| Who: |
Howard & Christine |
| Where: |
Brisbane - Broken Hill - Brisbane |
| Distance: |
about 3200km |
| Time Taken: |
9 days |
| When: |
Easter 07 |
 Tears at
Broken Hill
Easter
2007
Howard's Journal
Wednesday 4
April 2007
We were
planning to leave about eight p.m. but then I reckoned that if we left very
early Thursday morning we'd be able to get to Broken Hill at a reasonable hour
on Friday afternoon.
Late
afternoon I hitched the brand-new trailer and brought it up to the house so we
could load it. This was going well until I decided to check the trailer's lights
again. What I found floored me: the brake lights and turning indicators were OK
but the tail lights and number-plate light were dead. This threw me into a bit
of a panic and instead of trying to reason out where the trouble lay I tried to
test the wiring of the plug and socket with a multimeter. In the process I
managed to blow a fuse in the car, so that its tail-lights were not working
either.
This brought
me to my senses and I started to reason things out. The most likely place for
trouble was where I'd modified the wiring to add the number-plate light. Sure
enough one of the wires had pulled out of the terminal block I'd added to the
system. This was easy to fix and I was able to borrow a fuse from another
circuit in the car (the one for the interior lights and radio) to get the
tail-lights working on both the car and trailer.
Thursday 5
April 2007
We were able
to get away at about 5:30 a.m. I'd spent a lot of time trying to work out the
best route. There is no "best" one really, and so I decided to try roads that
were mainly new to me, starting down the Pacific Highway to Grafton, then
cutting across to the
New England Highway
at Armidale.
It was light
by the time we reached Grafton and took the road to Armidale. The road soon
became quite winding and steep, with the auto transmission often down to second
gear. Somewhere about Ebor we must have taken the wrong turn and we were headed
for Guyra instead of Armidale. Twenty Km of gravel got us back on track.
Gravel road
are like Brer Rabbit's briar patch to me but I was pleased to find the trailer
towed pretty well on this surface too; although we discovered when we stopped
for lunch that it's not completely dust-proof.
From Tamworth
we left the New England Highway and headed west towards Gunnedah and
Coonabarabran. Along the way we pulled into a park and had something to eat and
a snooze -- Christine on a rug with the dog and me in the trailer. So at last I
fully realized the benefit of towing our little trailer.
The
sun had set by the time we were approaching Gilgandra, looking for someone to
stay for the night, after having travelled 850 Km that day. We found a caravan
park just east of the town with a nice quiet private spot for us. For the first
time we put up the little tent for the dog to sleep in and I went off to a
nearby roadhouse for a couple of take-away meals.
See
http://www.rotarycaravanpark.com.au for details of the park. It's a possible
venue for next Easter's get-together.
Friday 6
April 2007
Another
pre-dawn start soon found us in Warren, where we bought petrol and headed
towards the
Mitchell Highway.
There were big flocks of cockatiels beside the road. Taking the Barrier Highway
at Nyngan gave us the feeling we really were making progress.
At Cobar we
bought coffee (well, they said it was coffee, but Christine was doubtful) and
hot-cross buns for our Good Friday breakfast. We sat at a bench just opposite
the big Cobar sign. At
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stara you can see the photo I took there and a
few other pictures of our trip.
Next there
was a 260 Km drive to Wilcannia. This seems a very remote, almost forgotten,
little town, but once it was an important river port. In the drought the Darling
River has long since stopped flowing. At the BP petrol station we were told that
just half an hour before us a big man with a bushy beard in a
Toyota
ute towing a Teardrop trailer had bought petrol there. We had no idea who that
could have been...
So we were on
the road again towards Broken hill, with another 260 Km. to drive. There were
lots of dead kangaroos beside the road, with crows feeding on them. We saw a few
wedgetail eagles too.
When a huge
mullock heap came into view against the horizon we knew we were nearly there. As
Christine drove into the city I tried to orient myself to the map and find some
street names. We drove all the way along
Argent St.
and back without finding any. I realized we needed to follow the signs for
Adelaide. And there on our right, just short of the city's dead centre (see
Flickr photo), was our destination.
We were at
the Broken Hill City Caravan Park
http://bhttp.tripod.com, where Paul had booked several places for our group.
Because we had a dog, we were not close to the others. The benefit was that we
had our own ensuite bathroom.
We set
ourselves up and before long we were visited by a tall youthful man who
introduced himself as Paul. It's funny how we gain a visual impression of a
person we've only met over the telephone or by email. I'd imagined Paul to be
stocky, even plump, with a fleshy face, plenty of dark wavy hair, a moustache
and thick-rimmed glasses. He has none of those dubious attributes.
Paul told us
we were all to meet up at sunset, and so we did. There were:
-
Paul
himself, with Katrina. From Adelaide (500 Km), they towed Paul's second
Teardrop build, off-road Benroy-style, 8' x 5' sheathed with white fibreglass
panels and finished just in time for this trip.
-
Reiner and
Samantha used one of Reiner's Teardrops (of course), a nice green five-footer.
By taking the "shortest" route from
Brisbane
http://www.goseeaustralia.com.au/plantrip.asp , they would have driven
1458km, saving maybe 100Km on a more sensible route that avoided 300 Km of
gravel -- well, dust really, much of it being collected inside their Teardrop.
Editorial
Note: Yes, yes, yes... we
had some fun with the super fine, red dust of the outback, but with the pressure
hatch in the new Desertear we have that one under control. Our teardrops are
generally dust and waterproof, but the red powder of the outback is something
that needs to be seen to be believed. As to why we went off road with the Belmontear? It wasn't
really to pick the shortest distance... we like kilometres... it
was just that dirt roads are so much fun! Reiner may have been born in Germany,
but he has Aussie outback running through his veins now. And what better way to test the
quality of our campers and make necessary improvements than to try them
ourselves on the toughest roads our country can offer.
-
Jeremy,
Emma-Kate and Seth also were from
Adelaide.
Their Benroy-style Teardrop was Paul's first build, unusual in having no
lift-up lid at the back. Instead there's a kitchen that slides out from from
the near side, like some of the camper trailers. It's sheathed with fibreglass
panels, to give a perfect white surface finish. With its 9' x 5' dimensions
and its huge off-road tyres it's a real giant. While camping, Jeremy likes to
prop it up well off the ground on four jacks. He must move around inside a lot
more than most people do...
-
Glenn towed
his four-foot-wide teardrop 850 Km or so from
Melbourne.
It's something of a power house, with two 100 A-h batteries in the back, solar
panels on the roof and all kinds of fancy electronics inside.
-
Rod took
the distance record by towing his four-footer 2800 Km from
Perth, all
by himself. At the end of our weekend he planned to meet up with his wife and
family in Adelaide and then return home with them across the Nullarbor.
-
Leroy
brought his Teardrop from Brisbane, the fifth one built by Reiner. Travelling
with him was Barry, engaged for the tour as chef. In case you are wondering,
they were not sleeping side-by-side in the four-foot wide Teardrop: Barry had
a nice little tent all to himself.
-
Christine
and I towed our home-built Square Tear design from the Gold Coast. It's
painted plywood on the inside and lined with carpet on the inside and just
wide enough to take a standard double mattress. There are no side doors and
entry to the sleeping compartment is through the rear hatch, fitted with a
unique feature: an upside-down neoprene hinge.
-
Keith, from
Brisbane. As he had sold his Teardrop shortly before our trip,
he brought along a conventional caravan he'd built himself. At least it was
conventional on the outside. Stepping inside was like getting into the Tardis:
dining room, bedroom (fitted with an island double bed with a huge mirror on
the ceiling above it), kitchen and bathroom, all in just 12' x 7'. He was
rumoured to have stowed away in a cupboard a complete disco outfit, with
mirror ball, smoke generator, strobe lighting and sound system.
Saturday 7
April 2007
In the
afternoon Several of our group visit Silverton and the Daydream mine. Barry and
Leroy managed to scare Christine off going inside the mine by saying it is a
ples masalai i.e. there is a spirit in the cave that might harm her.
That evening
we met for the big prize-giving ceremony. At stake was a magnificent trophy
donated by Reiner: a model Beetle and Teardrop, mounted on a wooden base and
compete with a brass plaque. After a secret ballot the trophy for the best
home-built Teardrop was awarded to Paul. As we decided it shouldn't be a
perpetual trophy, Reiner will have to come up with something next year too.
Following
this, most of us went to a local hotel for dinner. On the way home there was RBT
roadblock. They waved most of our people through but picked on Keith -- a
non-drinker -- for some reason.
Sunday 8
April 2007
Some of the
women were keen to go to a craft market in the morning. In the evening we got
together again at sunset and in due course gravitated to the barbecue area for
dinner
Monday 9
April 2007
All except
Keith, Howard and Christine left in the morning for their return journey, after
a really successful inaugural Easter Teardrop convention.
Planning for
next year's Easter event is already under way. Queenslanders will be pleased
that most likely it will be somewhere in northern News South Wales. Maybe we'll
even attract a few Teardroppers from that state.
Tuesday 10
April
In order to
do the return trip in two days we had an early start. It was still quite early
by the time we reached Wilcannia. We bought petrol and I took a couple of photos
along the almost deserted streets. My guess is they'd not really be busy at any
time.
At Cobar we
decided to head for Bourke, directly north along the Kidman Way. The country
around Bourke seemed more affected by drought than anywhere else we'd seen. What
ground cover that was left was grey rather than brown and many trees were dead
or dying. There was water in the
Darling River
but it was green and stagnant, held back by a weir below the town.
We headed for
Brewarrina (Bre to the locals), still not certain where we would stay for the
night. At Walgett we bought petrol. Noting all the business premises with metal
security screens over their doors and windows we thought it better to find a
place to stay elsewhere. I'd never seen Collarenebri, but my guess was it
wouldn't offer much on the way of facilities for tourists either. So Lightning
Ridge, about an hour's drive north of Walgett, seemed the best idea.
We arrived at
Lightning Ridge just after sunset. The first park we tried was full and the
Crocodile Caravan Park across the road, almost in the centre of town, was nearly
so, but we were given a space near the front entrance. (See http://www.wj.com.au/accomodation/croc.html).
We had 240V and water and some shade under a peppercorn tree.
We set
ourselves up and I strolled over to the bottle across the road for a nice bottle
of red, then just up the street to the bowling club for a couple of take-away
meals.
Wednesday
11 April 2007
Christine
liked Lightning Ridge so much we decided to have a full day there. The photos at
Flickr will give you an idea about how we spent our time.
Thursday 12
April 2007
I arose at
4:00 am to ensure we were away well before sunrise. The dog's tent didn't take
long to take down -- it had almost fallen down already. Temus had been on his
best behaviour throughout or trip, barking only occasionally at passer-by as he
sat on guard duty in front of our camp.
As we drove
north in the early dawn towards Hebel, just over the border with Queensland, we
saw hundreds of kangaroos on the road. On this road they were mainly live ones
and, in due course, the inevitable happened and we christened our bull-bar.
Christine, who was driving at the time, was very upset: I was to blame for
making her drive too fast. But it's just about impossible to avoid every
kangaroo.
 We bought
petrol at Dirranbandi. The shortest way home, bypassing St. George, took us
along a secondary road to Thallon, about 20 Km of it gravel. Somewhere along the
Barwon Highway we stopped at a roadhouse for a breakfast of meat pie and coffee.
We were told that it was even stevens whether it was quicker to drive to
Brisbane
via Toowoomba or Warwick.
We by-passed
Goondiwindi and headed for Toowomba. I expected to find petrol on the outskirts
of the city, but there were no petrol stations along our route until just short
of Milmerran. The gauge was creeping so low I cut the speed by 10 Km per hour to
make sure we got there. At the petrol station I barely resisted the temptation
to say something to the woman driver who'd been tailgating me for the last 20
Km, despite many opportunities to overtake as I drove at 20Km per hour below the
110 Km per hour speed limit. Why do people put themselves and others in danger
in this way?
Our drive on
to Toowoomba, down the range, then through to Gatton,
Ipswich
and the Gold Coast was without incident. We rushed along without stopping for
lunch, keen to get home; we arrived at about
3:30 pm.
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