Friday, April 6, 2007




The Vinters hit the road!
Months of planning and preparation culminate as we finally hit the road.
We started in a mad panic but managed to set off roughly on time. Our first night was spent bush camping at Newnes as we tried to familiarise ourselves with our camper trailer.
From there we have traveled across NSW through the Hay plain and to Broken Hill which we enjoyed far more than we expected. A highlight was the underground mine tour at Daydream Mine (an old silver mine) Got to wear the miners helmets with lights and went 100 feet underground.
Whilst in town we had the suspension beefed up a little whilst there as we seem to have packed enough to last a nuclear winter.
Boys having a great time and can't imagine trying to fit in any school work. Since BH ("The Hill" to locals) we have crossed into SA and traversed the Flinders which were spectacular. Wilpena Pound in amazing. The are some fabulous walks to be had however, we had to settle for some of the shorter ones which were still very interesting.
We then drove the Ootnadatta Track though the Simpson desert and some of the strangest little towns you could ever see. We even had some rain! plenty of flies too....I have even had to wear the "fly net" and look like a real tourist.
Last week we did the Red Centre and saw the Uluru and Olgas, then up through Kings Canyon and visited my brother in Alice.
Some of the roads we have traveled over have been hideous....miles of corrugations. Touch wood we have only been bogged once...so far.
We are now up in Katherine but there is too much water in the rivers so we are not allowed to swim or canoe!!!! Who said there was a drought? Both the Flinders and the Red Centre have been much greener than anticipated and certainly greener than western NSW.
In the next few days we will be heading west into WA and Kunanurra where we will hang out for a bit...fishing?, etc.
Apologies for the condensed nature of this post, we will endeavour to keep the blog more up to date....some pics to follow.