Here we are in NSW ...

... but for how long? The rules have just changed (again!) and it now looks like we can go to South Australia, depending on a negative COVID test. Excellent! Stick a swab up my nose ... I'm keen.  Just let me get to the Flinders Ranges!  So really our plans have just been delayed by 10 days or so - and we have been to some rather lovely places.

Junction of the Darling & the Murray, at Wentworth

Once we realised that we could leave the diseased and locked-down state of Victoria, we went to Wentworth, home of a lovely old goal and the site where the Murray and Darling rivers join.  Apart from a rather drunk man in a hoody who insisted on playing very loud, obnoxious music, we were taken with the beautiful scenery and the lovely birds.

Wentworth Goal, the first goal in Australia that was designed for australian conditions

After being tourists at the goal, it was time to go out and relax in the bush and we found a lovely campsite in the Yanga NP, near Balranald.  We were perched on the banks of the 'Bidgee, as Col (you'll meet Col soon) would say, surrounded by majestic river gums and a multitude of native birds, including two magpies and a cheeky noisy miner, who seemed to be the camp birds.  

Yellow form of the crimson rosella

Striated pardalote

Near our campsite was the Yanga Woolshed, an enormous place that was built in the late 1800s.  It could fit 3000 sheep undercover and had that unmistakable stink of lanolin and urine.  Mmmm hmmm!

Sadly, we had to escape the campground due to forecast rain.  However, we weren't finished with Balranald ... which I found to be quite a fascinating little place.  It had an art gallery which boasted the addition of an Anh Do portrait, sadly tucked away in the back room.  The lady there was only to keen to tell us all about it ... and about everything and anything else she could think of.  Boy, she could talk!  But that was nothing to Col!

Corellas, the evening chorus in Balranald

Balranald also boasts the Southern Cross Museum, which houses the replicas of two planes flown by Charles Kingsford Smith, the Southern Cross and the Lady Southern Cross.  The connection to Balranald is that he landed there in 1933 for a short visit (a rather tenuous reason for having a museum).  The shed (an old Ford garage) houses the two replicas, various old cars in different states of repair, memorabilia, old bottles, tools, machines, etc, etc, etc.  It also houses Col, who greeted us with "Yous'll need a bit of time here.  I've got a lot of history to tell youse."  And we did.  And he did.  For over an hour.  In the end, Liz interrupted the flow to say that we really did have to leave soon ... but we couldn't get away that easily!  He sat us down and told us about a German 44-wheel drive petrol driven monster truck and the invention of semitrailers and the stock crate and lazy bogey wheels and ..... I'm laughing at him but he was quite magnificent!  He had a passion and interest in all things Balranald and just wanted to share it all with us.  Heather Ewert of Backroads, you need to meet Col!

Liz in the Southern Cross

Col and his captive audience

Not far from Balranald is the little town of Moulamein, which is famous for being the home of the biggest river redgum in Australia.  It has a circumference of 11 metres!  We went on a walk to find the tree ... found it and hugged it ... walked further on and found the real Big Tree (the first one was obviously only a Biggish Tree).  The trees along the 'Bidgee are beautiful, with their patterned trunks and huge girths.  If we end up escaping to SA, these magnificent trees and broad rivers are something I'm going to miss.

Phill at the Big Tree

Me hugging the Not-So-Big Tree