Australia Road Trip # 3 - Elena, Romi & Eun-Ju
Day 1
After staying up all night finishing my last uni assigment for the year, at 7:30am I was half delerious and ready to embark on our journey. The day's hightlight was a brief stop at Woodstock Hotel (which despite the name, had more no free love and dope, but rather, local yokels who for some reason found Romi extremely humorous). Finally, we arrived in Grenfell, once home to Henry Lawson - the town's one claim to fame. Too tired to pitch a tent, we instead opted for a cheap motel with "tasteful" 70's decor and a cynical, world-weary owner who sarcastically informed us that Grenfell was the most exciting town west of Sydney. For dinner, the most viable option was the local Chinese restaurant. Assurances by Romi and I that this was an authentic Australian experience were met by Eun-Ju with scepticism, but we all enjoyed the meal regardless.
Annandale
Woodstock Hotel
Day 2
The flat tyre we discovered in the morning was but a minor setback, and we were soon on the road again. The day's activities included lunch in the self-proclaimed "Shire of Bland" and yoga outside the public toilet block in Rankin Springs, the latter which was met with odd looks from passers by. We set up camp for the night in Balranald - it took us a mere hour to get the tent pegs sufficiently deep in the rock hard ground, a feat which was only achieved once we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to find someone in posession of a mallet. Before bed, Eun-Ju and I went for a walk in town, where local youths, who appeared to be no older than twelve, rode up and down the street making passes at us.
Public toilet - Rankin Springs
Day 3
In the light of day, we came to notice that the town was being taken over by frogs; they were everywhere, stealing trolleys of food from the supermarket, wheelbarrows from the hardware store... We went to the local RSL (another not-to-be-missed authentic Aussie experience for Eun-Ju) and stuck around for the Melbourne Cup, for which Romi picked the winning horse. After purchasing a fly net hat to complete the tourist look, we left the town and headed to our first planned destination - Mungo National Park. Upon arrival, we picked out a campsite in an open, windy area just metres from the shelter of a large mulga tree; a decision we regretted greatly that night when our tent very nrealy blew over.At sunset, we decided to take a stroll through the beautiful park to the visitor's centre a couple of kilometres away. By the time we had begun to head back to the tent, it was extremely dark, and Romi became more than a little concerned when a passing park ranger stopped his car to warn warn us of nocturnal snakes native to the area. As we later discovered, the area is home to four of the world's top ten most deadly snakes.
Romi - Balranald
Mungo National Park
Day 4
Awoke to find one of our biscuits decidedly smaller than it had been the night before, but as everything else appeared to be intact, we thought nithing of it. Enjoyed a lazy morning before succumbing to the needs of our inner tourists and booking ourselves on a sunset tour with an Aboriginal guide who captured Romi's heart. After the obligatory didgeridoo (or yidakee) demonstration, we walked along the "Walls of China" sand dunes, where winds and rain have exposed ancient fireplaces containing animal bones dated tens of thousands of years old. Late that night, the furry culprit of the previous night returned to very audibly ransack the annex of the tent.
Eun-Ju
Roger
Mungo Lunette
Elena & Romi - Lake Mungo
Day 5
More evidence of the biscuit thief - another biscuit, still perfectly round, but again smaller than usual... Left the national park and journeyed to Wentworth, where the Darling and Murray rivers meet. It was quite hard to believe that this town had once seriously been considered as a contender in the search for the town which would become Australia's capital city. Under the pretense of practicing her English (a poor excuse indeed), Eun-Ju purchased Mills and Boon novels from the local Hardware store/op shop. We then spent the evening on the beautiful red sand hills on the edge of town, where we watched the sun set.
Elena & Romi - Wentworth
Day 6
The day was stiflingly hot, so we went for a swim in the surprisingly cold river before heading to Broken Hill.
Eun-Ju was excstatic about our decision to take the lazy option and stay in a caravan, an experience which she claimed made her feel like a movie star.
Romi & Eun-Ju - Wentworth
Eun-Ju - Broken Hill
Trailer Trash
Day 7
The extreme temperature continued. Upon waking, we peeled Romi of the vinyl mattress and ventured up the café atop the slag heap for a morning coffee. The rest of my day was almost identical to my previous trip to Broken Hill in March, so a photographic explanation will probably suffice...
Eun-Ju & Romi - Café on Slag Heap, Broken Hill
Royal Flying Doctors Service - Broken Hill
Mario's Palace Hotel - Broken Hill
Day 8
Drove to Silverton, a virtually abandoned mining town, where we saw art galleries and the old gaol, as well as visiting ye olde café and the famous Silverton Hotel. In the evening, we arrived in White Cliffs, another mining town which was once prosperous but today has very few mines and less than 200 residents, the majority of them living in underground dugouts. Unable to resist its tourist appeal, we checked in to the world's largest underground motel for the night, where the only other guests were a (slightly disturbing) couple from Campbelltown.
Silverton
Postman Pat - Silverton
Romi, Elena & Eun-Ju - Silverton Hotel
Hurrah, a pit stop!
Dugout - White Cliffs
Day 9
After a bit of fossicking in the mounds surrounding the hundreds of abandoned mines and a very quick drive through Wilcannia (with car doors locked), we stopped for the night in Nyngan, a sleepy but pleasant enough town situated on the banks of the Bogan River.
Day 10
Left the caravan park in the Bogan Shire and drove to Sydney's own boganville, the Central Coast, where we spent the night.
Day 11
Back to reality and Sydney traffic jams after a fine holiday.
