We left Brisbane on the 25th of July and travelled to the infamous Nindigully Pub to camp the night and have dinner in their dining room. We couldn’t handle the Roadtrain burger or the Giant Burger so we had a giant rib fillet with mushroom sauce instead. Nindigully is a beautiful spot on the Moonie River in South West Queensland with one of the oldest pubs built.
From there we travelled to Thallon to visit the town where I lived for 6 months in 1964 and the school that I attended before visiting my cousins property where I lived during that time. On we travelled through Dirrinbandi where I worked in the 70’s for a short time and through to Hebel on the border where we stayed the night and tested the Ezy Anchors in hard ground while also imbibing at the Hebel Pub of a couple of cold ales.
We then ventured to Bourke and camped at Kidmans Camp Caravan Park for a few nights and tested the Ezy Anchors again in fairly hard ground. Kidmans camp is a great caravan park and is like an Oasis in the desert and Bourke is full of history and a great old dual cylinder oil fired Crossley Engine and a Paddlewheeler named the PV Jandra. We enjoyed witnessing the starting of the Crossley Engine and also a sunset trip down the Darling on the Jandra.
We left Bourke to head to Trilby Station, a 320,000 acre sheep station outside Louth in North West NSW and to camp on the Darling River Bank overlooking the river for three nights. During this time we took a drive around the allocated tourist tracks and visited the old New Chum homestead and goat yards where they truck wild goats to market after being mustered. Unfortunately we had to move on quickly to Broken Hill due to impending rain which cut the roads in and out for two days. However the Ezy Anchors were tested again in the hard red clay soils where they performed beautifully.
In Broken Hill we stayed at the Broken Hill Tourist Park and had a great site with wood chip over very hard ground but it was no challenge for our special Ezy Anchor screws. We visited Silverton, Pro Harts Gallery, the Lode Of Line miner memorial, The Kintore Mine Head and drove around the town to look at the many historical homes and buildings from our past.
Broken Hill to Peterborough South Australia in strong head winds, drizzling rain and cold weather towing a caravan was not alot of fun however we had a safe and memorable trip. Peterborough is known as Steamtown due to its great emphasis and involvement in both the South Australian and Australian Rail industry during the steam era. The Peterborough Historical Centre provide a wonderful light and sound show in the evenings that encompasses the total history of the town and its contribution to the Railways of Australia which is based in the old Railway Roundhouse and Turntable facility where the engines were housed and maintained when off duty.
Another very interesting museum come display in Peterborough is the Motorcycle museum that is a privately owned collection of motorbikes from yesteryear and collections of an amazing amount of historical memorabilia from yesteryear!. A must visit.
From Peterborough we travelled to Quorn another historic rail town known for the Pitchi Ritchi Railway which unfortunately was not running during the day of our visit and due to a lack of available staff the tour of the carriages and locomotives could not be done. It is the home to the famous Coffee Pot single loco carriage Railcar which is the only one of its class in Australia and within the single carriage it had 1st and 2nd class at each end. A very quaint machine from the past.
As I write we are now at Rawnsley Park Station at the base of Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges and today we have visited Bunyeroo and Brachina Gorge which are both spectacular with their magnificent Red Gums growing in the dry sandy creeks with the massive Flinders Ranges as their backdrop. Just spectacular and the colours of the ranges change throughout the day with the position of the sun.
Ezy Anchor has again beaten the challenge of very hard gravelly ground in the Flinders Ranges and has performed exceptionally well as compared to campers trying to drive pegs and pull pegs. The only option is Ezy Anchor!.
To be continued……….
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