Sunday, 9/30 Topar Roadhouse to Umberumberka Reservoir

Emus and roos, we lose 30 minutes, and bad flies

      Since there wasn't any grass or even clean dirt at the roadhouse to pitch our tent we had decided to have our first go at sleeping in the LC. The good...easy to get an early start, the bad...not a whole lot of room between the bed and the ceiling and a fog of condensation on all the windows, and the ugly...our air mattress springing a leak and hips and shoulders feeling quite sore after a night on the particle board. I wormed myself out of bed at 5 am, glad to stretch out and greet the dawn.

     Sunrise was a repeat of sunset, and since it's just after the equinox it happens about 12 hours later. So while we congratulated ourselves for getting such an early start, we had been in bed for over eight hours. As the nights get shorter we'll see how well we do at the crack-of-dawn risings.

     We had the road to ourselves with the sun at our backs, a pleasant way to drive. Emus and kangeroos waved at us as we passed by.

     Just a few kilometers east of Broken Hill is an imaginary line where the time zone changes. Because the town elders were mad at Sidney for not giving them enough credit for single-handedly transforming Australia from a largely rural country to a magnificently wealthy one, due to the silver, zinc and lead extracted from beneath their land, they snubbed the rest of NSW by adopting Australian Rules Football as their sport of choice over rugby, and South Australia's time zone and area code. In fact they wanted to join SA, but the fed'l government nixed that.

What the ...

     So while we're here, and in the rest of South Australia, we will be 13 ½ hours ahead of you in Ohio.

     There is another imaginary line running through the desert in these parts that the government has decreed the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone. All fruit must be discarded before crossing that line, which lies just a few kilometers east of Broken Hill. Hence our eating several oranges and apples the day before. What little we had left we deposited in a banged up rubbish bin at a pull-off on the FFEZ boundary, which other than a sign warning of spot fines if fruits were found in your vehicle, was the full extent of the official boundary. Zebra finches flew in and out of the bin, blithely ignoring the rules and probably infesting all of South Australia with fruit full of fly maggots.

Official fruit fly inspection crew

Broken Hill, exchanging money

     A huge silver lode was discovered here by a boundary rider in 1885, who created the company called Broken Hill Proprietary Company. It is now called BHP Billiton and is the richest mining company in the world, owning properties all over the globe. The second richest, Rio Tinto, is is also based in Broken Hill. Over 1.5 Trillion dollars worth of ore has been dug from the ground hereabouts. While there is still mining going on in the area, one of the mines currently is over 4500 feet deep, the bulk of the companies' operations is elsewhere.

View of BH from the top of the tip

     But the town of 26,000 is still vibrant, mostly due to tourism. BH bills itself as the “Real Outback”tm. That would be a little like Dodge City, Kansas trademarking itself as the “Real Wild West”, except more so, since around 90% of Oz could be considered the Outback. But BH serves as a base for hundreds of 4WD travelers arriving every day before heading out into the bush with their elaborate rigs set up with winches, snorkels, sand ramps, shovels, satellite phones, roof racks filled with jerry cans of fuel and water, up to four extra spare tires, etc, and many pulling similarly souped up trailers. I suspect most of them won't be leaving the gravel and sand Tracks that in dry weather can be traversed by ordinary cars, but it all looks very impressive. We, with our LC and bull bar, are about as far along the 'coolness factor ' curve as I am when I ride my 40 year old Schwinn Le Tour with my running shoes, white socks and neon green T-shirt... well, maybe a little further.

     We had oatmeal and coffee at a nice park in the city. Boys were enjoying the Sunday morning showing off at the skateboard park. One boy had dragged a stack of dirty old mattresses to the park and piled them up at the top of one of the ramps. Then, two or three of the braver boys practiced doing flips on their scooters. The tallest boy could do them perfectly and gave instructions on perfect technique.

     We attracted the attention of two blond girls who purposely wandered over to chat us up. Destiny, 10 years old and her sister Maddy, 8 had been to a beauty pageant the day before down in Victoria, and had just moved to BH. We figured out a bit later that that meant they were being juggled between divorced parents. Maddy had a tousled tomboy appearance, but Destiny wore an off the shoulder blouse and had a red bow in her hair and I think her presence in the park was to hang around the skateboarding boys.

      Destiny and Maddy asked us a lot of questions while we ate our oatmeal and cleaned up. They said goodbye, but about 15 minutes later Destiny returned with her friend Molly and Molly's little brother. We'd obviously become a local curiosity and Destiny was serving as tour guide. We talked about the differences between our countries and Diana brought out a one dollar bill to show the kids. Australia's currency is printed in different sizes and colors, so our all-green buck was something new to them. They turned it over and over, checking it out. Diana told Destiny she could keep it. Her eyes widened, and she thanked Diana. Then she pulled a 5 cent piece out of her shoe and gave it to Diana. A moment later she pulled another out of her shoe and gave it to me. It was a sweet gesture.

     We finished our breakfast routine and said goodbye to the kids, who wandered over to the skateboarding park.

     By then the visitor center was open where we picked up some maps, pamphlets and brochures. We used up most of the rest of the day at the library using free wifi for blogging, emailing and checking on car insurance, shopping for groceries, and a little sightseeing on BH's city streets.

     I wanted to find a place west of town to do some real bush camping. I had bought a simple topo map of the area and as we drove out the road to the old mining town of Silverton I looked around for a likely spot. We pulled up a dirt track leading to the Umberumberka Reservoir and were surprised to see a small picnic area complete with tables, barbeque grills and flush toilets at the end of the road. Well, it wasn't exactly bush camping but it was free and a really great spot. Although it was just past sunset I cooked our lamb and couscous dinner by their lamplight using the barbeque grill as a work table. Bush camping will have to wait for another time.