Blaze Aid Coonabarabran NSW

I have been busy for the last few days and been unable to post on the blog.  I drove into Coonabarabran last Saturday and saw the sign beconning volunteers to Blaze Aid to park at the show grounds.  I was aware of what Blaze Aid did from watching Landline on ABC1 but didnt realise they were in this area.  The country I had driven through was spectacularly beautiful and I saw no evidence of flood or fire.  The other side of the town however was not so lucky and the whole of hte Timor valley was devastated by fire in January.  I joined up and within 30 minutes had signed the appropriate insurance forms, been allocated a space for my van, been connected to power and given a pair of leather gloves, a Hi Vis vest and some safety glasses.   It was however a day off because of rain. 

The drill is that you attend the kitchen area for breakfast at 6.30 and you can choose between cereal, fruit and yoghurt or a cooked breakfast or both.  At this time, you sign the insurance forms again which cover you for 24 hours following the time of signing, sign the dinner list to say you will be eating that evening, you pack your lunch from a vast array of meats, salads, boiled eggs, cheese, bread or rolls; grab a cake or muffin and fruit for morning tea and at least 2 bottles of cold water.  At 7.30 a morning briefing tells you what your team will be doing that day and you take off in one of the 4WD that your team members have.

When you arrive at the allocated farm, you attend upon the farmer who tells the team leader what work he would like done.  It varies from pulling out burnt fences, rolling up wire, cutting down trees overhanging fences that will be rebuilt, cutting down dangerous trees, putting in new fence posts and pulling wire.  Some folk have been task to cleaning out sheds and barns so new hay or seed can be stored in them. Some have done cleaning out of gardens that have been burnt.  Lots of houses were burnt, some farms the houses were saved but all the other outbuildings have gone.

The team I have been working with for 3 days were tasked with cutting trees off fence lines where regrowth is likely to fall over onto the new fences when built.  My job has been to pick up all the small pieces (with diameter of less than say 30cm and stack them ready for burning later. The bigger logs have been cut with a chain saw into lengths for hauling away by the farmer with tractors later.  It  has been hot and dirty work and it tires me out but I am happy doing it with such a good bunch of people. They are almost all retired, although there are a couple of younger people and one family who are travelling with their 3 children who they are home schooling.  The 13 year old boy has been in my team with his dad.

When you get back at about 4pm, it is head for the hot showers time and then a rest before dinner.  Dinner is served at 6.30pm and is prepared by one of several local community groups such as Lions, Rotary, CWA etc and they put on a 2 course meal and they have been very tasty, with generous servings and I dont think I have ever eaten so much in all my life!

Following dinner, there is a further meeting for all teams to have recorded what work has been done that day, what work is still to be done on that property etc. All that has finished by 8pm and then it is is into bed.  You can take your name off the list for any day if you want a rest and that is what I did today.  My hips have been a bit sore, but after a bit of a sleep in had quite recovered.  I went into the kitchen to see if there were any jobs that wanted doing and was allocated about 200 used plastic water bottles to wash, sterilise and refill with water and put in the fridge for the next day.  I also managed to get my own washing done.

 

This is out of sequence but was a garden that I saw on my way into town that I thought was pretty amazing.  The whole front yard was filled with varieties of cacti.

This is the countrythat I saw driving into town.  The hills are the Worrumbungles which is where the fire started in the national park, but did not burn this area.

 The first morning I went out was Sunday and it was very foggy.  Visibility was low in leaving the camp ground but upon arriving at the farm we were allocated, it had lifted somewhat.  I could not however resist taking this photo. The mist layer at the back hides the burnt hills behind the house which survived and the white frosty looking grass is something that has come up since the fire - within 2 months it is up about a metre high and is flowering.  The white is a fine flower that turns into little seed pods like dandelions.  The grass is so high that the first day I wore my joggers not having any work boots and I was wet up to my knees with my feet squelching in my socks until lunch time when I took them off and the hot sun in an hour dried both my socks and shoes.  The next day I wore wellies that I had bought to use in Gippsland in June until morning tea time and then changed over.

 

This is Timor Rock which is on the edge of the property we were working on.  All timber on it and the hills behind the house were completely burned and are all dead.  All the grass in front was burnt and has regenerated.

This is John Hunter from WA with whom I was working.  He was cutting the trees down and I was cleaning up. John is 74 and an old farmer.  Unfortunately yesterday he had a very bad accident and I had to call an ambulance.  In the end it wasnt as bad as it looked.  I saw torn skin over his foot with his ankle bone poking through.  The 2 paramedics called for a helicopter to take him to Sydney. They said he had an open compound disclocated fracture and were concerned about the infection risk given the environment of dirt, soot, woodchips, sawdust etc.  However they took him to meet the helicopter at the local hospital who after an xray said there was no fracture. They manipulated the ankle bone back into place and are keeping him in for a few days because of the infection risk and pumping him full of antibiotics.  They gave him loads of morphine on site before moving him to the stretcher at which point he passed out.  We all had to lift him onto the stretcher.

I had more  photos to show but the program wont let me so I give up. More another day.

Just to reassure you all, I am being very careful.  I am mindful that I am not used to this work and I watch those trees and logs very carefully.

Wild life at last

No, not camels, kangaroos, wombats or koalas but emus were the first and only wildlife I have seen on this journey of now nearly 4,000km.  A great flock of them had taken over the wheat stubble but by the time I located my camera it was only the brave that remained and stared me out whilst I took the photo. The rest had run away.

I was however travelling through the land of the long paddock and there were lots of areas with signs saying cattle on road for next 5 km, they seemed to come in 5 km stretches so that in fact there were cattle there for 20 km or more.  Thousands of them.  The first ones I had to stop to let them pass the road and later thought, I should have grabbed the camera, but I was too busy making sure that they actually crossed and didn't stay on the road to block my way. This lot had already gone through.

This is Lake Cargelligo where I stopped for lunch - as I say, lakes abound!

No lakes today, I am at a tiny place called Caragabal which is about 70 km south of Forbes in NSW and will be at Dubbo tomorrow.  I stopped at another camping spot earlier but it was so noisy with huge interstate trucks whizzing by.  Another van pulled up to use the toilet and told me of this spot about 24 km off that road and it is very quiet so far although I am next to the railway line.  Last night I camped at a tiny place called Tillibegeal next to the railway line where there were not only clean toilets but showers and water and power all for free. That all looked pretty good but a a train which was some freight but 3 big diesel engines pulled up about 100 m away and the engines kept running and running and running without moving and that went on for FIVE hours, I am not kidding.  I was so annoyed and wanted to know what the hell they were doing, but one of the drivers came and used the toilet and he looked like what Myles and Richard call boguns - shaved head and big bushy beard and very big and I thought better to leave well alone. Eventually another train went by and then they took off. So it seemed that they were waiting for this other train all the time, but they could have turned the bloody engines off - I cant imagine how much fuel they wasted.

It started to rain when I arrived here and it continued until about 2 minutes ago.  Its not a problem with rain and its better than heat.  I haven't actually seen any for about 2 weeks now.  I have been cooking a beef stew in my dream pot so I hope it is cooked by tea time.  It should be, I got it together at about 12.30pm in the noisy spot.

When I drove into Tillibegeal there was what I thought a very odd sign.  It asked trucks to stop to dislodge the dust from their tyres before proceeding into the town.  Along the stretch where trucks were to stop there were piles of red dust.  I didnt understand how this could be, all the roads are bitumin. This morning there was a very high wind, in fact it was so fierce I had trouble pulling the pop down in my van but eventually on the third try got it down and had to hold it tight while I put the straps it because it kept blowing up again.  As I drove out of town, I got the gist of what the dust thing was about.  The wind had whipped up quite a dust storm from all the rich red soil that was bare after ploughing for miles around and the dust was thick in the air.  I reckon this must be a fairly common occurrence.

The Hay plains

After leaving Renmark, I drove through Mildura and on to Robinvale where I camped at Lake Bananee.  This land is amazing with what seems to be lakes everywhere which are fed by the Murrumbidgee river and they all have lots of water in them.

There were a couple of other campers here, all caravans.  We all parked under the peppermint gums which was lovely.  There were also shade shelters, toilets, water, bins and barbecues, all for free.

Tuesday I drove onto Hay across endless flat plains.  Just out of Balranald, there was a sign to Yanga station indicating you could take a tour of the homestead at 10.30 am.  I was about on time and drove in.  I was the only person taking the tour so I got the personal approach from the ranger Mon. This was a huge property, at one stage the largest in the southern hemisphere, taken up by squatters in the early 19th century and had some famous owners along the way such as WC Wentworth.  The State government had bought it in 2005 from the Black family who had it for a century.  They were absentee landlords who remained in England and made their way out for inspections from time to time. Some time before they sold it, they emigrated to Australia and now live in Melbourne.  I checked out the web and it said that the government was rumoured to have paid $38million, but that was pooh poohed by Mr Black who wouldnt say what they paid.  It was an interesting tour going through the homestead, the kitchen, cooks sitting room and the main areas of the house where the manager was allowed to live unless the owners were arriving, then he had to move out to one of the outbuildings.  The structure was interesting, the newer part made with split white ceder pine logs and the older part with wood slabs.

The property comprises of sheep farming with some cropping but the spectacular part and obviously why the Parks people now have it, is because of the Lake - which is HUGE.  I was told it was over 20km in length and had lots of bird life and fish.  It however was bone dry for over 5 years in the recent drought and has been filling up from the floods up north over the last 5 years.  The Lachlan river runs into it.  I assumed it was irrigated from the lake, but was told no, the water they use comes from the Murrumbidgee because the Lake is dry at least once every 5 years.  Photos in the exhibition included lots of huge murray cod being caught in the lake.

I then drove onto Hay and camped at Sandy Cove on the Murrumbidgee river again a lovely spot with lots of river gums to shade, toilets, water and bins.  There were a lot of people here and most had been there for a few days.  All those I spoke to were from NSW and gave me ideas about where to travel next.

It wont let me add any more photos - it thinks I have had my quota - I am going to have to publish this and then start a new entry to put any more photos on.



The mighty Murray

I left Adelaide this morning and am now in Renmark parked 4 metres from the Murray river.  It is a beautiful day with a maximum of 24 and minimum of 7 forecast.  It certainly isn't any hotter and I hope it doesn't get any cooler tonight.

I stopped along the journey at Blanchetown which was my first glimpse of the river.  There were signs saying home of Loch 1 and I had no idea what that meant so went into the town off the highway to find out.  It is indeed where Loch 1 on the Murray river is located.  I took photos but the sun was in my face so not so good.

This last photo is to show the flood levels at various times.  Given that the water was many metres below the bank and very wide there would have been an enormous amount of water flowing through in any of the floods.

I then stopped at Waikirie for a coffee and could see boats on the river.  The River Queen which is now used for weddings etc and endless houseboats for hire.  I thought of the many times I have been houseboating with Catherine and Peter on the Murray River in WA.  You could not see the end of the row.

Off tomorrow into NSW via Mildura.  Probably will stay in Robinvale camping next to Lake Benanee.

No more rain

Arrived in Adelaide on Sunday 10 March as planned and there has been no more rain.  It has been as hot as Perth but I have been enjoying the hospitality of Helen and Tim in their lovely airconditioned house with a pool.  It finally cooled down a little on Wednesday and we went to the SA art gallery to see the Turner exhibition which was very enjoyable particularly with an excellent guide.

Thursday we drove down to their vineyard at Carrickalinga and here is a photo taken from my bedroom window of the lovely view across to Normanville beach where we had a walk late afternoon.

This morning we had an adventure on the property recovering a bale of hay that had escaped when harvesting, rolled down the hill and over a fence.  We had to cut the fence to pull it through dragging behind the ute and then roll it up onto the trailer to take it up the paddock for the sheep.

Sheep and some alpacas are now let loose in the vineyard as they have not produced any wine since 2008 it having proved uneconomical for them to do so.  We are however still enjoying the wine.

On the way down the Fleuireu peninsula we stopped off at the Aldinga aerodrome as suggested both by Harriet and also by friends of Tim and Helen and had a very pleasant lunch.  Jonathon was not working there that day Harriet so I was unable to accost him in the manner suggested by you.  Helen however took the details of the flights and will be booking a biplane flight for her and Tim for Tim's birthday later this month.

We will be driving back to Adelaide on Saturday and I will likely leave on Sunday morning early for  my next leg of the trip.  At this stage that plan is to drive to Renmark, Mildura, Hay, Forbes, Parkes and Dubbo.  I will update along the way.



Into Adelaide

For those concerned about the name Coffin Bay, I can report that there is no sinister connotation, it was named by Flinders after his mate who was an admiral and had something to do with provisioning Flinders journey south.

I didn't have the oysters as I am not a fan but I did have some great King George whiting and bought some more on departing which I enjoyed later.

From Coffin Bay, I headed south in the Eyre peninsula to Venus Bay and then onto Lucky Bay. This as it turned out was a mistake but it was ok in the end.  I misread where the campground was.  Having stopped at Cowell and rejected that camping ground, I headed onto Lucky Bay thinking that was the next number on the map.  Both numbers related to Cowell.  However having reached Lucky Bay, I found a fishing village a bit like Wedge Island in WA where there was a string of basic shacks along the sand dune overlooking the ocean.  I saw someone driving down the track towards me, stopped him and asked if there was a camping ground anywhere in this village.  He said not, but there was a place at the end of the track I could park but there were no facilities.  I went on and found a turning circle at the end which did have a tent sign so I figured I was legal to park there.  Again upon putting up the pop top, it started to rain.  It was so hot, despite being only 50 metres from the ocean that I kept the windows of the van open (with my new flyscreen cover) and the next morning after a stifling night, found my drivers seat was wet as were my towels draped over the back and some of my books.

The towels dried out during my drive on to my next stop but the books are still drying out.  I stopped for lunch at Port Germaine  which has the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere.  I didn't pace it out, it was very long.  The tide was out and it was mudflats forever so I guess that it why the jetty was so long.  Apparently that was a port where wheat used to be shipped from but no longer.  Before the jetty was a huge corrigated iron building that looked like an aircraft hangar with the words Broome Pearls in faded paint on the side.  I asked a few people what that was about but they either didn't know or had never noticed.  I continued to walk up towards the jetty to this funny little lighthouse thing and there was some signage that explained the reason for the sign was because the beachfront had been used in filming a TV series about Broome several years ago - apparently something to do with the bombing of Broome.

Travelling on up the east coast of the Eyre peninsula I looked at what my options were for accommodation.  I decided on Redhill, not knowing why it was thus.  The other option was Snowtown but I decided to give that a miss even though I could be fairly sure that the perpetrator of the bodies in the acid barrels was still incarcerated, I still felt I wouldnt get a restful sleep.  Redhill is a very pretty historical wheat farming town which advertised free camping at the recreation ground.  I couldnt find the recreation ground but found a grove of sheoak trees with a sign of a caravan.  I was alone in the gove but that looked OK.  I had just put up the pop top when two things happened, yes, it started to rain and a huge freight trained roared by about 50 metres away quickly followed by another 5 minutes later and yet another soon after.  I thought it would be hell to try to sleep there but in the end, there were no trains between about 7 pm and 7 am.  Tim says the unions would work at night.

I figured it was called redhill because of a large patch of red rock showing through the grass or crop stubble that covered the surrounding hills.

I arrived in Adelaide yesterday - no more rain, but very hot and 38 degrees today.  Lovely house, lovely people, lovely airconditioning.  More another day as I am about to hop in their pool.
 

Cyclone Randy is still following me

I am in Coffin Bay on the Eyre Peninsular and guess what - it has started to rain.  I drove down from Venus Bay this morning and watched the clouds dumping rain out in the ocean heading in this direction.  The sight was wonderful, big banks of clouds, rainbows, great drifts of heavy rain in different directions but I was on dry road.  I got myself set up in the caravan park here after having a delicious lunch of King George whiting, chips and salad at a restaurant on the foreshore called the Oysterbeds and the view from that was indeed of the oyster beds for which this place is known.  No sooner had I put up my pop top and opened everything up to let the breeze in and it started to rain and hasn't stopped since.  The humidity is about 100%.  Having had a real shower, I am still dripping water.

Apart from the weather display the drive down was enjoyable.  Very dry stony white limestone soil, would have been very difficult for the early settlers to scratch a living.  Probably not so easy today, looking at the dry crop stubble on the undulating hills.  Along the way, there was lots of evidence of dry stone walling.  In most places, farmers had replaced it with modern fencing but left the remnants there.  In one place the walls were almost still intact.  I did take a photo.

Not quite the pristine standard of Ireland or the South West counties of England, but still standing when not much else is.

More dramatic cliffs with raging ocean beneath. One place I stopped was noted as a memorial to a fisherman in the early 70's who was lost when his boat crashed on the rocks - two crew with him managed to get ashore.  This was that spot.

Venus Bay is a very dedicated fishing place.  I was able to scoop a bay in the caravan park only as someone phoned to say they had vehicle trouble and needed to cancel that night.  The park was jammed with the hugest rigs I have ever seen.  I didnt have to worry about looking for shade (there wasnt any) but in any event the height and length of the vans swamped me and kept me in the shade for all but a couple of hours in the mid day.  I tried to show how much of a tiddler I was by comparison, but I should have put the pop down first.  This vehicle had another ten feet in front of my van.  The kitchen was the bit that hung out the side next to me.  I gathered that the people who stay there come for weeks and sometimes months on end for the fishing.  I overheard the neighbour in the row behind ask his wife when she returned with a bucket, "How may crabs did you get?"  She said "Only 25".  I was shocked, dont they have bag limits here?

On my way to Venus Bay I went passed a group of huge granite boulders rising out of a cropped field.  They were called Murphy's Haystacks.  Enormous, cant quite get the scale here.

Tomorrow on through Port Lincoln to who knows where.....

Finally got the hang of the photos

I will try again with the photos that I tried to add yesterday.

And I will now try to add a photo of the Bunda Cliffs along the Bight.  I went to the Head of the Bight which was pretty spectacular but no whales this time of year - will go back on my return journey.

I survived the Nullabor

Here I am in South Australia at Streaky Bay. I have had my first dip in the ocean in over 40 years and it was delicious to wash off the Nullabor dust. There wasnt actually much of that because it was raining for most of the journey. Can you believe how surreal it was to be driving through the desert through water rushing across the road, with great swathes of water on each side of the road. It was like, Hello! Is this the desert? All courtesy of Cyclone Rusty. Once the rain stopped it was HOT. I had spent a couple of days wearing a jacket and snugging up at night with a doona. Suddenly it was gasping for the air conditioner and any hint of a breeze. The sea breeze is in now at Streaky Bay and is lovely. Some interesting experiences along the way, apart from the flooded desert. There was the woman at Madora Pass who was working in the servo and commented that she had a campervan. She went on to tell me that she had arrived there in October last year and accepted a weeks work whilst someone took a week off. She was still there and didnt think she could get away until May. She said her lovely new van had only 2,000 km on the clock. I thought I would just keep going in case I got trapped there as well. Then there was the vehicle that pulled out into the service station at Mundrabilla from behind a steel gate. I was just getting back into my van after phoning Judy, or was it Joan? Anyway, I heard this scraping of steel and looked to see from whence it was coming. The gate in a solid steel fence was slowly opening and this vehicle drove through. I asked the driver if I could take a photo. I have now tried to download this photo twice so it may appear twice or not at all. This is being difficult. Anyway if you see the photo you will understand why I commented to the driver that it was like something out of Mad Max. He was however somewhat offended. The scenery along the Bight was fantastic and I took photos but given the experience of the vehicle photo, I will leave that until I get to a more stable environment to send photos.

It seems that the dates will be wrong when I type this in the mornings as although my computer correctly shows it is 2 March today by the time the blog gets published it is still the day before in the US where Google organise the magic. Sorry also about the typos. I did try to preview the entry and then lost it so when I posted again I didn't bother and just went to publish.

Yesterday at 6.45 am, I pulled out of my driveway in my trusty VDub and left summer behind. By the time I got to Merredin it was raining, being the tail of Cyclone Rusty that dumped deluges of rain in the Pilbar. Fortunately it was not that heavy but the temperature had cooled sufficiently for me to look about the van for where I put my jumper. Rain continued through Southern Cross where I stopped for lunch and onto my campsite at Koorarawalyee which is in the Goldfiels Woodlands CP 114 km west of Coolgardie. Rain continued overnight but by dawn had ended. Still full cloud cover. Due to the rain I will bypass Kalgoorlie enroute to Menzies for the Gormley experience at Lake Ballard. A do not want to get bogged at the beginning of my trip on the dirt road from Menzies to the Lake. Tonight I plan to camp at Fraser Range on the Eyre Highway so I will be well and truly into the desert by then. So far I have travelled through the wooded hills of the Darling Range, the dry stubble of the wheatbelt and the salmon gums of the more marginal areas where gold mining has had its heyday. At dinner before I left, the children made me promise that I would photograph any wildlife that I came across. Alice was however disappointed to hear that I did not expect to see a giraffe. I passed on the many dead kangaroos on the road as I figured they didnt qualify and was relieved that I had not caused their demise. This free campsite is very well done. Toilets, lots of shade if needed, table and chairs in both wood and concret, campfires set up with billy overhang and plenty of bays to park. When I arrived at about 2pm, I was the first. Others dribbled in and there are now 5 campers and a huge truck rig. Only one other campervan, the rest are caravans. No eyeing each other off at this ground as it is too wet and we all remain in our vans except the occasional run to the toilet through the rain.