Back in time at Burra

We started of a bit late today so didn’t reach Burra until lunchtime. We took the backroads, and saw a lot of unusual things on the way including a paddock with alpacas, camels and a ewe on the road with her lamb. The landscape is glorious with its undulating hills and a green hue to the land. Every bend we turn seems to have the remains of stone buildings, like this one near Camels Hump Rd in Hilltown.

 Like I’ve mentioned before the stonework is beautiful!

When we arrived in Burra we found a lot of the town closed for the Anzac Day public holiday. This was a bit disappointing as it meant the town felt a little lifeless. Some of the closed shops looked really interesting! I would have liked to have taken a look. Most annoying was that we didn’t realise that the bakery closed at 3pm today, so when we were most ready for an afternoon tea treat after looking at churches and fossils we found it shut. I didn’t get to rate the Vanilla Slice … We were all looking forward to munching on something yummy.

We DID get to look through the Burra Town Hall which proved fascinating. The town has a history going back to the 1840s so there were lots of old photos and equipment to look at. There was a book on display that one of the town pioneers had in their possession that was published in 1611! The best part of the display was that there were two dressing rooms behind the Hall stage where we could dress up in all sorts of “old stuff” and take our own photos. Here are some of the results …

At the Burra Town Hall VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This reminded us a little of when we were at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat a few years ago when we had some photos taken with us all dressed in colonial costumes. This time though, we could play and spend some time having fun in lots of different costumes. This was right up Harry’s alley – we pretended to be in the kitchen making tea, biscuits, lighting fires, pouring afternoon tea and serving cakes.  The background has been built on the stage, and includes a kitchen and a parlour. It was heaps of fun!!

We went up and saw the old copper mine before we left. This was just enormous!

Tomorrow we leave Yacka and head for Cuddly Creek, about 25km East of Adelaide. We are basing ourselves there for a week and can drive to explore lots of places.

A Busy Day

The park at Yacka was abuzz today with our two caravans of new friends packing up to leave. We had coffees, final chats, swapping of email addresses, real addresses, Facebook names and blog sites. It is all a bit quiet now that everyone has left. There is just us and another WA van way over the other side of the park, so it feels quite deserted!! 


Here are some photos of some of our lovely new friends:

Front: Callum, Harry, Ronan, Max (Callum and Ronan are front just out of Adelaide).  Back: Marion and Wayne (from Tassie via Hervey Bay in Qld)
Marion, Harry and Callum having a special cuddle


Wayne and Marion joined us last night in our annual Easter tradition of bashing open and eating a giant Easter egg around the kitchen table with spoons. It was delicious!!


Tomorrow we are visiting Burra, a town which sounds delightful. The Visitor’s Centre has a passport available which details a series of self guided walks around town, including a Monster copper mine, a cidery cellar (mmmm… even my usually tee-totalling self might be tempted here…), an old gaol, several art galleries and museums.


I can’t wait!!

Some random photos

We have some photos that aren’t particular to an area, but I’d like to share.
 

Max and Harry were most disgusted at the start of the trip that we are asking them to wash and dry dishes every day. It is so much easier having Mum AND Dad around to back each other up when getting things like this to be done, but it is only in the last few days that it is happening with a minimum of complaining/whinging/tears/arguments … 
 

Both boys are enjoying being able to spend a lot more time with their Dad than normal. Here Max and Trevor are playing Monopoly on Max’s DSi ….
 
 
 
 
 

Max working hard in Kimba

 
… and this shows an early morning shot of me typing up Max’s blog (maxayers.blogspot.com).

Yacka’s archives

The Easter Bunny or Bilby did find us!! He hid a big bowlful of Easter eggs around the caravan and annexe that the boys found with great excitement this morning.

“Max! The Easter Bunny DID come!”

After a breakfast of Hot Cross Buns toasted on the now working Weber, we played lots of Uno with Wayne and Marion from next door.


We visited Yacka’s archives after lunch and found a trove of interesting treasures.       Mrs Tilbrook, who we met yesterday at the craft shop, had brought a number of things to the archives for the boys to look at… a large piece of quartz, a piece of granite with a tiny stream of gold running through it, rock with copper inside that had weathered and oxidised to a greeny colour, stones that local Aboriginal people had used years ago to grind seeds into flour …. She was fantastic and had the boys engaged by her stories!


The photos in the archives went back to when the town was first settled in the 1870s. I was able to show Harry photos with ladies in town with high-buttoned jackets, hats and long skirts as well as young girls in pinafores and dresses. We also looked at cars from the 1950s and old school photos through the decades.


A funny part was showing Harry and Max an old library catalogue that was used before computers were invented. I remembered using a similar one when I was in primary school. They found it hard to believe that every publication needed to have its own typed catalogue card!
We were also shown through the Town Hall by a lady called Tracy. Tracy’s mother’s family, the Badmans, had lived for many years around Yacka until Tracy’s grandparents retired to Adelaide in the 1970s. The grandparents had had three children: one stillborn son, one son who was killed in a car accident at 16 years old and a daughter (Tracy’s mum) who left the district when she got married, so the Badman name had left Yacka too. Tracy and her husband live in Adelaide. A few years ago they bought a vacant block in Yacka’s main street to build a small weekender on. It turned out that the block she bought actually belonged to her grandfather many years before.
In the Town Hall were many memories including two old machine guns from World War I. The smaller rooms on the side of the hall have gorgeous pressed tin ceilings. I was able to point out features like old fashioned metal door handles and circular power points to Max and Harry.
It was an altogether fascinating afternoon!


I have to get fired up to cook a roast for dinner as Trevor has “done” dinner the past few nights. It is so warm and still that I am ready for a long nap though! A most wonderful Easter Day.

discovering Yacka…

We are still here and loving it! We have decided to stay here for a full week so that we are covered for Easter and the Anzac Day long weekend. Also, because if you stay 6 nights, the 7th one is free. I’ve worked out the trick to keep the shower hot, we have power, a gorgeous park and playground so all is good.
Today we followed a ‘Historical Walk Map’ of Yacka. Here are some of the things we saw -

Yacka Institute

 Anzac memorial

The old railway stat

We were a little tempted by the man selling the old school teacher’s house built in 1912 for $190 000 … the stone work was exquisite, but as you’d expect reason prevailed.
A community craft shop was opened which reminded Trevor and me a lot of the late 1990s versions of ‘The Villiage Pedlars’ in Balingup. As well as being an outlet to sell locally made crafts, it stocks milk, bread, newspapers, a few food items and sells icecreams. While we were there today they sold quite a lot and all of the profits go back into the town. We all had an icecream to support it!
We shared a barbeque and campfire tonight with the two retired aged couples and another family (with 5 kids) who are also staying here.

I hope the Easter Bunny finds us in the night!

Harry is now blogging too!

Our whole family is blogging now! I set Harry's blog up today - link is at the bottom left of this page. So cute!!

in a town called Yacka

Tonight we stopped at a town called Yacka in South Australia. We stayed at Whyalla last night, and after a long trip to the Whyalla Maritime Museum where we got to tour the HMAS Whyalla (first used in WWII) we drove to Port Pyrie in search of a caravan winder. Our winder got accidentally left in Kimba a couple of days ago, and last night Trevor managed to put up the van with a jemmy bar and a wrench. He didn’t want to have to do that again as as well as being a pain, it risks damaging the van.

We went to the caravan place in Whyalla, but the nearest winder was a long drive away, so at 2.30pm off we set. We all enjoyed the drive around beautiful South Australia, looking out at green paddocks and the Flinders Ranges, and we made it to the fantastic Port Pyrie Outdoors store before it closed at 5pm. Yes! We had the new winder! But now we need to decide where to stay…

When we are at caravan parks, they have tended to be overcrowded, a bit impersonal and very expensive, but they have power and showers. Many of the free sites are just a piece of dirt on the side of the road that are too basic for me.  We’ve found a few community managed campsites that are excellent (see blogpost on Kimba for example) but these aren’t that easy to find.

I had a win this afternoon though when I flipped through a Tourism SA booklet and found the town of Yacka. Yacka was once a bustling town, but in the early 1990s they lost their school and many other services. What is left includes a campground and park; a craft shop that also sells basics like milk, bread and papers a couple of churches and not a lot else.

At $15 a night Yacka’s campground is relaxed, has power, showers/toilets, a huge playground and grassed area to run about in. The internet connection is a bit dodgy, but we mostly can get it. We’ve decided to set up camp here for a few days so we can focus on the kids getting their travel diaries updated and Trevor getting some study done and the big plus – not having to do the whole “pack up our van” thing. We’ve got the packing and unpacking down to a fairly fast operation now after 2 1/2 weeks on the road but it still feels like it takes forever. When we don’t get to a campsite until after 6pm (like tonight) it is an annoying thing to have to do in the dark.

Over the next few days we can just take in the history of Yacka, and use this as a base from which to drive to other places to explore. And the best bit – come home to a set up van!!

We swam with sealions!

What an amazing day we’ve had! The four of us went on the “Baird Bay Ocean Experience” tour today ( see www.bairdbay.com ) and had an incredible time. We were taken by boat to Jones Island with a couple from Queensland, and the wild sealions living there came out to play.

This shows us all in wetsuits before we got on the boat. You’ll see a dolphin and sealion carved into the limestone.


No more photos yet as they are on an underwater camera which needs to be taken somewhere to process, but stay tuned!


Max did especially well as the water we were taken out to was cold and also rougher than he is used to. He’s really only swam in swimming pools and the calm Dalyellup and Cottesloe Beaches before. I found the swim hard and needed some help from the lovely Alan who ran the tour. Harry was very excited but freaked out as soon as he got in the water, finding it too ‘cold and scary’.  He sat in the boat for most of the trip. He has been a bit uncertain of water since taking a tumble into the Bunbury Hospital pool as a 2 year old and also,like me, finds changes in temperature difficult to cope with, so his reaction wasn’t surprising. As expected, Trevor found it all to be fine.


Once we were in the water the sealions slowly came to visit – they are not fed or deliberately trained or anything like that, so actually getting to play with them is very lucky. They twisted and turned around us – sometimes getting close enough for us to touch their whiskers. Max even got a smooch from one!! They have short fur – almost like a dog’s, and while they look pretty ungainly on land, their swimming abilities are phenomenal! They somersault about so elegantly and in the water their bodies turn into sleek swimming machines.


We also went out to find some dolphins – only Max and Trevor went in this time as I was tired out and incredibly cold, even after a hot Milo and biscuit. They only got to see a few dolphins as, in Alan’s words, the young males ‘are all too busy fighting’. Even so, it was amazing to see wild dolphins up so close.


If you ever happen to visit Baird Bay, Alan and Trish’s tour is really worthwhile.       It sounds cliched I know, but my memories of today will last forever.

Beautiful Baird Bay

South Australia has some gorgeous little fishing towns – a bit like WA’s Windy Harbour or Horrocks Beach. We keep coming across them and they’re so quaint and remote.

We’ve spent last night and tonight at a community managed campsite in Baird Bay. There is a map of the town and the only public facility other than the campsite is the phone box (which is a significant feature of the map!).

We took a drive today to Venus Bay and Port Kenny. These towns were a bit bigger, both with roadhouses, caravan parks and a general store. We had a pizza tonight from Port Kenny “the best in Port Kenny” but I have to say that Trevor’s pizzas are way better!! Lots of people must take their holidays in these towns and just fish, fish, fish as the parks were busy with lots of vans and tents.

Harry and I came across some kids and their Dads who had been fishing in Baird Bay today. They came off the boat with a big bucket of fish. I asked what they were and was told “salmon! Here, take one if you like!!’. I would have loved to, but we didn’t have anything to fillet them with. I probably should have taken one and wrapped it in foil and cooked it whole on the camp BBQ. Unfortunately I didn’t think that in time! Maybe tomorrow… These guys were catching salmon today to use as crayfish bait tomorrow!

We also visited the ‘Woolshed Cave’ and ‘The Tub’ just out of Venus Bay. It is incredible to see the power that water has over time!

PHOTOS

more photos from Fowler's Bay

‘Rolling Down The Sandhills’

(with apologies to four of my favourite musicians!)
I got some photos of Max and Harry in the sandhills at Fowler’s Bay before we left this morning!! We didn’t get as high as yesterday (when I broke Max’s camera…) but the photos give a good idea of what we got to see:

 

Harry also is getting attached to every dog we meet on the way. This photo show he and Max with Maggie, the caravan park owner’s dog. We lost Bella a couple of weeks before we left which was upsetting for all of us, but particularly for Harry. When we get home we will get another dog – all of us really miss having have one around.

We drove south to Streaky Bay today. Streaky Bay reminds me a bit of what Mandurah used to be like before it got enormous. It is a bit touristy, but also very local. We are staying at the completely full caravan park, and we sit only about 30m away from the water which is full of pelicans, scrounging a bit of fish from the large number of fishermen who fish here.
Trevor has to work on a uni assignment tomorrow – he’s going to the community library that is just over the road and has free wireless internet access. Staying at the caravan proves too much of a distraction as he found when trying to work in Fowler’s Bay. Max, Harry and I aren’t the problem, it’s the other campers who Trevor can’t stop himself from chatting to! The boys and I are off for a drive on our own which should be a lot of fun – stay posted for the photos!

Fowler’s Bay

After a very long day driving yesterday (428km with lots of stops in between) it was just lovely to wake up slowly at Fowler’s Bay and not have to worry about packing up the van and heading off. Fowler’s Bay is a quaint little fishing town off the main Eyre Hwy which has a permanent population of less than 100. It has little other than accommodation and a few houses. It has been fantastic though.

As I sit here typing, the waves are crashing which is such a relaxing sound.

The town has very few vehicles and as a result Max and Harry have been riding their bikes furiously. Max was proud of himself this morning as he helped “an old lady” out by filling her bucket up with sea water off the town jetty, as the steps to the water were uncomfortably steep for her. He told me “as a Cub I’ve done my good turn for the day!”. Good on you Max!

Just before lunch we all went for a bike ride down the town jetty and around the town. We found out that Fowler’s Bay was named by Captain Matthew Flinders on his voyage on ‘the Investigator’ in 1802. He named the bay after his First Lieutenant Fowler who later became an Admiral. It has an old telegraph station in much better condition than the Eucla one, but somehow we all liked being able to climb the Eucla one that is part filled with sand in the middle of nowhere…

We all loved the sandhills that we spent a few hours climbing and jumping, sliding and rolling down them. I had one of ‘those’ moments today when Trevor, Max and Harry were whooping with delight as they set off down a hill and thought how wonderful this trip will be for us. I think we sometimes get so wound up with the things we do and are involved in at home that we forget to have fun with each other.

I managed to get sand into Max’s camera (I was NOT popular with Max or Trevor….) while getting there, so unfortunately don’t have any photos to post…. We’ll try to get some more before we leave tomorrow.

The Great Australian Bight

Today we crossed the WA/SA border! We yelled ‘5..4..3..2..1.. South Australia!!’ together!!

We stopped off at several turnoffs to view the Bight. The views were truly glorious everywhere we stopped as these photos show!! What an amazing part of the world!!

 

more of the Bight...

We found the Great Australian Bight so incredible to see!