Adelaide Hills & a surprise visit home - May 2018

Thursday 3 May 2018.

From Lyndoch on the Southern edge of the Barossa, I towed the van South via Williamstown, Birdwood, Mount Torrens, Woodside and Nairn, to Ric and Ann's 5 acre block not far from Mount Barker, in the Adelaide Hills.

After a bit of damp manouvering and a little digging on the uphill slope, the van was set up in the regular position down below the house.  Ready made private guest wing.

Always great to spend a little time with Ric & Ann, as we have known each other for a very long time.  It feels very comforting to see them again and catch up on what has happened since the last time.

Ann has a relatively stable weekly cycle built around her 3 (plus) day a week part time but full on job and exercise regime.  Easy for me to spend some extra time with Ric and fit in with the routine.

On Friday, we went down to Adelaide.  Ann had some commitments, so Ric and I went to the Art Gallery to have a look at the "Colours of Impressionism Masterpieces from the Musee D'Orsay" on loan from the Gallery in Paris.  Interesting as Jean & I saw a number of those paintings many years ago in Paris.  Quite a large collection was on loan to Adelaide.  Some truly stunning pieces.

 Part of the beautiful interior of the Adelaide Art Gallery where the special exhibition was on show.

 Ric admiring the portrait of Monet by Renoir.

The Gallery really does a good job educating school children, with a group of young primary school kids featured.  They were so well behaved. 

 The portrait of Monet by Renoir was very impressive.

The Gallery also has at least one original Namajira painting on display.  The captured outback colours are spectacular.






 


 We still had a little time on our hands after some afternoon tea at the nearby Museum, so walked the short distance to the University of South Australia grounds to visit Lyrian, Ric & Ann's daughter in her office.  Amazing that she will turn 30 this year.  Where did all those years go;.

 We then met Ann at the movies, where we saw Gurrumul.  A great film, but very sad in places.

 I sneaked a photo in whilst we were waiting for our Cinema to open.
 

 On Saturday morning (5 May 2018) we had an excursion to Nairne to do a walk around part of the town organised by the local Historical Society.

We had a "trainee" guide, but the walk up the main street was fun and informative.

Quite a lot of history in the town and a little bit of fun as well.

 I managed to get Ric & Ann to pose for this photo, which I really liked.

 

Ann insisted on one of Ric & myself as well, which of course I didn't like as much.





 

 On Saturday afternoon, whilst Ric was preparing Dinner, I had a call from Jean to tell me that her Mum Betty had died suddenly at home that morning.  Although quite a shock, her passing was a blessing in many ways, as her quality of life at 85 years was deteriorating fairly rapidly and she had been approaching the point where she would not have been able to continue living at home.

I was able to book a flight home for the next day (Sunday 6 May) from Adelaide and find some off Airport undercover parking for the Landcruiser.  Fortunately, as Ric and Ann have plenty of room at their place, I was able to leave the caravan where it was without any extra drama.

The flight to Perth was a good one and Jean picked me up at the Airport and drove us home.
It appeared that Betty had got up early on Saturday morning and had not felt very well.  She went back to the bedroom and lay on her bed, where she passed away.  Younger daughter Michelle found her later that morning and Jean had last seen her on Friday afternoon.  As it was a weekend, they had been unable to contact her GP, so the Ambos called the Police and Jean and Michelle had rather a long day before her body was taken to the Morgue.  Later that week, her Doctor was able to give her a cause of death, which allowed information for the death certificate and her body to be released to a Funeral Director.

Meantime, her Son Will and his Partner Vickie had flown over from South Australia and the family, minus Linda (who lives in Katanning) were able to meet with the Director from the local Purslow Chippers Funeral Parlour and plan the Funeral Service for the following Wednesday 16 May 2018.  The service was held at their local Chapel not far from Betty's place in Rockingham.  All went pretty well, with Linda and her partner coming up from Katanning for the day and Margie Hanly agreeing to do a Eulogy for Betty along with Will and Michelle.  Betty was then taken by the Hearse to the new Rockingham facility and cremated.

During the period leading up to the Funeral, Betty's house was broken into, which added to the stress that everyone was under.  At first we thought the empty house may have been targeted, but Police later caught a number of children that had broken into a series of houses in the area.  They broke a glass door and made quite a mess inside, but fortunately Jean had removed Betty's purse and jewellry from the house.
 
In the lead up to the funeral, we decided that we needed a little more excitement in our lives, so we picked up the new puppy from Jan, who also lives in Gidgegannup and had managed to breed a litter of eight very active Kelpie pups. For a while we thought her name might be Pippin, then Winnie, so Jan named her as Pippin-Winnie.  "Don't all puppies have hyphenated names?" So far she responds well to the call of "Pipi".

Pippin-Winnie at her old home, before "Trauma Day".








On the day we picked her up and took her home, we had an enormous drama and thought we had lost her for good.  At just over 4 months old, she had never been away from her Mum and remaining siblings and had never been in a car.  By the time we got her home, she was quite car sick and very much out of her territory.  We called her into our back yard, closed the gate and then tried to introduce her "gently" to Axel our old very large great dane.  Not surprisingly, she was terrified, squeezed through the fence and took off heading for the front of our property.  We thought she was gone for good and despite quite a lot of calling and hunting for her we had no luck in finding her.  Jean then made up a number of lost dog signs and put them around the neighbourhood.

Later that evening, Jean was exhausted and went to sleep on her chair in the lounge room.  I noticed Axel was behaving strangely and wanted to get out to the front of the house.  I had a look, but couldn't see anything, but he still persisted.  I had another closer look on the front porch and found the pup hiding behind a metal box.  She was thirsty, hungry, but very fortunately otherwise well.  Jean was so relieved when I woke her with the puppy. 














Pippin-Winnie at her new home and the pup with the big ears (just like her Mum Rennie-Mac)

Soon she had settled in pretty well, taken over Axel's bed and shredded many of his favourite soft toys.

I spent a bit of time helping Jean to sort out some of Betty's affairs, and after the funeral things started to slow down and not a lot more was going to happen until the Death Certificate was available and an Application made to appoint an Administrator to her Estate.  So I booked a ticket back to Adelaide and flew out on Tuesday 22 May.  This time I decided to try Virgin instead of Qantas, as the available flight times were more convenient, the fare was cheaper and the Virgin terminal located next to the International Terminal was much less crowded and convenient.  The flight was excellent with plenty of spare seats and a good movie to watch - "The Post" with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.  I picked up the Landruiser, and had a pleasant drive back up into the Hills just before the worst of the afternoon traffic started.

It didn't take long to get back into a routine with Ric & Ann, which was great after all that had been going on at home. 

Friday night we had a special Ric Thai Red Curry, followed by an Ann Sticky Date Pudding.  Good living.

I took this photo of the stunning pistachio tree out the front of the house, just about ready to lose all of its remaining leaves.  A beautiful Autumn day.

On Saturday (26 May) afternoon, we had another trip to Adelaide, dropped in on Lyrian and Josh, followed by a tour of the Lifeflow Office, Meditation and Yoga rooms, then did a few errands before going to watch the Tim Winton movie "Breath".  Another very good movie, set in and around Denmark on the WA South Coast.

As a treat for their generous hospitality I then treated Ric & Ann to a meal out at the Mimasu Japanese Restaurant.  We had an excellent Chef's Selection shared meal, including some Sake and an Adelaide Hills wine.

As an extra indulgence, we had desert, which included this fuiji crumble with black sesame ice cream.  It was just amazing. 

I managed to sneak in another happy shot of Ric at the end of our very enjoyable meal.

Lucky for us, Ann drove home and we had a good sleep after a busy day.  Sunday was a quiet day with a walk around the local wetlands in the afternoon (or was that another day?).  Yes I think it was another day as we went for a drive out to Tara Hills and had a walk nearby, a look at the dam on the adjoining property, as well as finding a few decent mushrooms along the way.  Left overs from Friday night made for an another excellent Sunday night dinner.

Monday morning (28 May), Ann went back to work, Ric had some more preparation work for a lecture on Tuesday and I set off for Port Augusta, where I had a service booked for the Landcruiser also on Tuesday before the rest of my journey home.  That will be the final chapter of the blog for this trip.........

 

Broken Hill to the Barossa - April / May 2018

Monday 23 April 2018

I left Lightning Ridge and headed South on the main road to Walgett.  From there, I headed South West across country to Nyngan, where the Mitchell Highway meets the Barrier Highway, the main route West towards Broken Hilll.  I was expecting some gravel but it turned out to be all sealed roads, but mostly quite narrow with a lot of road edge damage due to large cattle trucks using the route.

I spent the night at the Nyngan Riverside Tourist Park, which is a well run country park with pleasant surrounds on the banks of the Bogan River on the edge of town.  On Tuesday morning I headed West on the Barrier Highway.

First stop was Cobar, another fair sized rural town, with a long history of copper, gold, lead, zinc and silver mining.

 I took a picture of the Bushtracker at the rest stop on the edge of town and posted it on the Bushtracker Caravan Owners page on Facebook to join many other similar pictures.  I then moved into town, refueled, had a nice coffee and a bit of a walk around, before continuing my journey West.

I  spent the night at Warawong on the Darling, just to the East of Wilcannia.   The park was small and friendly with nice grassed areas on the edge of a few stranded Billabongs which appears to be all that is left of the Darling River at moment.  The river bed was also dry in the town.

Wednesday 25 April 2018.

The 200 odd kilometres into Broken Hill was a pleasant drive.  I checked into the Broken Hill Tourist Park on the Western edge of the City.  Quite a large park and busy, still with a lot of transit traffic on the road.  Apparently it gets much quieter in the Winter time and very cold as well.  I booked in for a morning tour on Thursday to get a bit of a picture of the place and meantime took a drive up to the Miners Memorial and Lookout above the City on the Hill containing the original main lode of many of the early mines.

The Lookout includes a Cafe, that has previously been a number of Restaurant variants that have all failed.

The Miners Memorial is a jagged structure with amazing views over the  City and surrounding countryside. 

It has a series of plaques inside that list the names of the hundreds who have died in the many mines in the area.

 

Above are the remains of one of the significant old mines along the "Line of Lode" spitting the City into two parts.  The main East-West rail line runs along the edge of the lode and tailings hill.

The tour on Thursday morning was well worth while and gave a good overview of the City and some of its rich and varied history. 

Included in this history is the Palace Hotel, that started its days as an elaborate Tea Rooms and now holds the licence for a weekly legal two-up session.

The lobby of the Palace featured in the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert and is most impressive.

It also features a large slipper advertising the annual "Broken Heel Festival" in the City.

The old Junction Mine still has the wooden headframe intact.

The dual level, "lifts" were used to pack in groups of miners for transport to various underground levels.  The Tour Guide also told us that pit ponies were squeezed into the lifts sitting back on their haunches as the only way they could be fitted in.  Not a good life for horses or miners, as water was always tight, so the miners washing was rudimentary, meaning they took the lead contamination home to their families.

  The main drag, Argent Street reflects the prosperous growth of the City from humble beginnings.

 Trades Hall is just one of many impressive buildings in the City.  The Unions had a major role in the development of the mines and also a significant influence in the establishment of a forty hour working week for Australians.

The interior of the Trades Hall is also beautifully decorated.













Slightly strangely, the morning tour also included a stop off at the airport for a "coffee break" at the kiosk there.  Whilst there, I saw the large facility operated by the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) and returned later for a more detailed look around.

Broken Hill is an important regional base for the RFDS with an operations base, large maintenance hanger and tourist tour & shop component.  A great and well used service for the Australian Outback.

It was interesting that the Terminal next door appeared to have no passenger security controls at all.  Something I suspect will not last much longer.

On Friday 27 April I took a drive out to Silverton, about 25km to the North West of the City.  It was the site of original silver mining in the area and also the home to another "Australian Icon"

Just past Silverton is the Mundi Mundi Lookout over the desolate plains that were used to film the original Mad Mad movies.







The Silverton Hotel is one of the remaining tourist attractions.

The donkeys sheltering in the shade across the road from the pub were a bit of a surprise as they did not appear to be restrained at all.

 Only a few of the original modest buildings of the town survive, including the original Municipal Offices and a couple of museums.





Up near the high point of town is the Mad Max Museum.

The interior is full of relics collected from the movie film sites and many mock-ups of various vehicles used in the films.

Inside, the museum is full of memorabilia plus photos and items from cast members.  Worth a visit, particularly if you were a fan of the movies.




 
On Saturday 28 April, I did a morning shop at Coles then headed out of town to the South West back on the Barrier Highway.  Foolishly I had forgotten about Quarantine into South Australia and soon after stopped at the Oodla Wirra Station, where I surrendered most of the fresh fruit and veges I had recently bought.  Although I understand the need for Quarantine, it is likely that Coles in Broken Hill (NSW) is most likely supplied by a distribution station near Adelaide in South Australia.

The Barrier Highway traverses a lot of bare country not unlike parts of the scenery from the Nullarbor into Western Australia.  Of note were the many recently dead kangaroos along the side of the road.  A hazard of a such a major truck route from the East to Northern South, and Western Australia.

I continued on to Burra, about 350km from Broken Hill.  I had made a booking at the local caravan park, next to the Burra Creek that runs through town.  A really nice park and a very pleasant historical mining town for a visit.

A pretty town built primarily with local stone.

There was a cultural festival on that weekend highlighting a number of galleries and museums around the town.









The Tourist information service had a local "passport key" on sale which gave entrance to many of the local historic buildings and mine buildings.

The town has a long history of copper mining with both underground and open cut mines.  Many Cornish miners emigrated to this area and other places in South Australia as copper mining declined in Cornwall.

The remnants of a number of mining machine houses and steam engine enclosures remain.

 Redruth Gaol and later the site of a young female reformatory was an interesting visit included in the local "passport key".

 












Also included were the extensive cellars of the Unicorn Brewery.  The above ground buildings are now long gone.

On Sunday (29 April) I continued on to the Barossa Valley, this time opting to stay at the Discovery Park on the outskirts of Tanunda, right in the heart of the valley.  It was a good choice as I arrived on the last day of School holidays and the park emptied out, leaving lots of open space and easy access to the park facilities. The park also allowed walking access to the town which was excellent after my last visit to the Valley when I stayed at Kapunda quite some distance to the North.



On Ric & Ann's recommendation I visited the Cheese Shop in Angaston, which sells quite a range of excellent local product.

I bought a selection from the newly extended shop to take on to the Adelaide Hills.







I also visited the nearby Saltrams Winery, where a bought a number wines.

 The old winery building is pictured at left.






 

 
 








  I also enjoyed an excellent pulled lamb, fetta, olive and rosemary pizza at the Restaurant.










On Monday, I revisited Rockford and Langmeil wineries to buy a few more bottles for the rest of my trip.

On Tuesday (2 May), I also returned to Seppeltsfield.  A much nicer (& as a result busier) day than my last visit a couple of years ago.

 
















The historic Seppeltsfield is such a beautiful place.

The old Adminstration Building is a great example of the impressive architecture.

It was also an opportunity to revisit Fino Restaurant in the old Bottling Hall, which also houses the Cellar door.

The restaurant bakes its own bread and the wholegrain soughdough with local butter was just superb.

 

The rich slow cooked lamb casserole with beans, salad and flatbread was also excellent.

After a recovery afternoon nap I enjoyed a walk around Tunada and was impressed by the Tin Man decorating a power pole.

As the light faded, I enjoyed the cool evening and looking as some of the many interesting buildings around the town.

The forecast for Wed (3 May) was for a wet day, so I hitched up the van and rolled up the water hoses before going to bed.   I was happy in the morning as it was indeed very rainy.  I finished packing up and continued my journey South.

I stopped at the Lyndock Bakery (photo taken the day before when the sky was still blue).








I had an excellent breakfast of Eggs Benedict and a a mug of coffee before heading off to the Adelaide Hills to catch up with Ric and Ann again.........