Slow Build in Oz

[MickinOz]

I had a great overnight camping trip.
Several Southwark beers (AKA Green Death), fish and chips on the bar.

The RV park at Mundoora South Australia is a little gem.
These are scattered around rural areas, generally aimed at getting people to stay a while and maybe spend a little.

In typical country RV park fashion it has:
A small toilet block, complete with drop point for RV sewage tanks.
BBQ hut - free electric BBQ
Shelter areas with table and seats
Take one / leave one street library.
Donation box - nobody's checking to see, but I do $1 for every time I use the toilets or run the BBQ, so it usually comes out about $4-5 per night.

This little park is about a 2 minute walk from the community run "sports club".
A sort of country tavern/pub where the beers were $5-6 depending on brand and whether happy hour was still running, and the fish and chips were $12.
By South Australia standards, that is incredibly cheap.

Retired to the trailer just after 9pm, watched about 1.5 Star Wars movies and settled into a nice snooze.
Up at dawn for coffee, fruit and cereal, home by 10:30 am.
As soon as the sun came over the horizon, my monster over-sized solar panel started cranking in the amps. I'm very pleased with the system.
I weighed the trailer on the way to Mundoora. Fully loaded, with water, spare beers I ended up not needing, snacks, breakfast, ice, everything, she ran 572 kg.
Fully loaded.
I'm happy, except she's now 72 kg on the hitch. Perfectly legal, within all tolerances and specifications, but more than I want to lift.
But I have been cogitating on a small modification that should trim that nicely.

Breakfast time.JPG (213.38 KiB) Viewed 2514 times

BBQ.JPG (95.2 KiB) Viewed 2514 times

Old and New.JPG (216.91 KiB) Viewed 2514 times

[MickinOz]

Library.JPG (166.09 KiB) Viewed 2509 times

Sadly the donation box sounded suspiciously empty when I was feeding my gold coins in.
Could it be my fellow Aussies don't fully appreciate how good we have it?
I can only hope the other three RV's in the park were planning to make a contribution before they left.

Donation Box.JPG (48.28 KiB) Viewed 2509 times

[MickinOz]

Took a beach trip. Overnight stay not far from Port Germein, South Australia.
High tide was at midnight, my instructions from various keen fishermen I know was "Give it a go and let us know how you get on."
So I set up camp in a light misting rain that managed to just get everything wet, sticky and uncomfortable without noticeably reducing the temperature, cooked boerewors over my portable firepit for dinner, and settled in to watch House of Dragons until the tide came in.
No regrets fitting the little 2m x 2m awning - enough space to sit out of the rain while the sausage was grilling over the coals.
One thing I noticed - at 7:00 pm under an overcast sky with misting rain, the panel was still pushing 0.75 amps into the battery.
No fish came to the celebration, so about 1 am I hit the sack for the night. I took my mate's advice and put the awning away before I turned in.
Glad I did, it was fairly breezy when I awoke at 7.30 am.
On my list of things to buy are some of those screw in sand anchor pegs.
Being quite breezy, I towed the outfit back into Pt. Germein and found somewhere more sheltered to park up for coffee and breakfast.
It was signposted "no camping" but was right alongside a picnic shelter and BBQ area.
Port Germein is another of those areas where the council provides free BBQs.
Local cop must have known I hadn't been there all night, she just gave me a smile and a wave.

Germein Beach Camp.JPG (122.61 KiB) Viewed 2461 times

Awning.JPG (168.77 KiB) Viewed 2461 times

[featherliteCT1]

Looking good! Did the wet sand stick to your shoes?

[MickinOz]

Looking good! Did the wet sand stick to your shoes?

Shoes? What is this thing you call shoes?


Despite my best efforts, the cabin has far more sand in it than I am happy with.
I will have to take out the mattress sheets and pillows soon, possibly even fire up the vacuum cleaner.

[edgeau]

Looking good! Did the wet sand stick to your shoes?

Shoes? What is this thing you call shoes?


Despite my best efforts, the cabin has far more sand in it than I am happy with.
I will have to take out the mattress sheets and pillows soon, possibly even fire up the vacuum cleaner.

That sounds serious

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[rjgimp]

Library.JPG

Sadly the donation box sounded suspiciously empty when I was feeding my gold coins in.
Could it be my fellow Aussies don't fully appreciate how good we have it?
I can only hope the other three RV's in the park were planning to make a contribution before they left.

Donation Box.JPG

That’s some fine looking accommodations there, mate. Do the pages in those books turn right to left or left to right down there…?

[MickinOz]

Library.JPG

Sadly the donation box sounded suspiciously empty when I was feeding my gold coins in.
Could it be my fellow Aussies don't fully appreciate how good we have it?
I can only hope the other three RV's in the park were planning to make a contribution before they left.

Donation Box.JPG

That’s some fine looking accommodations there, mate. Do the pages in those books turn right to left or left to right down there…?

Left to right, but we be holding it upside down. That's the trouble with down under we have to study for years to be able to read the books upside down.

[featherliteCT1]

I have been trying to clean up my language for years after I heard a guy define "vulgarity" as the feeble attempt of a feeble mind to make a feeble point. I relapse too often.

[MickinOz]

We define vulgarity as "Speaking Australian".
There is no doubt about it, most spoken Aussie adjectives start with the letters F or B.

I'm off to nail a bucket list item. Well, I really have a "might do that one day" list rather than a full-on bucket list.
There is a ghost town up bush called Farina.
As in, the Italian word for flour.
When it was surveyed in 1878, it was envisioned that the district would become the "granary of the north".
The rains never came, so that dream fell away, but for a while the town was the rail head for the old narrow gauge line.
When the new standard gauge line was laid to Marree, that fell away too.
So now it is ruins being restored by a volunteer society.
One of the first things they restored is the underground bakery, with its woodfired scotch oven.
Its open for business 2 months of the year.

So that's the goal. I'm about to tow the teardrop 500 miles to buy a pie and a sausage roll, and photograph an old oven in the Outback.
We are loaded with food, clothes, tools and firewood. Still debating whether to throw in a hunting rifle.
The campgrounds are $10 per person per night, and are luxurious. Apparently, if you light the donkey, you can even have a hot shower; and the toilets flush.
This picture from the restoration society website.

Farina Bakery.JPG (85.19 KiB) Viewed 1932 times

[edgeau]

Sounds interesting.

[MickinOz]

Ever wondered what The Outback looks like?
I call it MAMNAL.

MAMNAL.JPG (33.08 KiB) Viewed 1898 times

[MickinOz]

The Oodnadatta Track is not what it used to be, thank goodness!
By which I mean, it is now blacktop to Maree.
Total amount of dirt road to Farina is now about 2000 metres, from the turn off from the Oodnadatta Track to the old township and the camp ground.
The bakery was alive and kicking, and we even got a hot shower, after I donated my firewood to the donkey.
I was impressed by the water quality. I expected very saline/hard bore water. But, to my surprise it was quite soft, and my ordinary soap raised a decent lather.

Light the donkey.JPG (97.9 KiB) Viewed 1894 times

Hot showers.JPG (52.05 KiB) Viewed 1894 times

[MickinOz]

The point of the trip was to see the old underground oven in action.
The bloke running the oven is a professional baker, who took his vacation to come and bake bread in the middle of nowhere.
The fuel is mulga or gidgee - types of acacia. Wood turners and makers of art pieces look away - we don't want to see you cry as hundreds of dollars of prime mulga hits the fire box.

Mulga for firewood.JPG (104.68 KiB) Viewed 1883 times

Baker at Farina.JPG (140.83 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

Unloading the oven.JPG (86.58 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

[Tom&Shelly]

Ever wondered what The Outback looks like?
I call it MAMNAL.

Reminds me of a place in West Texas...well, any place in West Texas! Or extreme East New Mexico for that matter.

Seriously, this sounds like a great trip! The modern US Park Service's answer to a fire wood heated shower is the solar shower, which doesn't work as well on cloudy days! Think I'd like your solution better!

Tom