Fruitless Journey

25/01/2013
  Driving due west gives us the advantage of having the sun behind us so we stay cool until mid-day, when we have to use the cab air-con. We are trying to do most of our driving in the morning but we still have a long way to go, so inevitably we must drive through the heat of the day.
 The temperature today was bloody ridiculous, the further outback we get the hotter it is, must have been mid forties. We have reached Cobar, a mining town we visited before, and are now camped in the caravan park, sat in the  shade drinking cold beer (well it stays cold for a few minutes after leaving the eski) swatting flies and ants. Another big day tomorrow but at least we appear to be in the right place as there are severe floods to our north and bushfires to the south. Just love Australia!

 26/01/2013
  Australia Day and the place is shut. Well, not quite, we did find a couple of shops open in Cobar so we could stock up for the weekend, Monday being a public holiday as Australia Day falls on a Saturday. We bought everything we needed then drove the 500 or so K’s to Broken Hill which is on the NSW/South Australia border. Little did we know that because of problems with the fruit fly, a pest, it is illegal to cross (some) state borders carrying any form of fruit, including tomatoes. Just before the border there is a bin/pit that you have to chuck all your fruit in or face a hefty fine at the border. We made a token gesture chucking away some soft fruit that you can smell and hid the rest in the van. We got 4 grapefruit and some cherries in the safe, the code we could just remember, and hid the rest in the bedding locker.  When we got to the checkpoint there was nobody on duty and we sailed through a bit annoyed to say the least. Broken Hill looks to be a town we could explore for a couple of days, it’s a lot bigger than we thought and has some history. For instance, Broken Hill Proprietary, the mining company, is now B H P, one of Australia’s richest companies. It is said the coin tossing game, “Two Up” started here and I think it is the only town where it can be played all year round, otherwise it can only be played on Australia Day anywhere else in the country.
 Unfortunately we have to keep moving. Mind you, if all the towns were like Wilcania, a town we passed through today, nobody would stop anywhere! Wilcania must have been a wealthy town years ago judging by the fine old buildings there, but it has been left to deteriorate, all buildings now shuttered off. It is noticeable the town is now majority Aboriginal.

 27/01/2013
  Today we have scooted nearly 600K’s across the most desolate landscape you can imagine. Apart from the odd roadhouse or tiny town all we would have seen was desert scrub with a few emus and hundreds of goats, oh, and one or two kangaroos, mostly flat.  Now we are at Kimba, reputed to be halfway across Australia.
  After our bit of good fortune yesterday with the fruit fly Gestapo, we got our come- uppance today! 55K’s west of Broken Hill is the South Australian border and that is where the true exclusion zone is, not the one we thought we had evaded yesterday. Up jumps this uniformed jobs worth with his halt sign taking us by surprise, then proceeded to search our van, confiscating everything he decided was prohibited. Potatoes, garlic, onion, cherries, nectarines, melon,  apple, lemon, tomatoes and our favourite ruby grapefruit which we had liberated from its hiding place in the safe. For some reason he let us keep a bag of lettuce leaves and 2 sweet corn cobs, but the irony of it all, is, after we had been relieved of our stash we drove a bit further to the next town of Peterborough and bought it all over again (except the ruby grapefruit which must be a rarity in these parts)
 So, here we are at Kimba, next to a road train rest area, with heavy goods vehicles trundling to and fro. We are that knackered we probably won’t hear them once we go to bed. More scrub tomorrow.

 28/01/2013
  More scrub and not so good weather as we have run through some patchy rain, but worse a strong headwind, which plays havoc with the fuel consumption. We have detoured out to the coast, about 40K’s south of Ceduna and are holing up for a day until the wind eases. We are at Smoky Bay, famous for it’s oysters, in a beachside caravan park. We will sample the oysters tomorrow when the oyster farm opens. It’s a public holiday today.
 When we arrived and had got ourselves sorted we went for a walk along the beach and along the jetty. We thought the place reminded us of somewhere, then we realised we were here in 2009. The weather wasn’t very nice then we recall, but it is a lovely spot.