Chased By Rain

We decided to escape the heat of the Flinders and head for Broken Hill, on the way briefly stoping at a couple of towns looking for a hook to grab passing travellers. The first was Orroroo which had the “Big Gum Tree”.  With a 11m circumference the 500 year old tree was a reasonable place to stop for a cuppa.

Estimated to be over

500 years old, this giant

red gum tree is over thirty

four feet in circumference!

The next town was Peterborough, which had its answer to Red Dog in Bob the Railway Dog. A little local quirkiness meant another interesting interlude in what was a boring trip otherwise.

The story of Bob, railway mascot,  begins at Terowie in the mid north of South Australia.  Bob in a cattle truck at Terowie (where he was a special guard) with about 50 other stray dogs from Adelaide who were consigned to a rabbiter at Carrieton. He took a fancy to him and when they got to Carrieton offered to buy him. The rabbiter refused. He would however do a swap – one dog being as good as another! Willam went on to Pt. Augusta, found a stray dog at the Police Station, returned and made the swap.............and the rest is history.
A few months later William Ferry transferred to Petersburg as Porter/Guard and by the time he left in 1889 for Western Australia was Assistant Station Master. During this time Bob had graduated from travelling the line with his owner, to free spirit, jumping on and off trains as the mood took him, making interstate journeys and short suburban trips on trams as well as trains (he also made river trips on the Murray Steamers.)

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Then we crossed into NSW and Broken Hill.  First port of call was the Umberumberka Reservoir, the town’s water supply and Mundi Mundi Lookout over the area.  They are both more than 30kms from town but it was a pleasant drive,

Then to Silverton about 27kms North West of Broken Hill.  It was the site of the original silver finds in the area although now it is a ghost town except for the Mad Max museum complete with car and the Silverton pub which has featured under other names, in a number of movies and ads including Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Mad Max.  The town also had a very good historical display but Marty embarrassingly told them that their photo of Australia’s first test cricket team was not the team at all!

We also saw the spectacular Living Desert Sculptures, a series of large and very impressive rock sculptures done by a variety of Australian and international artists who each tried to capture their feeling for the country and the area.

Broken Hill is home to many artists and we were keen to see the works of the most famous of them, Pro Hart.  A visit to the Pro Hart Gallery, complete with his studio as it was during his lifetime was very worthwhile. The garishly painted Rolls Royce was a highlight.  Continuing on with the arty theme we saw the world’s largest canvas, all 21m of it.  We decided to buy a painting that encapsulated the landscapes we have seen: big sky, red dirt and billabongs. We also cooled off with an old fashioned milk shake at Bell’s Milk Bar and Museum.

While in the town we looked up Marty’s nephew David who was staying at the beautiful Lake Menindee. This gave us an opportunity to see the lake and catch up with David and his long term mentor Merle.  The first of the big rains came while we were at the lake, a forecast of things to come.

Unfortunately the stay in Broken Hill was ruined somewhat when some idiot pinched our empty fuel jerry can from the camper trailer while we were asleep. Everyone in the caravan park seemed to hear it except us.

We knew the rains were coming so headed to Cobar via Wilcannia.  We were lucky as the road to Broken Hill from SA was closed the next day.  We only overnighted in Cobar and then headed through Nyngan and Narromine to Dubbo.  Marty “oohed and ahhed” over a statue of Glenn McGrath in Narromine.

In Dubbo we spent a day at the Western Plains Zoo.  It was fun seeing the exotic animals in their natural habitat.  We got lots of info on the animals and it was a good day.  We also visited the old Dubbo gaol but would not recommend to others as previous gaol visits had been much better.

The other feature of our stay in Dubbo was the rain.  We got 91mm in one day but least we know we can camp in that sort of weather and not get wet at all inside the trailer.  Unfortunately our abiding memory of Dubbo happened during the rain.  We decided to eat our tea in the camp kitchen in the caravan park, about 20m from the trailer.  During this time a very nice person stole both of our laptops from the trailer.  It is not so much the laptops but the bags that they were in that were important as they contained a day by day diary Marty has been writing and a few other personal mementos. Bastards.