Grong grong, Ganmain, Coolamon and Junee

A fairly quick pack up around the house and then into Narrandera.  We didn't stop there, but did head out to look at the lake across the road to Barellan.  From the number of cars coming towards us the road was now open, although the spread of water across this area which was dry 2 years ago is most impressive.

Back to the highway and off to Grong grong.  This name apparently means "poor campground" in the language of the local indienous people.

As we drove up the main drag we noticed a Memorial Hall.  Despite the absence of this town from the Register of War Memorials there was one front and centre.  In the image it is just visible as a black line in the doorway.

While looking at this I thought I heard a muzzein.  Hang on, it isn't Friday and the mullah rarely refers to cowgirls (or barrel racing).  Yep we were just down the road from the Rodeo which kicked off at 8am.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time

I think the latter image should be titled "Homage to Thelwell" for any Pom readers!

Some of the cattle seemed to have been dissed more than somewhat by a small dog.

We also checked out the cemetery.  The most interest there was the way many of the graves had been rebuilt well after the interment they represented.

After taking a few snaps we headed into Ganmain.  Looking for War Memorials we found our way to St Brendan's Church.  While I went inside

looking for the memorial Father Mark spoke to Frances and then showed us where the memorial was. He then explained that a lot of the woodwork in the sanctuary had just been upgraded by a craftsman, using River Red Gum.  Father Mark was himself a craftsman making rosaries out of fly-fishing kit!  A great bloke and we wish him well in his job.

There were a few interesting shopfronts in the main street of Ganmain.

On the way into Coolamon we checked out a patch of Callitris woodland beside the road.  A few interesting plants as well as an infestation of Opuntia.  Carrying on down the road we passed by the village of Manaar where we couldn't find a memorial, but did find this interesting mural.

Coolamon was fascinating with a main street containing a range of historic buildings with a park in the middle.  My favourite building was the offices of a legal firm making much of it's century of work - under various names - for the litigation enthused members of the community.

 It is instructive to compare this sign with the one for the same flour product in Yenda yesterday.

Junee was quite good, once we got by having to wait twice for a monster train (I think of grain trucks) to go through crossings.  At the first crossing the gates were dysfunctional so they had reverted to fleshware to hold up the cars.

We did a historic walk

 When was the last time you saw a 2c coin?

and thought we'd extend it a tad and check St Lukes Anglican Church for memorials.  A couple of ladies were doing some work in the community centre adjoining the church and one of them offered to let me in to see the Honour rolls in the Church.  These are not in the Register but hopefully will be soon: many thanks nice lady!

Then merely roll on down the road for a couple of hours (plus a bit) and home.  Feeling knackered!

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Day 1 To Wentworth

This first day is basically a blat of 862km across the Hay Plain to Wentworth.  Hopefully we'll get there early enough for a bit of a look round.

After an early start to the day we left home at 6:50am.  A small dog was esconsed on the usual high pile of bedding for long trips:

We travelled through Canberra, rather than Bungendore, to avoid the macropods.  

On, on past Yass in rather foggy conditions.  This abated after about 200km when we turned off the Hume Highway (which was being heavily haunted by Mr Plod).   Actually, the fog was replaced by showers that happened more or less all the way (another 650km) to Wentworth.  Ho hum: welcome to Winter!

Once off the Hume the amount of water laying around in the paddocks was astonishing.  This was, I think  left overs from the rain in February-March coming down the pipe (aka the Murrumbidgee).  The worst remnant was the trashed fence beside the servo at Narranderra.

Out on the Hay Plain ... 

...  the great surprise was the amount of baled cotton around in the paddocks.  I have always thought these farms grew maize not cotton.  The round bales are apparently a new technology.

We were listening to an interview on Radio National (ABC – the Australian equivalent of NPR)  about Woody Guthrie which was very interesting for 120km – 1 hour, 2/3rds of the distance between Narrandera and Hay!  It was impressive that we could pick up the station – albeit on different channels all the way across.

A bit later we came across a herd of cattle being droved along and across the road.

There were lots of raptors around all the way across the Plain.  Black-shouldered Kites were the commonest (perhaps averaging about 1 per 5km), but Nankeen Kestrels  were also common and Black Kites appeared in kettles of up to 10 birds later in the trip. (There is a more rigorous commentary on this on the last day.)

Before Hay we saw no emus but in the leg towards Balranald we saw quite a lot.  The first was a flock of at least 12 and the later groups included a couple of controversial sightings:  1 on the Northern side of the road and the other on the Southern side, but between the road and the fence.

After Balranald we had a small drama with a rubber seal around the windscreen deciding to migrate.  It was disciplined: hopefully well.  Not so: it required help as detailed in two days time.  About this time the weather started to look a tad average.

On arrival in Wentworth we had a little difficulty getting in to the unit but a touch of controlled violence on the key safe solved that. We then went for a stroll around the town which seems rather pleasant.  


This memorial is to the Grey Fergie.  They are given justified approbation in this town as they were the workhorse in shoring up the levee in an a lajor flood in th past.

 I am unsure what the catfish has done to deserve encapsulation in a seat!

 An Anglican Church.

 The War Memorial.

The school dates from 1881.  I like the post boxes/nest boxes in the front.

I also like this old water tank posing in front of sunset lit clouds.

I noted a plaque about Major Mitchell accompanied by one about the “Dig Tree”.  This seems to have been where he left some doco  about his stouches with indigenous folk in case he ended up not making it back to Sydney.  A small amusement was a bloke charging out of one of the many pubs asking Frances if she had had lunch there today.  It emerged that someone that looked “a bit like you" had done so and left their mobile phone behind. A nice touch.

Getting back to the units I noticed a couple of doggy trailers in the drive.  It turned out they were used by a heap of greyhounds which were inside the unit and keen to discuss matters with Tammy: as we unloaded the car herself escaped and was equally keen to see the 'hounds.  Fortunately we recaptured her before the bloodshed occurred (I don't think she would have won).

The place is generally good, apart from lacking a decent reading light (and we forgot to BYO – which we have known to do for yonks).

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Day 2: A day in Sunraysia

Today is intended to be a break in the drive, looking around two interesting Murray River towns.  Also buying some of the excellent beer from the Mildura Brewery.

We were a tad late getting up after an ordinary nights sleep.  After breakfast we headed off to see a couple of things in Wentworth.

The first of these was the confluence of the Darling and the Murray.  This was pretty impressive as a history/geography tick but not really that exciting as a visual spectacle.  The marker of the point where some early explorers forded (I suspect that means swam) across the Darling caused us to think a bit but we didn't find the dig tree.

What was impressive was the nearby Lock 10.  It was a rather nifty bit of engineering – especially the special routes built in to allow fish to swim up past the weirs - but the number of birds around was really good.  Pelicans, Silver Gulls, White-necked herons and Whistling Kites stood out.  All are fish eaters and I presume as the fish ladders attract fish they also attract their predators

We then drove past the old Gaol.  It is now a tourist attraction, but between that role and the centre of incarceration it had provided overflow classrooms for the nearby school.  

We carried on out to some sandhills.  They were OK, but not up to the standard of White Sands (New Mexico); Death Valley (CA) nor Coffin Bay National Park (see later).

Time was pressing so we wandered in towards  Mildura.  While still in NSW we went to look up the War Memorial in Dareton so we could tick that off.  Initially the ladies at the Coomealla Club denied there was a memorial there, but a third person said there was a plaque beside the flagpole at the school.  She didn't think it was a real memorial “as they don't have a march there on ANZAC Day”.  In fact it was a nice little memorial with 4 plaques to various conflicts. 

Some of the kids had - as is often the case in country towns - done a mural nearby on a school building.

We then took the Calder Highway, going into Victoria.  The area we went through had a lot of vineyards which looked very run down.  Many of them were weedy, some hadn't been pruned and a few just had the trellising.  Perhaps the dried fruit trade is in the dunny?  This got us to Merbein where a market was happening.  We checked that out and then attempted to find our way to the Mildura Brewery using a really bad tourist map.  We got there 20 minutes later than we had told our friends.

I like the Salvo's op shop being next door to the Brewery!  Inside all was gleaming steel.

Despite our lateness, and very slow service we enjoyed our beers and lunches.  As we had Tammy with us we ate outside  and she was very well behaved, only making one bolt to follow a punter into the brewery.  (This caused the punter to make a friendly reference to 'doorbitch' which proved he was quick in assessing the sex of dogs and suggested he had some experience of the seamier of life in Mildura.)  Frances had a Honey Wheat while I tried Storm Cloudy ale and Stefano's Pilsner.  Carol got a tasting tray so we sipped the entire range.  All good.

We walked the Art-deco tour of the city centre

and then strolled along the riverbank to Lock 11 which was not pet friendly so we headed back to a small sculpture park, passing through some  sort of kiddies athletic event.

We went to the Australian Inland Botanic Garden as we headed home.  Dogs were allowed on leads so they earn a huge tick.  A rather low  key place but quite well set out and it did a fair bit for the bird trip list.

We tried to find our  way to the indigenous walking trails around a lagoon at Wentworth but failed miserably.  As we were tired  after our day we headed back to our unit.

Bird of the Day:                             Australian Pelican

Plant of the day:                            Unknown flowering Acacia at the confluence!

Most interesting thing of the day:  The system of locks and weirs on the Murray

What we learned today:                  Fishways in the weirs.

The brewery's doors are opened wide,

And I am next in line;

The friends are met, the feast is set:

None hears small Tammy whine.

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Day 9 Buildings and Bottled Goods

Probably hang out in the area.  There could be some serious investigation of food (various German cakes, bread and sausages spring to mind) and bottled goods (there must a winery somewhere in the Barrosa that isn't suffering from kitsch fatigue and sells its booze cheaply).

The Arte Johnson character from Rowan aand Martin's Laugh-in played a storm trooper prone to pithy sayings.  When I worked in Adelaide we took his diction and a cliché from many war movies to come up with "You still haf relatives in der Barossa Valley?" as the ultimate threat from a colleague of Prussian ancestry.

If we did in fact have relatives in the Barossa Valley they would probably be seeing quite a bit of us!  The day was basically Frances's as staying in the Barossa was her idea.  Somehow a place less than 200km from Adelaide has always seemed like a day trip rather than a multi-day stay,  Indeed on this trip it was originally planned to just stay 2 nights.  However today was an excellent day and there are hopes for the morrow.

The night was interesting in a birdy sense, as whenever either of us woke we could hear Magpies carolling away. I presume this is one more element of a South Australian July being a Canberra September!

The small dog was continuing to vote for the Suffolks being the most interesting sight of the morning.

We began with a walk from our accommodation along Neldner Rd to Seppeltsfeld Rd. 

This was a very pleasant stroll past vines with lotsa nice gum trees along the road, occupied by many parrots.  The range of parrot species has been pretty good also: Adelaide Rosella, Musk and Rainbow Lorikeets, Red-rumped Parrots, Galah and little Corella.  The Gnadenfrei Lutheran church on Seppeltsfield Rd was very picturesque, especially with a well sung version of "The Lord is my Shepherd" wafting out from an early morning service.

Back in the road, the avenue of palm trees was, as recognised by many tourism operators in the Barossa, stunning.

The palms are also evident in this image, taken mainly to capture the decrepid thatched barn.  I doubt if there is anyone in the area who could do thatching these days.

After getting back home we took ourselves to the Information place in Tanunda and got a bunch of information.  Our first use of the information so gathered was to do the historical walk around Tanunda.  This was really good as the whole area seemed to have largely retained its historic character.  

The German gravestones were a highlight, 

with a special mention going to the memorial to Pastor Kavel who led the Germans (OK, Silesians - mny of them came from what is now Poland) from their homes to get religious freedom (and start the quality end of the South Australian wine industry- sorry Dr Penfold)!

The Kugelbahn (skittle alley) was particularly appealing as it was near Langmeil Rd and I have really enjoyed some Der Kugelbahn Shiraz produced by Langmeil Winery!

We then decided to visit the Barossa Brewery, but found they didn't open for a while.  As Frances had found where the local sewage ponds were located we filled in a bit of time there, adding several species of waterfowl to the trip list.  On returning to the brewery I found they could supply me with Organic Ale (5.3%) and Bee-sting Honey Wheat Beer (5%).  After my passing the plastic the owner asked if I had other plans for the day and on my response of "Yes, I plan to do as my wife tells me." he said "Ah.  A normal day then."

We then headed for Angaston, which town (IMHO- I did see it called a village) also had an historic walk.   The walk was a "join in anywhere" item which was a tad disconcerting as we ended up doing it in reverse, causing some issues from time to time.  The churches were interesting contrasts of denominational architecture - Anglican first, then Uniting:

and our old favourite question from country NSW "What have all the banks become?" came back as a good question.

 The pubs, usually remain as pubs.

Frances swung in to Angas Park Fruits (dried stuff) but found their prices far higher than we would pay (for similar fruit but other brands) in Canberra. 

After this we went to Nuriootpa which did not offer an historic walk, nor much else to cause us to put on the brakes until we got out to the Sturt Highway.  There was an interesting moment when we saw an official sign giving the population of 'Nuri' as 829 which seemed far too low.  At the other end of the town we found it was actually 4829! 

It didn't take us long to get to the other end of town as it was simply a commercial centre with very little of the old part of town in existence.  On the outskirts it appeared that modern suburban living was alive and well - or as close to alive and/or well as a modern, garden free slum can be.  What is it about the song "Little Boxes”, made famous by Pete Seeger, that people do not understand?

One conclusion we reached about this was that it is necessary to maintain a critical mass of historic buildings if the character of a town is to be preserved.  That had been done in Tanunda, and just about done in Angaston.  Nuriootpa had failed completely.   This view correlated very closely with the amount of traffic parked in the main street of each town.  (A similar comparison exists between Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto.  Many European towns and cities have got it right by preserving the historic centre and only letting the forces of evil loose on the outskirts.)

When we got to the Highway we headed for bow-tie central - also known as Wolf Blass Wines!  They were offering a special deal where a purchase of a dozen Silver Label earned a bonus six Shiras Vigonier.  That worked out to about $10.91 a bottle which is around the mark for a good bottle of red.

Our final stop of the day was at Maggie Beer's Farm shop where Francie acquired some excellent pate and a sauce.  The pate has been assessed on toast and rated extremely highly.  Well done cook!

Bird of the day:                     Pink-eared Duck

Plant of the day:                    Grape vine [They don't have to be pretty endemics!]

Interesting sight of the day:  German cemetery at Tanunda

What we  learnt today:         The importance of a critical mass in conservation.

 Each town brass-band, has got a hall:

Of yellow brick designed!

They play upon the ovals,

Their oompahs most refined

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