We headed north east through the Barossa Valley, then east along the Sturt Highway through the Riverland to Renmark, across the border to Mildura, Victoria, then very shortly across the border into New South Wales, now heading south east. We camped by the edge of Lake Benanee, not far from Euston. It was quite hot, and the tiny flying bugs were out in force! Winny was full of them. Rick attacked them with spray (cough, cough, yuk) and next morning we had to sweep all the little blighters out.
18th Feb, heading east, we set off to cross the Hay Plain towards Hay. I drove the easy part, along the nice flat and relatively straight road into Hay. Rick took the wheel next, and we drove approximately 280kms to West Wyalong, before turning north east to Forbes, another 100km and our next camp site.
There had been a lot of rain through this area recently, and there was evidence of flooding; small lakes in paddocks, roadside ditches looked like creeks.........
The Lachlan River in Forbes, where we camped the night, looked very high.
Next morning, 19th Feb, we drove through picturesque and wet countryside towards Orange. Along the way we had to stop and watch as an 82 year old bloke ploughed his paddock with an old fashioned horse drawn machine. We chatted with him awhile, and he said people often stopped to watch him work. Below are a couple of pics.
On towards Orange, the hills were getting bigger, then to Bathurst it was like a roller coaster, up and down, up and down............. LOL
Just before Lithgow (and the Blue Mountains) we turned north on the Castlereigh Highway to find our next camp for the night. This was another hilly winding road. We stopped at a lookout and what magnificent views! 2 photos below.
We camped beside an old hall in the tiny village of Ilford, very quiet here, nice view of 2 big rocky hills jutting out of the green paddocks in which sheep were grazing in the early evening sunshine. Life is good.
Saturday dawned nice and warm and sunny. We set the GPS to help us find Milkwood Farm, and it directed us to a narrow, winding, bumpy dirt road on top of a ridge; this looked a bit scary, but we decided to trust the GPS. Took an hour to travel the 20 kms to the farm, the road was so bad. We were told later that was the quick way in! 4WD vehicles handle the road much better than our motorhome.
For the next 2 weeks we had classes in the wool shed and outside; worked on projects and absorbed as much information as our old brains could manage. We were fed delicious farm fresh food, enjoyed the company of the other 6 students and our hosts and their families.
Below are links to Milkwood Farm's websites.
http://www.milkwood.net/
No comments:
Post a Comment