VOL UME 3, ISSUE 1 Page 61

AND THEN IT RAINED (of mice and men…) …Only 42 points or about 10.5mm. Nevertheless, that was enough to close the dirt roads around here. My drought-breaker, the campertrailer that causes rain whenever and wher-ever it is set-up, was working well. I remember musing, before I left home, that going west would be best because it is less likely to rain but if it did it would be useful to the farmers out there in drought. The footing around Trilby became treacherous. The dirt roads were a night-mare to walk on because they had turned into slippery, sticky mud tracks. It was a feat of skill to negotiate the short distance from the camper to the amenities block without slipping over. We managed to keep upright on our trips there but it was more a matter of looking where you put your feet than any great balancing skills. It continued raining on and off into the night. Liz knew we were heading off tomorrow for White Cliffs and came over to say that she didn’t think we would be going anywhere tomorrow. The roads further along to Tilpa and Wilcannia were closed; they had had more rain than us. So we resigned ourselves to one more night on Trilby, not such a bad fate really and much better than be-ing bogged or worse in the middle of nowhere. I had enough food to carry us over in any case. After walking on the roads in Trilby I could easily see the danger of trying to pilot 3 tonnes of Nissan and Trailer around bends or trying to brake at anything faster than walking pace and at walking pace the mud filled the treads making the tyres into slicks. Day 5 Wednesday, 9/7/03 The rain has gone, though it is still a little overcast. The road reports were coming in from further down the track and the roads we need are still closed. Liz said that we shouldn’t leave until about 11am tomorrow and only if the sun shines all morn-ing. It made sense and I was beginning to think that my Darling River Run would end on this property. Oh well it could be worse. I only need to stock up on food if that is the case and ice is available here for the esky. Anna and I spent the rest of the day down on the river; David was into the latest Harry Potter book so he stayed in camp. I think the kids had caught the last Yabbies in the area because we caught none that

day, unless the rain had something to do with it. It remained dry for rest of the day and the sun came out towards the late after-noon. We lit a fire near the camper as it grew dark and Anna and I sat around it watching the flames and yakking and enjoying the warmth and feeling that only a fire can give. David read on steadfastly devouring the book he couldn’t put down. I had cooked some steak on the gas stove, which we had eaten on rolls, but now I put some potatoes in foil and buried them in the embers. Anna had never seen it done this way so she was both amused and interested to see how they turned out. They were great; I wished I had cooked more than three. After the kids had gone to bed, I sat near the fire till the last log was on the fire, watching the cloudless night sky and the bright moon as it moved across it. This is what it is all about, I thought as I sipped on my tinnie. I knew we would be on our way tomor-row. I had mixed feelings about that prospect; I was enjoying the peace of Trilby but I wanted to see more of what’s out here. I will come back here for a longer stay next time.

VOL UME 3, ISSUE 1 Page 62

Day 6 Thursday 10/7/03 Woke to a sunny morning, great!! That means we can continue today onto White Cliffs. Liz let me use her phone to call Pat at home because she was expecting me to be at White Cliffs last night. So with that done, I started to break camp and prepare for another days drive. The kids pitched in and the work was done soon enough. I found Liz again bought some diesel and a couple of Trilby Station Caps and Stubby holders and settled our account. We then said our goodbyes and we were off, first stop Tilpa for lunch then on to Wilcannia to restock our supplies. Then up to White Cliffs. Well!! That was the plan (mice and men). Liz had said

that if the road to Tilpa was difficult that there was a minor red mud road that got away from the black mud road, red mud is less slippery and dries quicker she said. It travels north into the country further away from the river and is likely to be drier. When we got to Tilpa the decision of which road was made for us, Tilpa to Wilcannia road was

closed. That was the end of my planned Darling River Run to Wilcannia, BUGGER!!!! Oh well onwards family. We had lunch at the general store and restocked there too, not knowing what to expect in White Cliffs. Then we headed North out of Tilpa for White Cliffs the long way. The road that Liz mentioned took us north through Tongo? or Tonga?, the signs were different each time we saw one. The map says Tongo. It was easy going in most parts with a few muddy patches just to make it interesting, luckily the weather held and we could see that this area had taken a great deal more rain than Trilby or Louth. David was navigating and we were lucky the station names were on the map, because we made one wrong turn and it was only the name of the station that gave us the clue, this time we only blew about 10km. By the time we reached White Cliffs it was getting into late afternoon, this is becoming a habit. Our first sight of the town puzzled me, there appeared to be 2 towns there, one on each hill. It turned out that the town is on one hill and the other hill has an opal mine and display. It is a barren location and I wondered what we were heading into. We found the caravan park and the woman told me to pick a spot and setup, she or her husband will be around later to collect monies. They don’t live onsite they just come around to receive payments and do the maintenance etc. We chose a site near to the amenities block and setup for a 1 night stop…no annexe. A few other people arrived while we were setting up so I went over and told them what the woman told me and they setup too. A little sign at the office would help. After we set up, we went in search of food it was about 6:50pm. The local trading post was the place to go for hamburgers and chips but the kitchen shut at 6:45pm. We went across the road to the pub, they had pies etc so we settled for that and sat by the fire in the games room. The locals are friendly and we had a bit of a chat about the opal and rocks on the shelf behind the bar, oh and I had a cleansing ale while I waited for the pies and pasties to warm up J. After “dinner” we found a public phone and called home to say we had arrived safely. It was raining in Sydney and it was cold and the dog missed us…so much for the news from home. We went back to camp and settled in, we’re heading for Broken Hill tomor-row.

VOL UME 3, ISSUE 1 Page 63

Day 7 Friday, 11/7/03 Woke up to a beautiful day in White Cliffs, want to have a quick look around town before we head off again. We broke camp, hitched up the trailer and went to the trading post for a breakfast of bacon and egg rolls and coffee. Saw the sign to Jock’s mine tour. I had heard on the Exploroz forum and other places about Jock’s, so I knew it was a must see. I am so glad we took the time to go there. Jock is a self-confessed loon, he has been mining in White Cliffs for 30 years and he said all miners in White Cliffs are maaaaaadd!!!! He is such a character that you can’t help liking him, He greets you with a hearty handshake, and he is loud and confused and enthusiastic and loves a chat. BUT don’t let him lose track of what he is saying or he’ll have to start all over again from the top. He shows you through his underground home and the mine at the back and it is worth every bit of the $4 per adult and $1 for kids. There are a lot of museum pieces to look at and some ceramic artwork done by his wife. After farewelling Jock we set off for Broken Hill. I have been told to stay at Lakeview Caravan Park because it is the only park with greenery in it. We had to fill up at Wilcannia…now there is a tragic town. The first sight of the inhabitants was as we came into town and saw a group of individuals gathered around in a vacant lot. 2 of them were up in trees and the rest were just standing around. I found the garage wanting to fill up and re-air the tyres to tarmac pressure, trouble was that a road train was filling too so it was a long wait and I was nervous about the locals parading around the streets. Once again I locked the kids in the car while went to pay. Several ‘people’ had walked past as I filled up and glared at me as though I had wronged them in some way. I will never stop in that town again, I was so glad to get out of there. It was even worse than Bourke.

While we were driving on our way out of Wilcannia, I could see what a nice town it must have been once, not now. It is a sick and dying town. The locals are not friendly, though the service station guy was OK and said that it is not as bad as it looks, I have my doubts. I will not be staying there, ever. So we were off to Broken Hill, on tar and listening to

Channel 40 on the UHF for road trains. It was when we were nearing Broken Hill that I saw the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone signs and the threat of $11,000 fines that I thought we should discard any fruit that we were carrying. We had 2 mandarines, 5 tomatoes, some onions and potatoes and even though I thought the veggies didn’t count, I disposed of them too. I could replace them for considerably less than $11k. We finally arrived at Broken Hill. We found the Lakeview Caravan Park easily enough and I decided to take a cabin for the 3 nights mainly for the security of our stuff be-cause we would not be there much during the day and canvas isn’t very secure. There were signs all around warning to secure your belongings even if you are just having a nap during the day, so I think I made the right decision. So we emptied the EvaKool and esky into the fridge and went to have a look around town. It is a big place but it’s pretty easy to find your way around once you get used to it. We found the supermarket at the other end of town and saw the signposts to Silverton, Menindee and Adelaide as we drove around. But most importantly we found Maccas, had some for dinner then drove around some more then settled in for the night in front of the TV. What luxury is this? All this and for only $55/night. The water smelled funny, though it tasted OK in coffee. Day 8 Saturday, 12/7/03 Another fine Winter’s day. Cloudless skies and warm sunshine greeted us this morning. Did some laundry then went out for a drive. Found the Visitor Information Centre and got some tourist guide sheets to see what we wanted to do. There are many things to see, but we are only here for a couple of days. Seeing Silverton was top of the list, so off we went to have a look. Silverton is a Ghost town with a pub. There are art galleries and a Museum set in Silverton Gaol. There have been films made out here like Mad Max, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and others including TV ads. We saw Mad Max’s Ford Falcon outside the pub and looked it over. Some of the original houses still standing are being used by local artists as galleries…apart from that there is-n’t much out there. A little further out there is a place called Mundi Mundi Lookout. We went out there to see what we would be looking out on and were amazed. As you come over the rise to the viewing area, the vista is of a great plain stretching off into the distance. It is so vast and you can see mountains way off on the horizon. Later I noticed an entry in the Broken Hill Guide book that said something like…”If you want to know what the edge of the world looks like then the view from Mundi Mundi is it”... Amazing sight I couldn’t tear myself away from it. It really shows how big this country of ours is…I think I am getting outback fever. I just wanted to get on the road and drive to the end of that road to see what was over the horizon…enough of that, back to the real world.

VOL UME 3, ISSUE 1 Page 64

On the way back from Silverton to Broken Hill we saw the sign to the Daydream Mine. Jock in White Cliffs had told us not to miss it so we dare not, but Anna doesn’t have the right shoes on. The brochure we had told us that solid footwear was required and she only had sandals on. So we decided that we would do it tomorrow morning.

That left us looking for the Living Desert Sculptures. The sculptures were the result of a symposium of International and Australian sculptors. They carved their art out of local rocks and the results are interesting and quite pleasing to my untrained eye. There were Aboriginal, Indian, Mexican, American and Arabic artists’ names. Their cultural differences added to the feel of each piece.

We parked at the entrance to the exhibit and walked the 700 metres up the hill to the garden–like setting. Thankfully there is a rest area about 500 me-tres up where you can catch your breath. The exhibit is a pleasant surprise with the sculptures arranged around a small area with walking paths to fol-low and, it being high up, there are great views across the surrounding countryside. It is well worth the trip up there. Admission is free if you walk or, as I found out later, for a small fee and a deposit you can get the gate key from the Tourist Informa-tion Centre, and drive up the hill. Hey! We needed the exercise anyway. That night we decided we would do the Daydream

Mine tour tomorrow then go and have lunch in South Australia. Day 9 Sunday, 13/7/03 Awoke the next morning to another beautiful day. Ate and headed out to the Daydream Mine tour. Unfortunately, the camera was playing up and the shots didn’t come out. The tour operators have an aboveground tour of the site showing how the miners lived/survived and some of the visible remnants of their sleeping quarters. They were little more than piles of stones about 1200mm high forming walls on which thatched roofs sat. The miners used to sleep sitting upright because of the damage done to their bodies in the tight working quarters.

They also had severe respiratory problems from the mica and dust that they breathed in while underground. It was very hard life and a very short life too. Some of the workers were as young as 8 years old and they usually only lived to be 28 or so. The average age of death for the adult miners was around 45 years of age. The underground tour is very interesting; you get to wear a miner’s hat with lamp. The entrance is via a steep track that leads you down at about a 35 deg angle on slippery dirt. You have to watch your head as the original miners were of Cornish descent and were on average only about 4.5 ft high. The only lighting in most parts of this section is from your lamps. Once you have descended and leveled out the headroom is much better and you can straighten your back and look around. We had descended to about 100 ft be-low the surface. The way in which these men and boys worked was primitive; they used star chisels and 18 lb sledgehammers lit by 2 candles and then blasted with

black powder. Once they lit the fuse they would walk around the nearest corner and wait for the bang, then go and sort the debris into ore and fill classes. Not my cup of tea really… Anyway once the tour was over, we went back to the kiosk and had Cornish Cream Tea; just like a Devonshire tea but named in honour of the miners’ roots I guess. After the tour and tea we headed for South Australia for lunch. The border is only about 50Kms from Broken Hill and I have never been this far west before so I thought it a great idea and the kids went along with it. At least I can say I have been to South Aus-tralia now. The town on the border is called Cockburn, pronounced Coburn by the lo-cals. It is a one-horse town with a sleazy truck stop on the highway. We

had lunch there, which was aver-age; nothing interesting about Cockburn except it is on the bor-der. The police station is on the SA side of the border sign and the truck stop is on the NSW side. Most of the township is hidden over a rise to the north of the highway and we went for a look and found the pub and a few houses and that was it.

VOL UME 3, ISSUE 1 Page 65

After lunch we headed back to Broken Hill and started to pack up our stuff for the return trip home. It was decided that we should do Broken Hill to Dubbo the first day so that we can have another look through the zoo while the pass is still valid. A long trip but I knew I would handle it OK. I also decided that Menindee would not be a possibility on this trip because the roads to Wilcannia could be closed still and we would lose a day backtracking to Broken Hill to reach tar if that were the case. We will do Menindee another time. Day 10 Monday, 14/7/03 Woke up early and packed the remaining things into the car and trailer, hitched it up. We left the cabin key in the designated red box near the shop and off we went heading home. I had noticed a interesting-looking truck stop on the way into Broken Hill at a little place called Little Topar so that was our destination for brekky. We had a brekky of Bacon and Eggs and a bottomless cup of coffee. The bacon was the good old style, thick and cooked to per-fection. The guy running the store was a friendly type who didn’t mind a chat. After brekky we were off again, heading to Dubbo for the night. I checked my fuel and ensured we would make it through Wilcan-nia to Cobar. Sitting on channel 40, we picked up some chatter from a couple of other tourists. They were joking and chatting about the eagles and crows dining on the roadkill. As I passed the scenes they were describing I figured out they were ahead by about 5 kms. They were approaching Wilcannia and talking about past trips to White Cliffs. They were silent until they passed through Wilcannia and their comments about the town were about what I expected. As I passed through the town, the same locals were about doing their usual routine, namely nothing and glaring at passers-by. I crossed the bridge and saw the Darling for the last time this trip. I no-ticed the road from Menindee was still closed to traffic so at least I was right in not going there this time out. After Wilcannia, we caught up with the Cb’ing tourists; they were 2 caravanners from SA. They had started chatting again and were traveling about 1km apart. I passed the rearmost one and quickly caught up with the front one. After passing him, I saw goats roaming free on the edge of the road and called them up and warned them. We had a chat for a while then we moved out of range. We passed a couple of Wide Load Trucks coming the other way. The lead car called on channel 40 to direct us to the fog line to allow room for safe passage. Yet another great use for the CB is realised. We stopped at a garage at Emmdale for a drink and rest break, didn’t need fuel yet and pressed on to Cobar. At Cobar we pulled

into the Caltex Station and filled up. They had a dining room so we had lunch there. The owner is a friendly lady and the cook is a Koori lady who was just great. I enjoyed my meal and chat with them. Cobar looks like a nice town. I am sorry I don’t have time to stay and ex- plore this time but it is on my list of things to do next time out. PS After I returned home and men-tioned how much I liked Cobar on the Ex-ploroz site, a member tells me to

look him up next time I am in town and he will arrange a gold mine tour for me. I will definitely take him up on that offer. Arrived in Dubbo but can’t get into the caravan park we stayed at on the way up. We book into a motel instead, have dinner and hit the sack. It’s been a long day’s drive. Tomorrow is the final leg home Day 11 Tuesday, 15/7/03 Up and at ‘em. Settled the motel bill hooked up and off we go to find some brekky and head to the zoo. Look for the receipt from the zoo, thought it was in my wallet…no not there. Searched the bags and car for it but it is not there. Then I remember cleaning out the car in Broken Hill. I had disposed of a number of pieces of paper there and I realize that the re-ceipt must have been among them. BUGGER!!!! Oh well no use worrying about it now. We might as well just head home. I was meant to go and visit my sister in Orange on the way home, so when we got there I rang the number she gave me… it was a wrong number. This is turning into a disaster of a day. After talking to the nice lady on the phone number I was given, it became apparent that I was not the only one who was using this number to contact my sister…apparently it is her old number…oh well onwards to Sydney. The rest of the trip home was uneventful and we arrived home just before dark and were greeted by Pat and Maddie who were both glad to have their wandering family home again. Overall the trip has been a success. Apart from the sections of the Darling River Run that weren’t accessible at the time due to the rain, the aims shown in the list at the beginning of this report are fulfilled. I have achieved most of what I aimed for and met some great people along the way and I have seen parts of my country that I have always wanted to see. Meantime the next trip is taking shape in my mind. I want to get a dual bat-tery system, a snorkel and some poly-airs I want to go further afield maybe Cameron’s Corner? Cairns? Innamincka? Or maybe… I dunno really yet…so much to see and only one lifetime

Page 66 4WHEELING SA

TRIP AROUND OZ by Shaun Barker & Kelly Bain

Week Thirty Two Day 223 Thursday 2nd March Sydney to Some Where Out In The Ocean On The Spirit Of Tasmania. This morning we got together all the last minute things. Shaun picked me up at 12 and took me to his place where we packed all the clothes and shopping into the car. Shaun’s dad fixed the lever on our fridge and WD40 everything that could be WD40 before giving the trailer a quick wash. We followed Shaun's dad and sister into the city. They had to walk/jog about 2km from where they parked only to find out there were stairs that went straight down to the wharf from where they were parked. Unfortunately their wasn't a viewing platform for them to wave us off but they did find a spot they could wave but they would have had to wait 2hours hanging around. We checked in on the boat along with heaps and heaps of old bikies. Trying to find our cabins was a big maze and everyone was lost. We sailed out under the Harbour Bridge and started to rain, the sea was a bit choppy on the way out. The sleeping cabins are separated into male and female hostels unless you upgraded to a private cabin. There are 6 people in each and the beds look like the size of cots. at 8pm they served dinner. It is an All You Can Eat Buffet and they had beautiful food and such a good variety. After dinner we were both so tired as we Shaun only got 3hours sleep the night before and I hadn't slept after the night shift. So all we want to do now is fall asleep.

Day 224 Friday 3rd March Where Out In The Ocean On The Spirit Of Tasmania to De-vonport This afternoon at 4pm we disembarked from the Spirit of Tasma-nia. Last night instead of sleeping in the hostel cabins we slept on the plastic benches in the lounge area as the beds were tiny so Shaun had no chance of fitting in. They looked like cot beds but the room was very nice though. Both of us had about 2hours good sleep intermittently. The boat was freezing even though we both had warm clothes on. We went and had breakfast at 8am when the buffet opened and the food was just beautiful. It was all you can eat buffet. You could not fault the food one bit!! We occupied our selves by watching TV. They had a cinema but Shaun got queasy each time he watched a movie in there and had to keep leaving while I just kept falling asleep and met him later. We arrived at Devonport and as we sailed in, the view was spectacular. We have now been every state and Territory in Australia (even Queensland on this trip because of Cameron's Corner). They were fairy quick getting people off the boat which was good. We thought it would be cold here in Tassie but it was so warm we put on shorts and a T-shirt and had them on well into the eve-ning. We set up camp at a caravan park along the water and did some grocery shopping since we couldn't bring any over and of course Shaun spotted the Maccas. At some stage he wants to try it because WA and NT have really good Maccas, they actually put sauce, and salad on the hamburgers and don't taste dry and yuck like in Sydney and it did taste really good. We crashed about 830pm in bed after having some nice hot dogs for dinner.

Page 67 4WHEELING SA

Day 225 Saturday 4th March Devonport to Burnie First thing this morning we went to the Tourist Info Centre and grabbed a heap of info on Tassie. Be-fore we headed off to far we south to Latrobe to check out the chocolate factory. Latrobe is the home town of the World champion wood chopper David Forster, when we get back to catch the boat to Melbourne we are going to check out the mu-seum in his honor. Our fist destination was Burnie. We did the scenic drive between Ulverstone and Penguin on the way and the coastline was very nice. We got to Burnie just before Midday and our first stop was the cheese factory, which was great because it had more than 3 types to taste like most places put out. We had about 15 cheeses to taste and brought a smoked cheddar cheese. Next we headed to the Creative Paper Factory where they hand make paper out of fibres from clothes (no trees used in any of their paper) and roo poo! They had all these sculptures the hat they make out of paper mache and were just brilliant. They even made the wedding photo album for Princess Mary. After that we drove to Guide Falls. Its only a 2min walk from the park and 4 waterfalls fall over the end of the steep cliff. We were told there were trout in the stream below but I looked and looked and looked and I couldn't see any trout. We then went to the Fernglade Platypus Trail. We thought the chance of seeing a platypus would be slim and expected to wait and wait and wait until we saw one but as soon I walked towards the water I saw some big bubbles followed by a few big splashes in the water from under a log in the stream. I called out to Shaun that one is under there and he saw it come out from behind the log and swim towards the other side of the stream. We watched it for ages as it sat on he rock ledge scratching itself for at least 5mins, then it went back into the water and was looking for food. It would go down under the

water sweeping the dirt for food, so it wasn't hard to see where it was as there was a long trail of disturbed dirt then it would surface for about 30secs before going back under. It was awesome to watch and we watched him for at least 30mins when he went AWOL. We went for a walk through the park and saw the Tasmanian wallaby which is fatter than the mainland’s wallaby and the stomach a bit more orange. We then left and went to the Penguin Observation and saw one penguin lying down. The penguin observation is a platform walk along the edge of the beach where they all come in. It said on the information post that the best time to see them was after dark. So we took photos of the one we saw as you can't use a flash at night to photograph them and then headed to Wynard where we heard they have really good fish and chips. They lived up to there expectation. At about 9pm we went back to the penguin observation and saw about 8 penguins all up waddling along the rocks, grooming each other and just relaxing. They were great to see and the ranger told us we will see plenty more as we travel around Tasmania. We just have to get red cellophane to cover our torch so we can use our torch. We had a great day.

Page 68 4WHEELING SA

Day 226 Sunday 5th March Burnie to Montague This morning we headed off towards Stanley. We tried to visit a lighthouse that wasn't far away but we couldn't find it, I think you have to go off onto a side road somewhere but there were no signs, but the scenery was very nice anyway. We went to the lighthouse at Cape Rocky NP and the view over the coastline was very nice. Their looks to be some good 4WD tracks there, we saw some steep rocky tracks but with the trailer behind we didn't want to try our luck. On the way to Stanley we were very close to hitting two big parrots flying in front of us. We stopped at a lookout on the way into Stanley. Leading into Stanley is an a strip of land going off the mainland and then opens up to a big volcanic rock called "The Nut". Its 152m high. We drove into the small town which had a colonial look to it and drove over to The Nut. After having some lunch we caught the chairlift up to the top and did the 35min loop walk at the top which had some great views and Shaun saw the tail of a snake. Its snake city up there. The area is also known to have bandicoots but we didn't see any. This is one of the spots the Mutton birds come to every year. After walking around town, which is only one street we con-

tinue to Montagu. Montagu park is really nice set out in the bush. We camped alongside the water near the wharf. We had dinner then sat down with our 6 neighbours for the night around a campfire while Shaun drooled over one bloke’s massive bus setup. We sat with them until 11pm and heard of their many encounters with snakes since they all lived on property all their lives. They also told us how people come once year about the end of March to catch Mutton bird (Shearwater birds) and eat them. They said they have 10 times the amount of omega 3 oil as fish in just one bird. They catch the ones at the point where they turn from a chick to an adult because the adult mutton has a lot less oil on them. The people who catch them take them out of the burrows and if the burrow is warm there are chicks inside, if the burrow is cold there is probably a snake inside. We had Tassie wallabies all around us and could hear cows mooing in the dis-tance. And just as we headed to bed it started to drizzle with rain.

Page 69 4WHEELING SA

TRIP AROUND OZ by Shaun Barker & Kelly Bain

Week Thirty Three - Day 227 Monday 6th March Montague to Couta Rocks This morning we headed to the wind farm which has the wind turbines but you can only get access into it by tour so we just looked from a distance. We then headed to Marrawah and the coast line was yet again very beautiful but very windy so Shaun got out and took all the photos while I stayed with the car. We did however see a windsurfer. The sea was crystal clear blue with a few waves breaking at the shoreline. We were told to go to Mar-rawah pub as its very unique but when we turned up people from a funeral were all gath-ered there and it looked like the last funeral from the 5/6 people that will killed on the way to Basketball last week, so we decided to keep on driving. We continued to Arthur River, Couta Rocks, Kanunnah Bridge, Roger River West, Edith Creek and then planned to loop around through the Celery Top Pine Forest to Lake Chisolm but we couldn't find the turn off to it. We have quickly learnt that Tassie has the worst signage to places and if they have got signs, its at the turn off hidden behind a tree so we can't see it until its too late to turn, so we have had so much practice at revers-ing the trailer around in small areas. By now it was getting late and needed to find a place to stay for the night. We back tracked towards Julius River Forest but the camping area was tiny and didn't really accommodate the trailer so e drove back to Couta Rocks where there is meant to be camping but the camp site isn't really designated so we camped on what kind of seemed liked someone’s front yard but no one was home. Since it was right on the beach it was pretty windy, so we quickly cooked our rissoles and vegies and ate in the car and hopped into bed about 8pm.

Page 70 4WHEELING SA

Day 228 Tuesday 7th March Couta Rocks to Strahan The car rocked all night in the strong winds. We thought it would settle this morning, but it was still strong winds. I just climbed through to the front without getting out and when Shaun threw a cup of water, the water didn't even get close to touching the ground, it just dispersed from the strong winds. We headed towards Strahan and drove through the windy, steep mountains surrounded by thick dense green forest. Halfway to Strahan down a steep hill on a corner our brakes locked up and we couldn't move any further. Shaun hopped out and checked what was going on. The axle had spun shearing the axle retaining bolt and the brake lines had wrapped around the axle so it had pulled on the handbrake causing the trailer to lock up and slide around and then Shaun had to undo the bolt to the handbrake to allow the brakes to release and then we were able to drive but had to turn off the brake controller so we had no brakes through the mountains and it was start-ing to rain so the gravel road was getting a little slippery. But it was ok we got to Strahan and stayed in a caravan park so we could have our first shower in 2 days and desperately wash the hair. We went to the only mechanic in town and he told us it was too big a job for him and it was going to be extremely expensive to fix, not so much in parts but in labour costs, min. $2000 (and the rest being in small towns with no competition). Strahan is very small town and very colonial looking with lots of old boats lining the harbour giving it a nice atmosphere. The afternoon was pretty drizzly and overcast. We had spaghetti on toast for dinner (don't recommend the Coles brand, now I know why it was discontinued stock and going out for 79c hehe) and spent the rest of the day pondering how we were going to get the trailer fixed under warranty since its a design fault not a wear and tear problem since this happened just before we left and was rebuilt only 8 months ago under warranty. After dinner we had a ring of clear sky for about 15mins.

Page 71 4WHEELING SA

Day 229 Wednesday 8th March Strahan to Macquarie Heads This morning we moved camp to a place on Ocean Beach as it was only $5 a night. It was 15km out of town down a gravel road and is very iso-lated but very nice. After dropping off the trailer and chatting with our neighbours for awhile we went into town and called the place that made the trailer. He was pretty nice about the whole thing and told how we could fix it temporarily and when we get back to Sydney he will rebuild it. Appar-ently the guy who built our trailer has now left and the trailers he made were all coming back with similar problems. So when we get to Hobart we will get someone to fix it which will only cost about $60 which is alot better than $2000+. We then went to Hogarth Falls. It’s a 40min walk through thick dense forest. The waterfall was flowing and was pretty good. We even saw tiny tiny blue fungi mushrooms on a fallen tree. We walked through the town checking it out before having really nice pies and sausage rolls from a local bakery. We went to Huon Saw Mill and watched a logging dem-onstration and then went to a place called Whittle Wonders which was pieces of wood that naturally

looked like animals, peo-ple faces and all sorts of creative images. We went back to camp and chatted with some people who we met at Stanley. We had roasted chicken and vegies for dinner which turned out really nice and then sat around the Boot Barbie which had coals in it which kept us all very warm as we sat around it with our neighbours chat-ting before heading to bed at 11pm.

Page 72 4WHEELING SA

Day 230 Thursday 9th March Macquarie Heads We had an easy morning then drove into Strahan, went to the Water Tower Lookout which was a great view over Strahan. We walked along the waters edge and took pics of the place. We then had lunch again at the Bakery for there really nice pies and sausage rolls. We then came back to camp walked along the beach to Hell gates which is a lighthouse on an island opposite Macquarie Heads. We cooked a cake and made ourselves a nice Steak dinner with potato bake but Shan tried a new method of cooking the steak by sealing it on the fry pan then cooking it in the Boot BBQ. They were both so tender and yum!! Harry our neighbour came over and chatted alongside the fire we made for awhile before heading to bed. Day 231 Friday 10th March Macquarie Heads to Lake St Claire NP There was barely a cloud in the sky this morning. We headed off towards Lake St Clair, which is at the bottom of Lake St Clair. The drive was again through mountain ranges of thick forest. We stopped at a place called Nelson Falls which is a 20 min walk to the falls and is was well worth the trek. The waterfall was deep into the forest and was a very nice walk as usual. The water fall was about 15m high and had so much water gushing over it, its the most we have ever seen and every was in awe at how nice it was. We stayed there for awhile before heading towards Lake St Clair. Lake St Clair is better than the photos you see. The big open water with the landscape around it, is just gorgeous. We set up camp which only cost $12 and we were camped opposite the lake. We went for a stroll around the lake for awhile and took lots of pics. Wallabies are everywhere here too. They are all around our campsite. After dinner it was starting to get dark and we could hear our rubbish bag rustling, At first we thought it was from the wind, but then a little head poked out, it was a big possum. Shaun try to shoo it away from the plastic with a magazine but it wasn't even fazed, so

he walked over stamping his feet but still he wasn't fazed, he was standing right next to the possum and took the rubbish bag out of hands. The possum kept going up to him sniffing for the food. Later that night while we were sleeping in bed we kept hearing the possums walking all over the roof of the car. Now if that was my cat at home he would have gone absolutely berserk, but to-night he just groaned and fell back to sleep each time.

Page 73 4WHEELING SA

Day 232 Saturday 11th March Lake St Claire NP This morning we had scrambled eggs for breakie before heading off for a walk around Lake St Clair. We did the Figure 8 loop which was platypus bay (saw no platypus this time though), Watersmeet and some long aboriginal name which I can't remember. It was a nice walk around the place and had bush land landscape mixed with forestry landscape. We spent the afternoon relaxing and wondering around the place. While eating din-ner tonight, again we heard the rubbish bag rustling and initially thought it was the wind as tonight was very windy but kept watch incase it was a possum again, and yep, next thing 2 little heads poke out from under the trailer. A mother possum and baby possum (about teenage size) scav-enging for food. We gave them our left over dinner, they were soon joined by a third possum, then a wallaby. The wallaby wasn't too keen on the possums and kept snarling at them and when it took food from his mouth, they would have a little squabble. It was very funny to watch, the little possum looked like it went out of its way to take food from the wallaby to get it to react. But then sometimes the wallaby would scare him and he would jump half way up a tree. One of the big possums soon dis-covered our sink on the edge of the trailer and climbed up on to our step and then reached over to the sink. As it put its whole weight onto the sink the sink went crashing to the ground with all the cups and plates inside it and the possum jumped a mile. We just cracked up!! We then started putting food on to our step and the little possum kept climbing on to it to have a feed. It was very cute. We watched them for at least an hour until the wind got too much for me in the cold and we went to bed. Again we woke through the night to a big thump and the car rocking. It woke both of us up and we listened carefully and looked outside to see what it was, next thing we heard the possum around on the roof. After awhile we heard it walk towards the front windscreen. We then saw it slide down the front windscreen onto the bonnet, walked around some more then jumped on to the spotlights, yes the very expen-sive 3 x lightforce 40 spotlights, sat on them for awhile had a scratch and sniff for awhile before jumping off the car. NOW if that was my cat he would have been out of the car like a shot trying to strangle it for not only walking on the car but for going in a 1m range of the precious spotlights, but yet with the very well fed pos-sum who has claws 3 times the size of my cat, he just smirked and said "little bastard, his on my lights" and that was it!

Page 74 4WHEELING SA

Day 233 Sunday 12th March Lake St Claire NP to New Norfolk By the look of the morning I thought today was going to be really cold and windy, a typical Tassie day, but it quickly warmed up to a very hot day. We travelled to New Norfolk, but first going off road to Victoria Valley Falls. Because of the trailer, it was a tight turn into the car park, which is just some gravel on the side of the road and followed the track down further but the track lead to a rangers track only but the hard part, there was no where for us to turn with the trailer on the back as there was dense bush land both sides with tree trunks fallen and a slight cliff on one side. We travelled bout 8km till we saw a section to the side which was only small fern coverage and were able to use this area to turn around. We got back to the start of the bush walk and started our walk after having a quick lunch. We got about 1/4 of the way and the river bed was almost dry and was all stagnant. We couldn't hear any waterfall either. We walked a bit further and saw the waterfall, it was a tiny little trickle so we walked back again. We headed to Mt Field NP. We visited Russell Falls which was very beautiful and then walked to Horseshoe Falls which too was very nice. We further on to Lady (something) which had some steep sections and rocky sections but yet was a very nice walk yet again and the waterfall was flowing with lots of water and was another awesome sight. We walked for about 3 hours all up including the 1001 stops for pics on the way in. We had planned to stay there for the night and see a few more things but Shaun is getting a bit worried about time and what we have left to see, so we decided to move onto New Norfolk, plus we have no fresh food left to eat. We are staying at yet another place on the lake and had pizza for dinner. We then sat outside till about 10pm, the weather is so warm and nice tonight, almost too warm, it was such a warm day today, our thermometer read 34 degrees in the early afternoon. I bet you didn't think that was Tassie weather!

Page 75 4WHEELING SA

Day 234 Monday 13th March New Norfolk to Hobart Last night we real hairy the wind was gale force but surprisingly it was that warm that we had to sleep all night with the fan on in the car. Early in the morning just before light we got a sudden down pour of rain which I heard but didn't pay much attention to but thankfully Kel was in a good enough frame of mind to shut the back doors on the car as we sleep with them open other wise it gets way too hot. Once we got out of bed we realised just how much it had rained there was massive puddles every where. From here we headed up to the New Nor-folk Woolworths as we had no fresh food left (i.e. fruit and vege) We went back to the car and packed the shopping away. On the way out we bumped into some people we had met at Lake St Claire NP they told us that you can stay at the Showground in Hobart and that it is only $12 a night for powered so we decided that we would check that out. Next we went out to a Trout/Salmon farm which was a few km's out of New Norfolk in the opposite direction to Hobart. Upon arrival we were lucky enough to be treated to a "CRAZY" man known as a Tree Surgeon felling a tree, these guys must either have no brains, or not be scared of anything be-cause the way he was hanging off this tree was bad enough but to make things worse he is wilding a great big dirty looking chain saw. The trout farm itself was also quite good it was $6 each to get in and $4 for a big container of food. Kel and I started of chucking in a few pellets at a time and then before long we are chucking fall hand fulls in and watching the fish go absolutely mental. We then read about how trout were brought to Australia and how they raise the young fish. After the trout/salmon farm we headed on into Hobart and found the showground which we decided to setup camp at. We dropped the trailer off and headed into Hobart itself. We parked the car on the foreshore and went for a bit of a walk. We ended up getting some fish and chips from one of the floating barges in the harbour which was quite nice and I also got myself a beautiful double scoop ice-cream for a cheap as $3.60. We then decided to get $20 worth of Large Green Prawns so Kel could make us up some Garlic Prawns for dinner. After wondering around the city and foreshore for some time we headed back to camp and man was it windy and it kept sprinkling rain also which wasn't making things too pleasant. We decided to put up one of our tarps for a bit of protection but unfortunately where we were camped about 40mm below the surface of the ground it was all road base and even my big heavy duty pegs were bending. So I went around banging pegs into the ground trying to find some where, where the pegs would go into the ground finally I found a spot that they were going in pretty easy so we hooked the trailer up and dragged it over. We started putting our tarp up but the damn wind was that strong that it was like holding on to a parachute. Finally we got it all up then all of a sudden *TWANG* *TWANG* one of the ropes let go so we quickly went over and sorted that out. Some 15 minutes later we had *TWANG* *TWANG* *RIP* *RIP* the wind had beaten us it had broken some of our ropes and started to tear my favourite MASSIVE tarp. So we packed it all away and then connect the trailer up again and move on over and setup camp right next to the wall of this building to try and get a little protec-tion from the weather. We didn't end up having our garlic prawns tonight but we will probably have them tomorrow night because of all the moving we had to do today. I would also like to bring up a little matter concerning the Kelstar. I am not sure if I am the only person this happens to but of a night we will both be fast asleep in bed, well I will be anyway then for instance on Thursday night I hear Kel laughing her head off, keeping in mind that it is like 1 or 2 in the morning. So I ask her what’s up what up... She turns around and tells me that something funny happened on "Blue Heel-ers"... What the.... Then the next night she wakes up and starts telling me about something although it sounded like gibberish to me and then when I say I don't understand she abuses me, gets the cranks and then rolls over and goes to sleep. The next night she woke up trying to tell me how to treat someone when they come into hospital with a certain illness, this time I thought I would have a bit of fun with it and when she tells me how to treat them I turned around and told her that she was wrong and didn't know what she was talking about, keeping in mind once again this is like 1 or 2 in the morning, well what a mistake did I cop it for disagreeing with her. When ever this happens when we wake up in the morning I ask her what the go was and she never remembers it occurring. Women are strange pieces of work indeed.

Day 235 Tuesday 14th March Hobart Today we got up and had omelets for breakfast. When then headed up to the Alpenrailway which is a massive model of the Alps which is al built to scale and with electric model trains and all. This model train setup is truly amazing it is HUGE and the attention to detail on ever section and thing on the model is perfect. The display goes for about 30 mins going through all different types of weather and day and night time scenes. There is any where up to 16 trains running at anyone time on the model and it is all that complex that they are all controlled by computer to ensure that there are no head ons. He informed us that there safety record is only bettered by the real thing. Unfortunately they seem to be struggling to pull the tourist numbers they needed and had had in previous years so if anyone is ever down in this neck of the woods do drop in and have a look, it isn't expensive and even if you aren't a train enthusiast you will still enjoy it and ad-mire the amount of work that has been put into the whole setup. From here we headed into Hobart itself to check out a place called Joe's garage which is a pub setup like a mechanics workshop. Unfortunately they don't open until 4pm so we then had another walk around Hobart CBD and thankfully bumped into Camera House so we went in their and I drooled over and new camera and some Pro Series lenses which Kel is going to buy me for Christmas this year (I wish). Next we headed on to the post office and got a stat dec for our Canon video camera that has died on us and sent it off to either be replaced or repaired, we haven't had much luck with Canon so far but at least we have found a lady that helps us out from a previous experience with our still shot camera dying. After walking miles and miles we headed back to camp and Kel knocked us up some yummy garlic prawns for dinner. We finished the night off with a DVD in bed "Oceans Eleven".