The Oodnadatta adventure - starting out and a long way to go. 9th August

Planning the Oodnadatta  Track trip.

So now we have a caravan and a few trips under out belt we decided to get all adventurous and plan something somewhere where neither of us has been before.

The Oodnadatta track. We originally wanted to do it in 2013 but because of time constraints and the time of the year – it would have been too hot, we decided to leave it and plan for that trip in 2014.

This was good as we didn’t have half the gear for an extended trip and in the middle of Australia and it gave us time to skill up and buy expensive 4WD toys at 4wd shows etc. Which we did in spectacular fashion!

First up was the purchase of a weekend for 2 learning how to get one’s 4wd out of trouble or at least recognize when the situation could be detrimental to car, safety and marriage. We did the Vic Widman course out just past Braidwood which qualified us both now as competent 4wd driving people.

Then we bought the generator, 40 litre Waco 2 way fridge, a recovery gear kit for the car, a Baby Q Webber BBQ to fit in the van, a Choofer fireplace from Bateman’s Bay Men’s shed which is a 9kg gas bottle fashioned to be a portable fireplace and cooker and pizza oven. (lots of fun) and various other bits and pieces to get us set to go. I even now have my own chainsaw to cut firewood on the side of the road. Now that’s fun. Although I had to spend $100 on a safety helmet/earphones/goggles set.

So we put our leave in in February and when we did it  approved was like sooo far away. It was so far in the future that it was like we would never be going. However it did sneak up on us. Like all major life events planned in advance do…

We were going to be away for a month this time and not coming back until the end of it. Unlike our last one month away where the van broke and we had to come home. This time there was no coming home. There were meals to plan and clothes to not forget and houses to clean, gardens to tidy before we went. Very busy. All this juggled with last minute catch ups with friends, going down the coast to see my parents so Dad and Greg could give the cruiser a last minute once over, front brakes, oil change and filter change. Also we would not see them for over 6 weeks and I do miss my folks so much. Yes I’m a sook.

Funny how you go away for a while and for some reason things that don’t really matter like a clean oven, clean fridge, no ironing, spotless floor, totally dusted house, mown grass and other tasks somehow seem so important. So I totally knocked myself out even wiped out all my kitchen cupboards before we left. Actually we have a house sitter coming, a lovely friend of ours who is doing a Uni course and normally house sits instead of paying rent as she is studying full time as a mature student. She was in between jobs and our place was sitting not being used so she is living in it while we are away, collecting mail, and just being around so people won’t think we are away in spite of the van not being out the front. Works well for all. But I am sure she wouldn’t have cared if my cupboards were tidy or not – which they weren’t really but they look beautiful now.

On the way – Day 1 Saturday 9^th August 2014

So farewells, sent, blog address given, house clean like the queen is about to do a rental inspection, clothes packed, fridge and freezer groaning with food, Greg’s famous relish, and sneaky wine stashed in every available empty crevice in the van, we were finally away at 11am on Saturday the 9^th of August. I virtually mopped us out of the door so the floor was clean as a whistle.

Greg was worried. He had room in the front storage compartment. What have we forgotten?

It had been a very foggy and freezing cold Canberra morning but as we pulled out of Canberra, the fog had lifted to reveal a sunny blue sky day. Greg took the first shift of driving as he is better in the morning and gets tired in the afternoon.

We were both a bit quiet in the car, running through our minds the list of things we had to do, lock, tidy, remember. The further we got from Canberra the more unlikely we were to turn around and come back so the ‘did I remember to…’ thoughts turned to ‘I’ll just do without/buy or get Cynthia to do’ type of things.

Not that we actually had any anyway.

Jugiong was our first stop and our favorite for coffee and lunch. Its only a few hours out of Canberra and lots of people don’t stop there as they would rather get more miles further down the track. I find it good for nice food which you just can’t get everywhere, good coffee, a wonderful shop that sells home made produce, there is a local wine shop next door in a shed and its handy to be able to check over the van, feel the hubs on the wheels to make sure the bearings are working, as Yass is only back about ¾ hour. Hitch is good, nothing spilled in the van etc. Then with everything travelling tickety boo, a relaxing coffee, some local trout pate and a look about the shop its back on the road and time to put in some hard miles.

Jugiong our first stop

From Jugiong we went through Wagga Wagga toward Narranderra. My turn to drive from Jugiong onwards. Greg the expert on all things – ‘find a free camp for the night’ deftly managed the Camps 7 book on his knee whilst using the Wikki Camps app on his IPad – what would we do without technology?

We found a good free camp past Narranderra and near Yanco in a National Park on the Murrumbidgee river. Only went past it once and had to do a U’ie!

Down a dirt road – now there goes my just washed nice clean car – through a gateway that Gibson almost had to inhale to get through. We found a lovely bend in the river called ‘Middle Beach’ so called as there was sand. I always find it strange to call a riverbank a beach because there is sand – the beach is the beach like where the sea meets the land. However, lets just call it a beach!

 Middle beach Murrumbidgee river. Just lovely

There was a car full of people when got there but it was apparent that they were packing up and soon we would have the place to ourselves. Brilliant!

We stayed hitched and just leveled the van by running it up on the chocks. Put the legs down and Greg made a small camp fire on the sand. I had made a casserole (Moroccan chicken) that morning in the Shuttle Chef so dinner was cooked and only had to be warmed up so we got the happy hour drinks out and watched the sun set over the river, the birds, mainly cockatoos squark and shriek – gosh they were noisy - on their way home to their nests or wherever birds go at night time and enjoyed the peace and quiet – once the cockatoos shut up.

Our cosy campfire in the sand - Middle Beach Murrumbidgee River near Yanco

After the scramble that had been the weeks leading up to our departure, it was really nice to be there, listening to the occasional gurgling of the river and the different animal calls echo around the quiet evening, occasionally you could hear a cow bellow in the distance.

Sunday  10^th August 2014

We awoke the next day to kookaburras laughing at us. I got up to photograph the sun rise over the river but it wasn’t a very nice sun rise so my photos look a bit pedestrian at best. Collected some rubbish left by dickheads at the river’s edge. Saves it getting into our river systems. Besides there was a big rubbish bin at the skinny gates so we could get rid of it easily. Why do people chuck their rubbish. Its so stupid.

River gum trees. Sun trying to peek through them

The best the sunrise could do this day. Little did I know it was our last not too cold day for a while!

I did contemplate a quick dip in the river but on testing it decided that it would be lunacy. Besides I realized at that point that I had forgotten my swimmers. There HAD to be SOMETHING!

Greg got up so we decided to have a coffee at Hay which was 133km away or thereabouts so we readied our van  - wound up his legs and rolled him off the chocks and we were away. Dumping our rubbish in the bin on the way out.

Greg drove to Hay and by the time we got there was gasping for a coffee. We could not find a great deal open as it was Sunday and small country towns don’t have a lot open on Sunday unlike Canberra or any major town where places are open any time and you can always get a sausage at Bunnings if you are hungry.

We decided to check out the Hay Tourist information center – located a little way from the big sign that said, ‘van and bus parking’. We hopped out of the car and it was windy and freezing in spite of a sunny day. There was nobody around down the main street but for the odd person in a motor scooter. Not that the people in the scooters were odd, old maybe.. oh never mind. Hardly anyone around.

We found the tourist information center and their loos – bursting again.  After the loos, there was a sign saying you could have a shower for $2 but the wind whistling in them would mean you would freeze the minute you turned the water off – so we decided that our ‘shower in a can’ which we did earlier would suffice for the day.

This crop was trimmed to precision. Have no idea what it
grows. Greg and I decided that Mandatory Crop Identification
Signs could enhance the tourist's experience of the area.
Maybe that could be our new nomadic career.

Turns our that the tourist information center really was open. We opened the door to the sound of clicking and chat. Two women were knitting frenetically behind a counter. You could not see either and they were catching up with conversation whilst knitting to obviously wile the time away as the place wasn’t exactly pumping with tourists and asked what they were knitting. They knit squares into blankets which they either raffle for local charities or give to the underprivileged. They raised $600 from the last blanket they raffled. Full of admiration as I can’t knit at all we tried to buy some of their rugby tops for sale but none were in our size so we left.

We decided to go to the dump point, then the historic Hay railway station that had a POW display there, then the Shearer’s Hall of Fame, fuel then on out.

First things first, after a loo, a coffee. Found the only place in town open and Greg decided that he needed a meat pie for breakfast. After eating left over chocolate cake on Saturday for breakfast (unbeknown to me) Why not eat a meat pie the next day, it was after 11am. So I ordered coffee for Greg and they only had instant decaf. I was ready to walk out but he said to stay. He lived to regret that as his coffee was awful – as decaf instant is and his pie not much better. My coffee however was quite fine.

The map wasn’t that good. It showed the dump point  (for the van loo) as being near the show grounds so we went there. No sign of a dump point. So just in case since we had turned in to the show ground that we could not turn around, I hopped out of the car with the 2 way hand held radio to run around (yes run – well jog, I hardly classify my faster than walking pace as speed) until I could find the dump point.

I could not find it but I did find the caretakers of the show grounds, always very interesting folk , yes,  interesting would be the word to use, maybe even as ‘unusual’ or ‘one life’s characters’, however quite helpful – who told us it was up the road. Great! That would have been handy about 15 minutes ago.

Got back to the car and we then saw the titchy little sign that said ‘dump point’. Never mind. Did the chore and went on to the museum at the railway station.

Gibson in front of the railway station

The railway station platform

These loos would have been the fanciest in their day.  The manufacturer's stamp is still on the bowl!

Back of the railway station, still very smart
 and you could imagine the bustle and hustle  in the day. 

The station is an immaculately preserved or restored building of classic early 1900’s style. We went to all the front doors and they were all locked in spite of a sign saying open every day. Nobody was around. There’s a theme here. We did find some carriages out the back which held the display. In need of some jazzing up but none the less informative. During WWII some prisoners of war – European Jews, Germans, some Japanese and assorted  were sent here in secret and interned in Hay in like a low security prison until the war was over. Many of them ended up working on local farms since the local men were away at war. Many of them became Australian citizens after the war and made substantial contributions so Australia – or so the story goes. There were really old pictures of the camps and some of the people. Also in need of restoration. They used to put on talent nights/shows and they grew fresh produce to supply the local towns and to be sent overseas to help the war effort. There was a recorded story of a tale about a young Italian lad who was interned here and then went home after the war to find that none of his family were left so came back and went back to the farm where he worked to find that their son had been killed as a POW in Singapore and he became their new family. It was a lovely story, trouble was it was the only one so by the time you went around the display you heard it about 4 times. Maybe they need a few more on the recording loop.

Back to the station, the original signs were still there and the lady’s loos were in good working order and the original working loo. Complete with the bowl and the pull chain. Not that this is a tour de pisse on that level. Thought it interesting like driving an antique car. Maybe not a car. You know what I mean. Imagine what it was like so many years ago waiting at the station for a train. The ladies rooms had the loos at the back and a nice room with a fireplace in the front – so obviously a lady of the time could have shelter from the weather and be warm whilst waiting for her train. There were no seats or anything left in the room but it was quite spacious. In those days with steam engines puffing away its not like a train could sneak up on you and you’d miss it I suppose.

Next was my turn to drive and off to get fuel. Then the Shearer’s hall of fame. They had a lovely new building and a coffee shop that no doubt sold nice coffee and the smells of food cooking made me feel starving but it was $15 per person to go in and with all our prior tours of wool sheds and history decided that the $30 outlay could go to something else so perused their gift shop and got out of there. Stopping first so I could make some sandwiches up in the van. It was past  2pm already and there was a long way to go.

A steady head wind greeted us on the Hay plain. Plain it is, Very Plain indeed. We caught up with 2 other vans travelling at exactly 80klm/hr. How boring to go with the already boring hay plain. This went on for a really long time. Big B doubles and Pantec’s were passing us but I never had enough time to get Lady and Gibson enough speed to pass the other 2 vans so had to sit there. Bored Silly!

The riveting Hay Plain

Eventually they pulled off at a truck stop 10km out of town so I could be rid of them – hooray and then because it was so close to town, an 80km zone. Ahhrrr!!

We stopped at the town Balranald. Nothing was open. A few old folk in motorized scooters. There’s theme there too. However. I chemmed up the loo with water stolen from out front of a hardware shop. Dreadful thieves us. You do anything to preserve water when on the road. Bugger me the 2 caravans passed us again. Each driven by an extremely retired looking gentleman. No wonder we were going 80km. I prayed they went another way to us. They did. I never caught up to them again. On and on to Robinvale and Euston. We had a problem with Euston, no Robinvale. Greg decided there was a good free camp there – lying there wasn’t – there was a one way road though that I had to drive up and Greg walked up first as there was nowhere to turn around and I would have had to back the van up about 300 meters. That wouldn’t have made me a cheerful person since it was after 4pm. Lucky for us the Tennis club had a car park so I could drive up the wrong way, U turn and drive back the right way. Actually other than pull offs on the side of the road there were no decent free camps unless you wanted to go 40km out of your way so we decided to go on to Mildura. One of my favorite towns.

I suggested staying where we stayed before – on our first trip which is on the other side of the river but Greg assured me that the IPad said that there were other caravan parks closer to ‘Mildura Central’. I doubted it. However, he was the navigator and me the driver. Well, the next bit was confusing as the caravan park that he said was so near the town was in fact near a new mall/shopping centre called Mildura Central – which is nowhere near the actual town itself.

We almost booked in to the big 4 Caravan park but when the lady tried to put my last name first and first name last and wondered why it didn’t come up – der how many women’s first names are Vincent and last name Carolyn or was that Corolin or Cirolyn – several attempts – still didn’t come up as a Big4 member which I know I just paid at the beginning of the year. I gathered she was not the brightest light in the box – and her caravan park looked really hard to get in to and it took so long just to get my registration up and ascertain that she had a spot for us that Greg thankfully got the shits (20 minutes had passed) and moved Gibson on past her driveway and because I had not paid any money, had the embarrassing but thankful task of going back and telling the lady that husband has cracked the shits and moved on. Next bright idea of Gregs was to say at another caravan park also miles away – so I decided that we would not be doing that and we would go back to the one we stayed at 2 years ago.

Drove in the dark. So much for out rule of in by 4pm no night time driving.

We were lucky, Buronga Caravan Park had a drive through one night spot so we gratefully drove in and leveled up and – luxury plugged in and plummed. The staff were more intelligent and found my name from 2 years ago. Unfortunately I wasn’t a ‘family parks’ member so no discount but I didn’t care! Turned on the hot water so we could have showers, poured a drink and planned where we would go out for Greg’s belated birthday dinner. Not a lot was open being Sunday night so decided to stroll over the bridge having done so much driving all day and see what we could find.

Cold. It was so cold and a bitter head wind is what we walked in to on our pilgrimage for dinner. It was even windier and colder waking over the bridge along a very narrow footpath designed for almost single file pedestrian traffic and 2 lanes of vehicles close by. To add to the discomfort 2 big B double livestock trucks passed us coming the opposite way and with their passing, the lingering smell of what livestock do a lot of in trucks. Poo-wey! Almost enough to put you off your dinner!

After a quick walk up the main street and a street behind the main street, quick because it was so cold and also nothing was open, we came across the Grand hotel which is that in every sense. It was warm and friendly and we had the most lovely meal, oranges were on display everywhere and they made great table decorations – so we took ours home – back along the bridge, just as cold but we were a bit warmer thanks to a superb red wine. Needles to say after such an early start, a big drive and a sizable walk – about 2 km or more each way we slept really well!