunately there were no tours of the lock and no passing boats at the time of our visit (bummer).



By Lou: We ended up staying near Mildura for 6 nights but apart from a lovely day drive to Wentworth and Samuel's first day of school, I can’t tell you that we did anything of significance other than sorted our differences and rested. Sam befriended a 9 year old Sean one day and a 10 year old Sean the next. To be sure, to be sure. We were camping on the NSW side of the Murray at Buronga Riverside Caravan Park and I can highly recommend it for clean toilets and showers with piped music. We were right on the river’s edge and enjoyed watching a pair of waterhens tend to 2 eggs in the nest, with one of the hens never leaving the nest.
Also enjoyed: regular visits from a family of ducks, paddle steamers hooting as they arrived and departed from the jetty across the way, rowers paddling to the gong of a drum and plenty of swimmers criss-crossing the river.

29 Jan 10 - Sam’s schooling

By Lou: As I understand it, in Queensland there are basically two ways to formally educate the child who doesn’t attend a day school: home schooling or distance education. The former is usually for people who have a philosophical objection to the state curriculum and who are prepared to outline their own curriculum to the satisfaction of the Education Board. Bugger that. We have opted to enrol Sam in a school of distance education which for a fee, provides an enormous amount of assistance and resources (Sam has a big drawer in the car dedicated to school which is relatively speaking a substantial component of our get up).

To get the ball rolling there was a teleconference chaired by the teacher for the tutors to give a run down on the year. While Craig and Sam chased blue tongue lizards I fed my 50c into the public telephone booth at Mungo National Park, dialled an 1800 number, perched on a plastic chair provided for smokers and scribbled down 2 pages of notes. It was a whole new world. It reminded me of my first lecture at Uni.

So how did the first day of school go? Oh My Lordy. I couldn’t get my head around it so Sam got an early cut. Each day he is expected to do 60 minutes of Maths, 90 minutes of English and 60 minutes of CLC (Combined Learning Curriculum which is everything other than Maths and English). I’m told that on average a kid in a regular classroom gets 7 minutes a day of one-on-one time with the teacher. Sam has to cop 210 minutes one-on-one time with his mother. Needless to say it has been very trying for both him and me. I had naively expected to spend about an hour a day, supervising the filling in of a couple of worksheets and listening to him read. But it’s full-on teaching. By the time I factor in breaks (he has the concentration span of a flea) it’s 5 hours a day! This was a rude shock to our sense of holiday. I am trying to skim over things once I know he’s got the concept, but so far he’s needed the time. Also we try to use car travel time to play maths games but he is still expected to produce work for assessment so for now we are putting in the hard yards.

Every day there is a ½ hour audio lesson conducted that we try to tune into when we have internet coverage as we can use Skype to call in for free. The teacher is alone at Charters Towers and then the other 8 or so students are sitting at their individual homes in that district. It’s quite entertaining and has been a good experience for Sam to hear his classmates but not be able to pull faces at them or poke them or make silly noises. Instead the distractions we have to contend with are sun or rain or wind or a passing canoeist or a paddock of cows or seabirds copulating.



By Craig: Well as Principle of the newsomesdash school can I just say, Bloody Hell. A school day starts with an 'Oh my god!' 'Get up Craig we missed the alarm is there any chance we can get up have breakfast and travel 20 minutes up the road to get Bigpond reception and log into today's audio lesson?' Yeh! when is the lesson (yawn) well its in 10 minutes. Ok, so we're back to Bloody Hell!!! bugger breakfast, in the car you lot, up the road and damn we're not going to make it to town so tell me when you have two bars on the phone Louise and we will stop the car and power up the computer. I hear the call 'Two bars'. I stop on some remote corner between say Lake Barrington and Sheffield, high on a hill, OK here's school for the morning. I'll run a few leads from the inverter and save the computer battery. A little walk up the road and I find a couple of photo opportunities, Mt Roland looks magnificent in the morning light.

26 Jan 10 – Mungo National Park

By Lou: Mungo National Park is a beautiful park. I had been forewarned not to pack the lilo and bathers for the trip to Lake Mungo as it hasn’t held water for thousands of years.

As I’ve mentioned before I spend a lot of time looking at clouds so I was a bit concerned when approaching the park that the clouds looked low and grey. The road was very dusty and for sure if it were to rain tonight we would not be able to get out of the park tomorrow. When we pulled up to the information centre it was unmanned but it was possible to look through an extensive display area. We radioed the ranger to get a weather report but he offered to wander over from the residence next door and have a chat. He assured us there was no rain on the radar and directed us to a cold beer at the nearby resort and then the campsite.

There was one occupant when we arrived at the campsite so we were flush with choice: this dirt patch or that dirt patch? We were only staying overnight so it was a quick set up – flip the tent up and over and use our clothes bags as anchors within the tent instead of tent pegs outside. I had our dinner ingredients in the car fridge and we sat on the floor of the tent away from the flies for our gourmet dinner of tuna, tomato and cucumber on biscuits.

Just before sundown we drove out to the Walls of China to watch the sunset. It was beautiful to watch the colours of the sand and sky change as the sun dropped over a vast and flat horizon.

I’d like to say that in such a beautiful setting Craig and I wanted to tear each other’s clothes off, but it was heads we had in mind. I think it was a combination of many things: the unrelenting heat of the past fortnight; being on the move for the last month; Sam being Sam which is full-on; being in each other’s company 24/7 for the last month; the realisation that Sam’s schooling was going to be a bit of an imposition and probably the fundamental problem that we both think our own way is the best way to do anything – reversing the car, screwing in the water tap, packing the picnic bag, setting out the poles before the ropes etc etc. And so it was that despite the 44 degree temperature Mungo National Park was frosty and we headed to Mildura to thaw out.

By Craig: Mungo NP wasn't the best of times as for the reasons above. At all parks I'm finding the human influence, that is, our need to preserve and protect the mere reason we are there to see such a park, is an overriding control. For example, Walk only on the broad walk provided; Don't walk in this area; Don't sit here; Don't walk there; Stand only behind this barrier etc etc. My god, I'm there to experience the freedom and culture of an area or experience the spiritual feel of a place or a thing and I can't get near it or see it from another angle other than the one provided. I guess Mungo NP wasn't all that bad but it was the proverbial straw. At least it was free to see the Walls of China unlike other parks and places of interest. Even the Aboriginal culture, one of nomadic freedom, is now controlled to the extreme. I understand it is to protect the items, places and things for all time however isn't it a sad reflection on all of us who travel if we can't look after what we are seeing and experiencing.


One point of interest that's been well preserved is the Wool Shed. Within the vastness of this area apparently settlers thought raising and grazing sheep was a profitable business and again apparently it was for many years.
The wool shed is well preserved and so is the history surrounding its presence. A journey through the old woolshed found lots of old equipment, and you could simply imagine the hustle and bustle of a dozen shearers working their way through hundreds of sheep. Although the woolshed hasn't been in production for many many years you could still smell the lanolin which has been well oiled into the timber. A lasting thought from my experience here is that it was a hard business in an extreme environment.

23 Jan 10 - Kinchega National Park, Menindee

By Lou: After the disappointment of the Darling River being flooded south of Bourke we were keen to christen our tinny. (I had thought flood was a good thing for a boat but apart from riverside camp grounds being underwater, the fish tend to scarper so no fun fishing.) Despite an extensive lake system of empty lakes, we did find a beautiful spot on the banks of the Darling at Kinchega National Park. I made Craig do a solo trip in the tinny to check it actually floated because we got it for a bargain price and I go by the adage if it seems too good to be true it probably is. On this occasion I ate my words and Sam and I hopped in for a very pleasant spin down the river. The old 4 HP motor does just the trick. Later the boys decided to go fishing and I stayed at camp. I was shocked to realise this was the first time in a month that I hadn’t been within 100m of either were of them. Space! Yeehah! Managed to write my first lot of postcards. On the second day we were delighted to be joined for one day and night by a family from Packenham who we had initially met in Broken Hill Caravan Park. Craig had spotted them the first time before they even entered the caravan park. He heard a familiar sounding engine, turned and moaned, “Oohh”. It was a Land Rover Discovery towing a van. Short of tears brimming he nostalgically recounted the sad day we sold our Disco and he saw it drive off down the street without him. We struck up a conversation at the pool and Sam had a ball playing with the 6 and 9 year old boys both at Broken Hill and Menindee.

22 Jan 10 - Broken Hill

By Lou: I really enjoyed Broken Hill. What anyone was doing in this part of the world in the first place to discover silver is beyond me. But this is a (relatively) huge town plonked in the middle of nowhere. Sunset at the Sculptures was beautiful and accessible

Nearby is the town of Silverton which has enjoyed a recent tourism revival and we enjoyed seeing the old rock and sandstone buildings despite the 44 degree heat and dust storm. Like Lightning Ridge, it looks like a ghost town and when you see a sign saying ‘open’ you’re pretty sure they’re just tricking. But no, you walk into an airconditioned tardis and voila the old gaol is a labyrinth of a museum with oodles of historical bits and bods. Also a few galleries and a café in town. A small committee of volunteers have decked out the old school with school-related things (funny that) and we got a run down from a local on the history of the school. At one point there were 1 teacher and a teacher aide looking after approximately 120 pupils. I tell you, those old folks had it so easy. It was quite a thriving community for a time but then the silver mining industry in Broken Hill usurped Silverton and people literally moved their houses back into Broken Hill (thanks to 14 camels per house) and the town died. Of particular interest to Craig was the Silverton Hotel, complete with black V8 Ford Interceptor parked out the front commemorating the making of films such as Mad Max II, Town Like Alice and Razorback. By Craig: Broken Hill I guess you could say in a lot of ways was a typical mining town, reasonably large as country towns go with a long way to get anywhere, so don't be in a hurry. I enjoyed seeing the old mines presented to travellers by proud locals and Sam enjoyed pawing over some of the equipment although I wasn't to sure about the chair he chose to sit at for lunch.

20 Jan 10 - Cobar

By Lou: Celebrated my birthday in Cobar by having a pub meal which was walking distance from the caravan park. I invited Craig and Sam. It was a rare treat to be set up in camp before a civilised dinner time and with this daylight savings caper we were able to walk home in daylight too. Enjoyed looking through the heritage centre and learning about the history of Cobar which was built on copper mining. It’s hard not to be impressed with the tenacity and hard work of the miners, working a handpick for a 12 hour shift and achieving as much as a modern day drill will do in minutes. And recycling! The number of things an old kerosene tin got turned into would make Playschool presenters proud. But the women…if only they’d pulled out the Thermomix they could have been on the verandah sipping martinis before the men marched home. Spending so much time in the front passenger seat, I’ve become a little bit obsessed with identifying the type of cloud ahead. So I was delighted to pick up a Cloud Information Sheet from the Cobar Meteorological Station. You will be interested to know that the predominant cloud cover encountered to date has been cirrus. We also enjoyed a quick tour of the station and weather instruments conducted by Alison, who had to do a quick mental rehearsal of her spiel as visitors in the summer season are few and far between. We witnessed the daily release of the weather balloon which is automated and synchronised with around 80? other weather stations around Australia. Within minutes we could observe on computer the data that the weather balloon was collecting and transmitting. Craig also learned that you cannot rotate video footage after you’ve turned the camera on its side to film. As we drove away from the weather station we tuned into the local ABC radio and heard our very own tour guide Alison talking live to DJ Dougal about the weather forecast.
By Craig: I was impressed by the Cobar Heritage Centre as it told of the harsh and tough work environment of years gone by. After sighting the shaft entrance at the bottom of the open cut mine what impressed me was the evidence of 2 shafts almost a third of the way down but hand dug. See photo.

18 Jan 10 - Bourke

By Lou: Found the best caravan park in Bourke called Kidman’s Camp. It was just an oasis in a dry part of the world.

By Craig: Bourke on one hand was disappointing as the Darling River was in flood and the opportunity to camp along the banks of the Darling around towns like Louth unfortunately were missed, however...

We happened across an art gallery in North Bourke which at the time was closed but interestingly a sign at the front indicated art lessons were available. Having always had an interest in sketching and wanting to learn more but not really knowing what medium to step into, I thought this may be an opportunity. Returning the next day we meet the artist Jen & her husband & family, and to my surprise the works hanging on the walls of the gallery were chalk pastel and magnificent in their depiction of the outback, colours from sky blue to vivid reds blended into each piece with stunning results. Time well spent to take a look if you're passing by.

With my lesson booked I left excited but nervous as this lesson was one-on-one. I arrived a little early, a little anxious and after slightly interrupting the family's morning routine the lesson commenced. Well posted here is the result of my first lesson in using soft chalk pastels. I am pleased with my first effort and will definitely continue to practice using this medium.
If in Bourke call in and see Jen. Take the time to look through the gallery, you won't be disappointed.

16 Jan 10 - Road trip to Brewarrina

By Craig: The road to Brewarrina (well actually through Bre and beyond to Bourke) was supposed to be approximately a half day trip add an hour or two depending on the stops, lunch etc.

After leaving Walgett... now before we go on it's worth mentioning the advice given to us from some locals at the Ridge (Lightning Ridge) and their dismissive attitude regarding Walgett. Well as we approached we thought the town was shut down however every shop in the town had shutters and reinforcing mesh across the windows and doors, small signs like on the local pub suggested they were open but entrance was from the rear. I think trouble was once or still remained in this little town; Beirut comes to mind but certainly not the poet’s version of outback Australia.

As I was saying...As we left Walgett we came across a road closure. We had been warned not to take notice of this as locals had got through however not wanting to take chances so early in our adventure we took an alternative route through the Narran Lake Nature Reserve via a secondary unsealed road.

All went well at the start and as we travelled along a somewhat inviting dirt track with grass lined edges and an honour guard of trees lining close to the road’s edge. We felt secure in the knowledge we had our 4wd and we slowly, somewhat naively, drifted on.

Almost by stealth and certainly without raising concern the landscape changed and opened into a flat plain. Grass and trees fell back to a distant sight and the gravely dirt had smoothed to an almost powdery paste. Roadside ponds appeared and then patches of bog required me to navigate the vehicle close to the centre of the track, then in the distance I could see a patch of wet crossing the track. Judging the centre to be hard and seeing two deep ruts created from a previous vehicle full with water I chose whilst bearing down on the patch at a slowing 40kph to take the outside run. The first indication of trouble was when the trailer started pulling the vehicle from the rear further across toward the wet, certainly further across than the path I had chosen, then slowing in pace but not engine speed it was obvious that traction was being lost, the elevation of the front right hand side immediately indicated we were going down in the bog, rear left side down and the trailer was holding us fast.

Foot off the pedal and then doing what in hindsight I should have done if thinking and not slipping into complacent holiday travel mode, I selected low range, switched on the front locker (the Cruiser is full time 4wd) and locked in the rear diff. Yep I can hear all the 4wd buffs saying a little too late for that champ; it was but mistakes come when least expected and I was already kicking myself so the best thing I could do was to get us out and redeem myself.

I wasn't in the best of moods at this time and Sam (7 year old son) now knew several new words and how to strategically place them within a sentence. Not good but I was wild with myself and started to redirect my energy to the mud and my shovel and just as well as the mud stuck to the shovel like the proverbial crap to dunny roll. This was going to be a long afternoon!


4 hours in fact, of hand digging as it took longer to get the grey clay off the shovel than off your hands. The main issue became very apparent. The trailer (the root of all evil) was acting like an anchor. It appeared we could be here for a long time. The decision (after a couple of lengthy attempts) was made to unhitch the trailer and concentrate on the Cruiser. Mind you the distant storm brewing and the thought of being stuck road side sleeping in the car coerced us into taking this drastic step. We didn’t know if we could get back to the trailer or if we would be able to drag it out. Once this decision was made things started to look up. With the anchor gone both front and rear lockers on, tyres at 18psi and low range engaged the Cruiser literally leapt out of the hole. Mind you I did have Lou on the front driver side bull bar as a counter balance. I didn’t get photos as I was a little busy at the time.

With the car out we turned it around and ran the winch out after bringing the Cruiser as close as we dared to the soft stuff. Wouldn’t you know it, bloody 10 foot short.
OK lucky we prepared for the trip, so we dragged out a strap and hooked it all up ready for winching. The problem at this point was the trailer was hitch down in the mud and with no way of getting the jockey wheel down I hoped the front water tank with its gal plate guard would act as a skid plate. It did and the trailer came out without a hitch (pardon the pun).


Now the simple task of winding in the winch rope, setting the front bar just slightly forward of the hitch and winching up the trailer so as to lift the front high enough to allow for the jockey wheel to drop seemed so easy we were wondering what all the fuss was about. With the trailer set I again turned the Cruiser around, handed over the wheel to Lou and began to throw a few instructions around. OK Lou, left hand down, back you come, right hand down, Oh shit the car’s now sitting too high for the trailer, the jockey wheel even with the ground plate has sunk a little into the mud. Bugger! Let the air bags down, shit not enough, OK out with the jack.

Well we ended up hitching the trailer, pumping up all the tyres (under bonnet air compressor) and just as the sun was about to set we were ready to move on.


Oh! I should mention we got about 2kms down the road and water had completely blocked our passage so we had to turn around and go back through what we had just done, but that’s another story.

15 Jan 10 - Feral the Magpie

By Sam: Feral the magpie was our first visitor at the Lightning Ridge caravan park. He was a good bird and was so cute and cuddly. He visited our campsite and when you put your hand on the ground and rattled the stones he would come to you. He had big claws but was friendly and always jumped on you and you could cuddle him. When he was a baby he fell out of a tree so a man kept him and the bird loved him and stayed with him. When we were about to go the man gave me some opals.

14 Jan 10 - Lightning Ridge

By Lou: Our first impression of opal mining town Lightning Ridge was "oh dear". Yet the first 2 locals we ran into told us how they had arrived in Lightning Ridge x years ago and fell in love with the place. "Oh!" we nodded politely while thinking “What were you thinking?”. However, as we explored the town the next day we became quite taken by the place. First stop was John Murray's art gallery. Bit of a larrikin local who captures the colours and feel of the place very well. Very outback and earthy which appeals. The town also has some self-guided tours, identified by coloured and numbered car doors stuck to trees, and we found the history of the place really interesting. The physical environment looks timeless: there are white mullock heaps (the removed earth from mine shafts) everywhere and rusty hoists and windlasses and LOTS of abandoned trucks.


Apparently it's around $500pa to buy a claim and although you are not meant to build a permanent dwelling, everyone does, and usually out of recycled materials, which leads to very low overheads. But what looks makeshift and dodgy and even abandoned often disguises a welcoming cavern of treasures, animate and inanimate alike. We visited an underground mine where a fellow has created dozens of sculptures out of the sandstone. A hodge podge of themes (African animals, Egyptian mummies, Superheros, Disney characters) but the dedication impressive none the less.


Visiting local art galleries or opal shops and chatting to the artists/owners was also really insightful into the passion (read fever) people have for the hunt for opal. Despite it being stinking hot and in the outback, ‘the Ridge’ boasts an Olympic size swimming pool with a theme park to boot. Sam was very excited so now we can cross Seaworld off the To Do list. We also swam in an artesian bath which at 41.5 degrees celcius was a tad hotter than my ideal soaking temperature but invigorating as it was brief. All up we got our fill of experience at Lightning Ridge and it was nice to leave with a higher regard for it than when we arrived.

10 Jan 10 - Warwick

By Lou: From the outset Craig was not happy with the sag in the vehicle from the weight of the trailer but we had been unable to get airbags fitted during our stay in Ipswich. After a week in Ipswich we were keen to get the show on the road and figured there'd be a Toyota service department somewhere on the road ahead. After all, that's one of the reasons we gave up our beloved Landrover. We looked at the map and for no logic more complicated than the fact that St George was bigger typeset than Warwick we rang ahead to St George and booked the car in to a Toyota service department. So from Ipswich we headed to Warwick and camped at Leslie Dam just out of town. Beautiful spot. Campfires allowed. Crack open the marshmallows, now we're camping! We were also impressed with the centre of Warwick. Lots of lovely trees and a shop to cater for every need without the Australia-wide brand names everywhere. Many moons ago, when Craig was working 3 jobs to pay an 18% mortgage, he used to deliver newspapers to Warwick from Ipswich in the wee hours of the morning. At the time he thought the newspaper building was in the centre of town so was pleasantly surprised this trip to discover the real hub of the city only one block away.

We moved on to St George and were a bit underwhelmed with the size of the town but the Toyota dealership were brilliant and the Pelican Rest Tourist Park was lovely. Had a lovely time at the local pool while work was done on the vehicle. Most of the few other occupants in the park were itinerant workers there for the fruit picking season.

By Craig: Warwick was certainly more than I remember. It was in fact a country town with a beautiful landscape and old-style window shopping. However, Leslie Dam was the first place I felt that I could start to relax. Although the vehicle needed some suspension adjustments I was confident that St George would provide the solution. Just taking a look at the sunset in the photo above reminds me that as our time closed at Leslie Dam I had the feeling that our trip had just started.

7 Jan 10 - Ipswich

By Lou: From Carnarvon Gorge we made our way to Ipswich to catch up with family and friends. The prime purpose was to celebrate Jaime's 21st which we did. The Festival of Jaime began on her birthday 7 Jan and ended at sunrise 10 Jan. We slotted in a Newsome family dinner at the local Hog's Breath cafe and had a good night.

Was also lovely to see our grandson Seth who has just started taking his first steps (14 months). Craig used the luxury of his dad's garage to tinker with the trailer and attach to our trailer the tinny that had been in storage for a few weeks since its purchase sight-unseen on ebay. I caught up with some admininstrative loose ends and Sam enjoyed playing with his 3 cousins. We all drove Craig's mum crazy I'm sure with our mess and noise but it is always nice to be welcomed and looked after. Craig also managed to age his mother and I 10 years by electrocuting himself while fixing an electrical lead he mistakenly believed he had pulled out of the wall. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen Craig taken aback and this was one of them. But after a couple of shakey glasses of water he was back to work. No shock to me.

By Craig: What more can a proud father and grandfather say? I enjoyed the time, although short, I was able to have with my daughter and her son Seth. I enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate Jaime's 21st in the company of the rest of my family (Mum, Kathy, Julian, Beau, James and Hope).

Thanks to mum and the old garage (which 3 mates, my father and I built in the 70s) I was able to do some vehicle and trailer adjustments: added brackets and repositioned spotlights on the roofrack; added small solar panel for a kitchen light; welding a bracket for an additional gas bottle. As Lou refered to above my brief shock was as a result of not looking carefully and removing the wrong plug. The bigger shock was finding out through an electrician that the old method of standing on a rubber mat to protect from earthing no longer is the case with modern safety switches: if electricity doesn't earth, safety switches don't work. The short of a long story is that had I not been able to drop the exposed wire cable I would not be here to tell the story. Eight hours later a doctor confirmed my heart rate had returned to normal.