27 march Wentworth to Burra and 28 march to Port Augusta

Easy drive today via Morgan for lunch by the ferry and on to Burra for the night. feature birds today are kestrels, kites and eagles, often having to slam on the breaks, doing a u turn and deliberating on whether the “wing fingers” were long, the tail was square or the white extended to the shoulder. Pretty serious stuff this to tell the difference between a letterwinged kite and a blackshouldered kite! Did the Burra sites again.

Burra in its copper mining heyday was the 7th largest town in Australia and largest inland town. next day hit the Gulf and headed north. A short detour to Port Germein to see sea birds for the last time and the town’s one claim to fame having the longest wooden pier in Australia (it used to be 1.7km).

The highlight today was an 18km bushwalk in the Remarkable Range NP. We started the 7 hr walk at midday thinking to just have a stroll up the Alligator valley into Hidden Valley and return. It was so fantastic (so remarkable in fact) we did the whole loop (in 5 hours). Very spectacular red chasm walls and dry rocky creek, then along a ridge with coastal views.

25 march SwanHill to Wentworth

One week on the road and already one week behind with the blog! If you were astute you probably noticed a couple of yesterdays pics belong to today’s story! Last night we enjoyed the “Harmony Festival” in SwanHill, eating multicultural delights and watching Indian, Bangladeshi and Phillipino dancing and singing.  Travelled via Hatta Kulkyne NP to find some new scenery and birds (41 bird species yesterday) but not many today. Happy to see a wedgetail eagle. Had two nights at the confluence of murray and darling, with a lazy day in contast to the last three or four weeks.

24 march. Albury to Swan Hill

Waved goodbye to Emma and Pat, with instructions to sell the magna for lots of cash, look after Joy and Bruce (the fish), use the washing machine and dryer wisely and frequently, eat the dozen tins of beans and our left over herbs and spices. Avoided the floods at nathalia (Liz didn’t think there would be a prob becos “there were bridges”) by driving via Shep to see Ellie and Dan. took the obligatory tourist pic of cows. continued to SwanHill to stay at Joy and Bruce’s (not the fish, but Robyn’s sister and mayor Bruce of lemoncello fame).

Farewells, and away we go

Goodbye retired riders- thanks for your wellwishes (and the greenedge shirts) look at Tony with puffed out chest.

Goodbye emma and pat- looking forward to seeing alice in darwin. Goodbye Liz family in tallangatta and talgarno. and tricia and david and Tom and Barbara and leigh and Val. Thanks for dinner and bed over the last week.

Sellingup, Packing up, getting out of the house by 16 march

sold the house on  Saturday 3rd feb, got a good price we are very happy with. Had a 42 day contract so we were out on the streets on 16th March.Officially homeless. We had a lot to do.

Had a garage sale on the first saturday after the sale which didn’t give us/me enough time to sort out the unwanted, the rubbish, wanted things for our return,and the needed stuff for our trip. Tony reckons we should have got rid of a whole lot  more of my precious collections and posessions. Got rid of the obvious unwanted crap at sale but they didn’t want my beautiful ‘lounge project’ It went to the tip. Along with all tony’s garage shelves and stacks of rubbish collected over 14 years. loads of stuff was returned to the op shops (tho they were a bit fussy)

Bought a 20foot container which was placed in Lowen St beside the house. We thought there would be plenty of room! Started packing boxes, ran out of boxes, packed more boxes and more boxes. Tony reassured me there was plenty of room in the container. got most of the big furniture in even the big table. All stacked perfectly with no gaps, until….no more room! palmed off as much as we could to willing family and friends and the over flow was stacked up in Wals shearing shed. The container was transported out to the farm on the back of a truck and hopefully the gear inside survived the jaunty angle it required with loading. I haven’t the heart to look inside

Emmas wedding

What a great day! Emma looked beautiful. Verna made the beautiful flowers. The service was held at St Patricks, Church, Albury.