Today we went riding to the little village of Mintaro which is not far from Burra. It has beautiful old bluestone and slate cottages and there is an operating slate mine.

We turned up at the mine and some nice workers came out to see our bikes, next thing one of the workers was giving us a special tour of the slate mine and she gave us a free sample of slate for our rock collection. This is lovely dark blue slate that paves some streets in Adelaide, and is used for many other purposes.

We then rode on to the town of Clare and had lunch, after buying a hiking stick for myself in a store there. I found Clare to be a bit boring because there weren't so many old buildings and just lots of boring ugly modern shops. We have been spoilt lately by all the gorgeous old Cornish stonemason buildings! Clare must've decided to go modern. I believe there are some lovely old B&B places around Clare though.

Later at night we went to the old Burra town hall for a free lecture on palaeontology; the mega fauna of Australia, which means the giant wombatty looking creatures called Diprotodon, the Thylacoleo, which is a mean looking carnivorous creature, a giant extinct emu- like bird and a giant lizard, among other extinct creatures that once roamed parts of Australia. There is a place near Burra (Red Banks) which is a fossil site; unfortunately we didn't get to see this area as it is for 4WD vehicles.

The free lecture was done by 3 Professors from the Adelaide museum. One was a retired older chap, the other was a middle aged chap, and the 3rd was a young man at the start of his Palaeontology career. Each gave a fascinating perspective on fossils and former geology ages, and made it sound logical, where I have always found fossil stuff to be rather confusing. And each Professor had such an enthusiastic passion for his chosen career; the interesting thing is each had a story about others trying hard to stop them following their palaeontology career at the start because there is no big money to be made. These guys made me realise how important it is to follow your dream and your heart and go ahead anyway with your ideas, as this is the way to have a happy life. They each love their careers. And the town hall room was full of enthusiastic listeners like us.

The next day: Tuesday 27 March: A quiet day back at our Burra campsite, where I wrote a story about my findings on my Mum's farm childhood in the Victorian Mallee region in the 1930s and 1940s. I will send this onto my brothers and sisters and my boys, as I found out lots of interesting things, and Dave took photos to go with this. Local old timers were so helpful to us; they were delighted we had turned up to ask questions, and remembered the O'Loughlin family. I also found the old farm site, which is now an irrigated almond orchard.

Then that evening we went to have a special real Chinese meal cooked by a lovely friend Jing who calls herself Jane in Australia. Jane and her partner Chris are in Burra for a short time; Chris is a locum doctor there, and they are staying in a lovely old house overlooking Burra. We had sublime scenery for our sunset meal. We met Chris and Jane when listening to music a week before at a Burra pub, and got chatting.

Then it was off home to our tent, ready for a good sleep before a packup day onto Victor Harbor the next day.