Tag:bridges

Rambling The Outback Pt. 5

We were still Rambling The Outback. After a very comfortable night’s sleep in the big king-sized beds at Mungo Lodge, I was up around 5.30 and out the door just after six. Along with Lisa and Amy, we jumped in with Roy and Julie and headed off to the Mungo Lookout for a sunrise. The location was average. It was recommended to us by John at reception as a good sunrise spot. It was for viewing the sunrise. But for, shooting a sunrise it left a lot to be desired. There is no foreground interest and miles and miles of endless flat plain to the sun on the horizon. In the future, when someone recommends a spot to me, I will ask, “are you a photographer”  if the answer I no, I will disregard them!

Sunrise from Mungo Lookout

Once the sun was up, we drove down to the Historic Shearing Shed just a few minutes down the road.

The woolshed
Mungo Shearing Shed
the Shearing Yards
Mungo Shearing Shed
Paddy Melons

After about an hour, we headed back to mungo lodge for showers, breakfast and checkout. Breakfast was a delicious cooked buffet in the restaurant. Leaving Mungo, we came across Paddy Melons growing beside the road. 

Paddy melon (Cucumis myriocarpus) and Afghan melon (Citrullus lanatus) is both prostrate annual melons germinating in spring and summer. Their growth is favoured by good moisture relations and bare or fallowed paddocks. Melons can stabilise areas prone to wind erosion and provide stock feed when food is scarce (although opinions vary greatly). Horse, sheep and cattle losses have been associated with eating the melon, but the smell of the plants generally makes them unpalatable. Dept of Agriculture

Paddy Melons
Dirt Roads

From Mungo, we were heading first to Balranald and then onto Swan Hill. Between Balranald and us lay 154kms of dirt road. According to google maps, it’s a 5-hour drive. Maybe they assume you are driving a horse and cart as we did it in just over 2 hours.   Just out of Balranald, we finally got the bitumen back.

Oh, Look! another dirt road!
Swan Hill

We stopped off in Balranald for coffee and comfort stop and were then on our again. Finally, driving on lovely bitumen, we arrived in Swan Hill around midday. I popped into the motel and made sure all was ready for the arrival of those travelling behind us. Then headed over to the Pioneer Settlement and organised the tickets for the evening light show, settlement entry, and Pyap Paddlesteamer ride. We wandered around the settlement for a while, bumped into a few of the group who had arrived, took a paddle steamer ride and then headed back to the hotel to relax for an hour before dinner.

Our Last Night Sunset At Swan Hill

Dinner was at Spoons Restaurant beside the settlement. Sitting outside on the deck, the sky started to turn a glorious orange-red. Everyone started looking and then dashed off for a couple of shots with phones—fantastic sunset, and most of us there without cameras.

Last Night Sunset At Swan Hill

After a delicious dinner, we headed over to the settlement for the Heartbeat of the Murray Laser Show. Excellent show using water, laser, and sound, it recently won a prestigious multimedia award. With the closing of the show, we went back to our motel for the night; it was the end of a fabulous week We Got to know some people better and met others for the first time by the close of the week; we had all become closer, had a million memories, and about as many photographs 🙂  The following day it was packed up and headed home and back to ‘real life’. Thank you to all who took this journey with me.

Silverton & Daydream Mine

Day 3 of our outback adventure

Our plans for today were Silverton and the Daydream Mine. While I slept through the sunrise, some of the group went out hunting down a good sunrise spot. Elsewhere, two of the group went out tracking down the Indian Pacific as it stopped in town. The morning skies were sunny, blue with a light breeze, but the afternoon forecast the cloud. So it was a free morning for all. Some went to Bells Milkbar, and some checked out the Palace Hotel. Others roamed the galleries. We met up for lunch with part of the crew, and then everyone met at Bells Milkbar to head out to Silverton.

Road to DayDream Mine
Daydream Mine

The historic Daydream Mine lay between us and our destination,  just out from Silverton and 20kms from Broken Hill. Established in the 1880s the mine, and the town surrounding it were once home to around 500 workers, wives, and children. It closed a few years later when the ore ran out—the NSW government heritage listed the site in 1999.   Today, above ground, only the foundations of the old town and part of the smelter remain. The road in was around 10km of uphill and down dale, winding dirt roads and through two gates.

Daydream Mine Road – part of our convoy
The Old Smelter
Below Ground

After the above-ground tour, we had to gear up with hard hats and lights for the underground section.  Three levels underground, down narrow steps (and I do use the term loosely) cut into the rock underground. The entrance tunnel was just a tad bigger than our bodies. If I hadn’t been in the lead behind the guide, I would have turned back with everyone else behind me. But I couldn’t get past them!

Gearing Up
Will I Ever Get Out Of Here?

It did get taller in parts (small parts) where we could stand upright. But most of the time, the tunnels were about 4ft high. It was built for short people!

3 levels below ground
Silverton

Back up top, we got our heart rate down and air intake back to normal. Then we headed 6kms down the road to the Silverton Pub. we plopped ourselves in the beer garden, downed a couple of quick drinks, and declined to move. Until tomorrow.

Silverton Pub
Mundi Mundi Plains

While the others who could all walk (because they hadn’t done the mine either through farsightedness or cowardice) headed off for the Mundi Mundi Plains lookout and the sunset. We stayed put. We were drinking and groaning. Until Bill announced, the sunset was starting to look good. Photographic OCD got us up moving. Just as far as next door where we had a clear view. an off some shots and limped, hobbled back to the pub

Sunset at Silverton
Lightpainting

After dinner at the pub the entire group relocated to across the road for some more light painting…no steel wool as Bill was reluctant to start a fire and burn the town down…. but we had fun with LEDs

Light Painting with Dee and Bill Holmer

At the end of the night we took a careful drive back into BH, dodging a few roo’s, rabbits and goats making it safely to our motel. The next morning was to be an early start as we had to be on the road by 7.30am and heading to Mungo……

Coming Up Next Day:  Mungo NP and Great Walls of China

Mildura to Broken Hill

Tuesday morning, as pre-arranged the night before, everyone was up in the dark, out the door by 6 am and heading down to the Mildura Wharf for sunrise. 

Sunrise On The River

The river was still and quiet, save for the morning bird calls and the odd early morning jogger going past.  We were set up on a lovely wooden walkway that gave a good view down (up?) the river to the bridge over the Murray. But, even at that hour, there was a constant stream of traffic across the bridge.

Blue hour on the river

By 6.45 am, the sun was coming up, more joggers and walkers were going past, and traffic was picking up… the river and the houseboats all remained quiet, though.

Golden hour on the river
Back On The Road

Once the sun was up, we headed back to the motel for breakfast and showers, then booked out and headed to Broken Hill, 296kms up the Silver City Highway.  The road is well-maintained bitumen but long, with the occasional bend to keep you on your toes.  Between Mildura and Broken Hill, reception drops off quickly once out of Mildura, and you don’t get it back till about 20kms out of BH.  There is only one little general store between Mildura and BH and three unattended rest stops.  Apart from that, it’s just you and the goats..lots and lots of wild goats beside the road and the emus.

Rest stop at the halfway mark
Mildura to Broken Hill
Wild goats abound!
A mirage on Silver City Highway
Mildura to Broken Hill
Old Man Emu
….And his mob
Mildura to Broken Hill
Who wanted to cross the road
Broken Hill

We made it to BH by around 1 pm – where the group met up again at the  Demo Club.  The club began life as the  Barrier Democratic Social Club, a working man’s club similar to the RSLs,  but it has evolved into a curious cross between a pub and an RSL.  There are no half-full wine glasses here.. every glass was a millimetre from the top and half the price of the victorian pubs.  We booked into our rooms at the motel from the demo club, unpacked, and took a brief rest before heading off again.  This time we were off to the Line Of The Load, a miner’s memorial overlooking BH.  It has the name and cause of death of every miner who has worked the mine in BH… and there was a lot.  No such thing as OH & S a hundred years ago.

Mildura to Broken Hill
View over Broken Hill
Sculptures In the Desert

From the memorial, we headed just outside Broken Hill to Sculptures in the Desert – 12 sandstone sculptures on a hilltop.  With Bill and Deanne Holmer from Melbourne Light Painting, we would shoot the sunset and then do a little bit of light painting before the ranger kicked us out at 7 pm to lock the gates.

Waiting For Sundown
Mildura to Broken Hill
Fire In The Hole!!
Mildura to Broken Hill
Orbs!
Mildura to Broken Hill
Lighting up the Sculptures

Right on clockwork, the Ranger turned up at 7 pm and dispersed the party…then it was back to BH for dinner at Mario’s Palace Hotel…made famous from the movie Priscilla Queen Of The Desert.

Tooronga Falls

Tooronga Falls is just east of Noojee, Vic, and is easily accessible from the car park via a 750m walk.

Tooronga Falls

The falls are photogenic, with an excellent year-round flow. On the walk to them the falls, we found lots of opportunities for photography. Tall mountain ash, tree ferns, moss, lichen, and the Latrobe River running downhill all caught our eye. Eventually arriving at the falls, there is a well-situated viewing deck that’s quite close to them. And thankfully, a seat, which we collapsed into after the uphill slog 🙂

The Walk to the falls

According to VisitMelbourne.com, the track is listed as ‘hardened gravel and compacted surface’, and it is quite solid and easy to walk on. We didn’t find it muddy or slippery. However, I beg to differ on the ‘gentle uphill sections’. Gentle for the young and fit, maybe, not the senior and slow.

Latrobe River

Unlike many waterfalls I have visited, you walk UP to this one, and the return journey is downhill. Which did save me from arriving back at the car park red-faced and gasping like a ten pack a day smoker 😉 There is a longer 2km walk that includes Amphitheater falls. When we were finished at Tooronga Falls, our stomachs were growling, so we headed back to Noojee.

Tooronga Falls
Noojee Trestle Bridge

Settled in the 1860s by gold prospectors Noojee today, is a tourist town on the main route to the Mount Baw Baw ski fields. After leaving the falls we called into the Toolshed Bar and Bistro at the Outpost for a late lunch. Food was excellent, servings were large, and the ambience very quaint and rustic. Definitely a good find.

Noojee Trestle Bridge

We headed back west of Noojee and stopped off at the historic Noojee Trestle Bridge. Constructed in 1919 as part of a railway to haul timber out of the district, the bridge is no longer used. However, it is the highest trestle bridge in Victoria and has been restored. There are steps from the car park at the base of the bridge leading up to the top. You can also walk along the cycling and walking trail across and back down the other side.

Noojee Trestle Bridge

A Weekend in Wye River

After months of planning, bookings, and revised dates with real-life intruding, Lucy and I finally got away for our weekend to Wye River in the first week of December.

Lorne

As is the way, the weekend we were due to go initially in October was glorious. Sunny, mild, a great weekend to be alive. The weekend we went was overcast, wet (very wet), cold, and one to remind us it’s best to stay rugged up at home. We drove to Lorne to stretch our legs and photograph the entrance with a brief stop.

lorne pier in bad weather A Weekend in Wye River
Lorne Pier
Big 4 Wye River

After leaving Lorne, we finally arrived at the Big 4 Holiday village in Wye River; I say finally as I think we broke our U-turn record. Once there, we booked in and got lost INSIDE the Holiday village… it sounded simple enough: drive through the gate, turn left, then left at our ‘street’ Currawong Way..  how many times can you do a U-turn in a caravan park? LOTS.

lorne A Weekend in Wye River

The sign for our street was non-existent. The numbers didn’t run logically. Watched by the increasingly curious gazes of other cabin dwellers, all who seemed to know where THEY lived, we drove around, and around, and around. Finally, before asking for help on our last U-turn, we tried a street with no name and found our home!

king parrot A Weekend in Wye River

Once parked, unpacked, and settled in, we started ‘arting’ Our goal was to complete some dolls that Lucy’s hubby John had cut from MDF (like Mary Jane Chadbourne’s class). We had a scouting party on the deck later that afternoon. Who totally turned his nose up at the sourdough bread.

Wildlife

The following day brought an abundance of wildlife we would see all weekend: birds, koalas, and kangaroos. We spent loads of time on our deck feeding the visitors first thing in the morning. Then, we were up and out of bed, coffee in hand, bread bag tucked under the arm to wait for the ‘guests.’

king parrot A Weekend in Wye River
Australian King Parrot
maits rest trees

Saturday, we braved the cold and walked around Maits Rest before the rain drove us back to the cabin.

maits rest walk
Maits Rest
ferns at maits rest
Ferns at Maits Rest

The highlight of our weekend was visiting a koala. He/she came by Saturday afternoon and stayed till Monday morning.

koala came calling
Stand aside, coming through
a wet koala.. up a gum tree
cockatoo drive through
By Sunday morning, the word had gotten out. free buffet at Cabin #19

We didn’t see half the things we planned to visit. But I had a great time and got some art done. just two dolls: the one on the left is mine, and Lucy’s is the one on the right

our arting effort
Our two art dolls (mine on the left, Lucy’s on the right)

This last pic was taken Monday morning before we left, and yes, as you can see, it was still overcast, wet and foggy when we left. So much for playing it safe and going in December!

© Bevlea Ross