From Cobar to Marree . . . movies, ranges and fresh bread

It's two for one in this blog, as we've been out of service area for days (isn't it wonderful?) so there are two posts:

July  3

It was a big day of driving from Cobar to Broken Hill, through Wilcannia, but fascinating. Green, green growth surrounded us and at one stage John was sure we were seeing patches of white clover. I was a bit more sceptical, so we stopped to investigate . . . and it turned out to be small white wildflowers popping up after recent rain.

Lots of goats were grazing either side of the road, quite a few sheep, and just a few cattle, as well as small groups of emus. The Darling River at Wilcannia is a bit sluggish, but there’s nothing listless about all the caravans, motorhomes and camper trailers on the road. There was an enormous queue for diesel in Wilcannia and many were heading for Birdsville, via SA.

For those of you who know their Australian history, particularly its mining history, you’ll be delighted to know that we spent the night at Mt Gipps station, north-west of Broken Hill. It was there, in the days when the station covered one million acres, that a boundary rider, one Charles Rasp, found an interesting rock on a ‘broken hill’ and he and six other men from the station registered a mining claim that eventually became BHP.

Mt Gipps, today only a property of 82,000 acres, runs Dorper sheep, a meat breed that does not need shearing. The owners, John and Kym Cramp, have started a small tourism business, using former shearers’ quarters as accommodation, as well as just a few caravan/motorhome sites. We thoroughly enjoyed one night there, then went into Broken Hill to do a heritage walk, check out a museum, try to stay warm in absolutely freezing, bleak conditions, and took a drive north-west to the former mining centre of Silverton.

It’s now just a small village, with several artists running galleries, and the day we visited, it was full of technicians, their vehicles, and a hive of movie-making activity.

The rain scene at Silverton.

Outside one of the galleries, a friendly driver told us it was an HBO production, for the third season of a series called The Leftovers (never screened in Australia) with most of the crew from Melbourne, and others from the US. He was waiting for the director’s PA, who was in the gallery trying to find just the right gloves for the director, who did not want to leave after two weeks of filming without a pair of woollen Aussie gloves.

As we watched, from an elevated position, two huge gantries started spraying water on the action below. The driver told us it was to create rain for a particular sequence. All most interesting, and one look at the huge assembled technical crew (apart from any acting talent) explained why movies and TV series cost so much.

We stayed in Broken Hill overnight, then left for another fairly long drive into South Australia, through saltbush country to where the Flinders Ranges start to appear. During a quick stop in Peterborough we were lucky enough to see the Indian Pacific train go hurtling through on its way from Perth to Sydney.

North of there, we turned off the bitumen onto a rather wet dirt road leading to Almerta station, where we’d arranged to spend a night.

What a delight it was. Friendly people, and a wonderful campsite in the pebbly bed of a wide creek. We had it all to ourselves, were provided with firewood for a lovely campfire (but the cold

In the bed of the creek on Almerta station.

eventually drove us into the motorhome) and were even loaned a book on the area’s history. It’s coming up a busy time, and the family running sheep here have already told their three children they’ll be spending their school holidays marking lambs. It’s been a family concern for three generations, and they also run a shearing and crutching contracting business, with 20 people working in SA and NSW for 11 months of the year.

July 7

After a fabulous few days in the Flinders Ranges, which so impressed us we ran out of superlatives to describe them, we headed north to Maree, which was not only getting ready for the Marree Camel races, but also hosting some of the 7000 people who had attended the Big Bash at Birdsville and had driven down the Birdsville Track on their way home.

We spent several hours driving around the Flinders Ranges National Park, from our nearby base at Rawnsley Park station, which has quite a sophisticated range of accommodation, ranging from a caravan park (where we stayed) to cabins and eco-villas (not sure where they differ, maybe the eco-villas have long-drop toilets!). There was also a restaurant, where we washed down lamb and kangaroo meals with a local red.

We jolted around 4WD tracks through the park, with some of them actually running along the beds of creeks. The geology of the gorges is amazing, spectacular, and colourful and markers along what is known as the Geological Trail told us how old some of the rocks were . . . from 525 to 600 million years.

The glorious Flinders Ranges

It was a cloudy, slightly cold time, so we didn’t have a joy of seeing those rock formations with sunshine on them. The motorhome is no longer pristine, with quite a bit of mud underneath, but not doubt it will get worse.

A work in progress . . . the old post office.

Then on we went, north to Blinman, and then west to Parachilna, through more spectacular gorges, and we reached a main road spearing north into the great flatlands of Sou

th Australia, past the great coalfields of Leigh Creek until we reached the fascinating area of Farina.

It is just a collection of stone ruins, like many other ruins in this part of SA, but the difference is that there is a restoration group which annually travels from many parts of Australia to work on those buildings. Along with that work, they bring a bakery caravan and marquee, with signs on the main road that the bakery is open bringing large numbers of travellers.

The 1880s underground oven at Farina.

The baking is done in an underground oven built in 1880 and restored about seven years ago. We bought fresh bread rolls which we scoffed for lunch, then checked out the bakery chamber where two volunteers were trying to decide if a tray of pies was ready or not. The retired Army baker who’d made them had retired for a rest, so there was a bit of debate going on, and much laughter.

The volunteers with their pies.

We helped their fundraising for the restoration project by buying two bottles of the Barossa wine they’d had specially labelled Farina Restoration, enjoying the first that night at Maree, about 50km north, where fellow campers included many who’d driven in from Birdsville, and were looking forward to their first showers in five or six days.