Broken Hill and Beyond

Well another month or more and finally I am updating my blog. As you can tell from the title we have finally left South Australia although we are still on SA time – not for much longer, tomorrow we head into the far flung reaches of NSW to see what there is to discover and one day in the not too distant future we will make it back into Queensland and back to our original itinerary (what there was of one).

So what has kept us occupied for our 2 months in South Australia? The first few weeks were really just about catching up with family and we kept swapping between Ali and Karyn’s houses. We did a bit of sightseeing in our hometown and enjoyed long lunches with both Wendy and Nat.

Come the school holidays we spent 2 nights staying in a posh hotel in Adelaide with Ali and shopped til we dropped (well Ali did, I have limited space in my van so was naturally constrained.) Jude was just a little angel being so patient and we did spend some time at the Botanic Gardens (in fact we fit in 3 visits during our time in SA).

From there it was up to Karyn and doing kid stuff with her and JJ and Chantel and Kristy and Aurora. Highlight for Jude being a visit to the Railway Museum and getting to ride on Thomas (who goes under the pseudonym of ‘Bob’ – thank goodness 2-year olds can’t read) and also a visit to the Museum in the city, which we caught a train to (note the recurring train theme here?)

On our last Sunday we caught up with Ali and Kristy and Michael and Nat at the Irish Pub in Goolwa and listened to Jay Hoad, which was a real pleasure.

Monday July 25th it was North to Wallaroo to spend a week with my Aunt and Uncle at their beachfront home so every morning it was a delight to walk into the lounge room with wall-to-wall windows and just take in the sparkling seas. It was great spending some time with them as we don’t get to see them all that often and Jo and I took Jude down the beach and to the big jetty (where we arrived just in time to see the big ship, called ‘Aurora’, being pulled out by tug so a nice treat for Jude. We also visited Kerry on the twins 2nd birthday and Jude really enjoyed having some kids to play with.

We left Wallaroo the following Saturday heading North again as I had decided a detour to the Flinders Ranges might be nice. Some beautiful little coastal towns along the way so slow going and then just as I was about to bypass Port Pirie it occurred to me that an old high school friend, Rachael Lonnie, now lived there. To cut a long story short, I didn’t catch up with her then but the following night when I had reached Wilmington I had a call to say she had returned from her holiday on Kangaroo Island and could we back track to catch up (note to self – next time ask your sister to check friend’s facebook status to see if it says they are away on holiday before you spend half a day hanging round a strange town waiting for them to return your call).

As we were really only an hour or so drive from Port Pirie (there was a lot to see on the way alright!!) we returned on the Monday and spent the next week with her and her family, which Jude enjoyed tremendously.

Since then we have visited Gladstone Gaol (highly recommended), Jamestown (very pretty), Peterborough (LOTS of trains), and arrived here in Broken Hill were we have visited yet another Train Museum (and Jude requested a return visit today as soon as we started heading to town!) a great playground with flying fox big enough for me to ride on (weeeeeeee), gone to the local Uniting Church, and spent 2 lovely evenings out at Silverton about 25kms north of town.

Big recommendations to the Sandy Creek Bush Camp in Wilmington if anyone ever stays there and the Port Germein Jetty (1532m long and Jude walked practically the whole way himself pushing his pram) and Penrose Park which is where we are tonight, another bush camp but way better than the caravan park we stayed in our first night here.

Hope to be a little more regular with my updates from here on in (but I think I have said that before so perhaps a little bit of salt needed here).

Hope this finds you all well and happy and you enjoy the pics I have added from the hundreds I have taken so far.

Catch you out the Back of Bourke

Pauline & Jude
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx