Menindee

After spending a fortune on worms trying to catch something better than a stinking carp we gave up and decided to head into Broken Hill, around 116ks away. Lashed out and chose to stay in a 5 star 'top tourist' caravan park arriving early, around 11.30. Turns out it was very lucky we head into town so early as the park has been at 100% capacity every night for the last week or so and if we'd arrived any later they wouldnt have had a site for us. Bit of a strange park, there is different types of areas and all with different prices. Only a very small grass area, most of the park is bark, some sites are on bitumen and a few are on dirt. Doesnt give it a very homely feel, seems more like we are at a caravan show on display!

Weather has been awesome, shorts and singlets in the arvos but it is meant to get cooler, down to 15 for the next few days.

We've been out to Silverton, a historic mining town under 30ks from BH. It was an interesting drive, there are 31 floodways so it feels like every 100mtrs you go down into it then out with a jump (when dylan's driving lol). Beautiful little town, I think it was established around 1880 so everything is lovely and old. Drove out to the Mundi Mundi look out, amazing view! Visited the Silverton Pub, and even though it was only 10.30am Dylan felt the need to have a beer or two there. Max was lucky enough to have one too (juice).

Called in at Jack Absaloms Art Gallery which is in a gallery he built adjoining his house, very pretty building. We were pretty keen to go see it and were really hoping we'd get to meet the man himself, as we'd watched all his outback dvd's etc. However it was not a very nice experience! We rang the bell, twice, an old cranky thing (Jack's wife) answered, not with a hello, but 'I heard it the first time' then as we were wandering in she snickered at Max but Anna was ok because 'she wont make the noise'. A few others wandered in behind us, apparently they get around 100,000 people through it every year. The old wench sat herself behind a counter, the other tourists asked if Jack was around, she said he was out the back painting. They had brought a book in to be signed, she took in and said 'i'll take it out to him in a minute'. We thought great, he'll come out and say hello and sign their book, and we'll get to say g'day. Nope! She took it out had it signed and passed it back without saying anything. Very rude lady indeed!!

We sat in on a School of the Air lesson today with the kindergarten kids, it was really interesting to see how it all works and to learn how well the station kids are still able to take part in all the normal things that happen in schools, such as school camps to ballarat when they are learning about gold, or canberra when learning about parliament. They also have house sports days and station sleep overs. The little ones were very cute answering every question with ' Grace from Turlee Station - yes, over'.

3.30 and the caravan park starts to fill, it seems everyone rolls in around the same time so its peak 'backing viewing' time. Witnessed what I believe will be up there with the best. Two well aged grey nomads, one medium length van, zero reversing skills. The man didnt know which way to turn his wheel and the poor lady at the back kept putting her hands up to try and maneuver the caravan into the right spot. After many attempts the driver finally got out and said 'that's not too bad' and they left their van parked on the wrong side of the site, so they had no room to pull out their awning (too close to the next van). The lady just said 'we can just put our chairs over here' pointing to the spot where her van should be and on the opposite side of her van to the door. Dylan and I had to hide out in the van because we couldnt contain out laughter.

Max has made friends in every camp we've stayed at, usually of the grey nomad variety, today it was a 3yr old boy!!!! Finally someone else travelling with little kids & thankfully they are camped right behind us. Max could not contain his excitement!! They had lots of fun playing with Max's matchbox cars and roads playmat. The tan bark came in handy as they made roads in that too. They had a ball, Lachie has been on the road for 6 weeks and seemed also very excited to have another little boy to play with. Bedtime came and an exhausted Max kept screaming for 'more Lachie, more Lachie'.

Another night in this 5 star noisy as hell, shitty old toilet block, no grass caravan park (can you tell i'm not impressed with it) then we leave for Cobar, a big day of around 450ks. Reckon we'll need to pull out the dvd player for the car and maybe even the lollypops for that drive.

Max's saying of the holiday: 'What's that noisy dad?' (doesnt stop as there are so many new sounds)

Kms travelled so far: 2188

Jess driving hours: 1!!

No. of fish caught: 48

No. of fish we've got to eat: 0

May 21, 2012

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