Jetty Tour Day 29 - Mildura (Vic) to Goolgowi

Not since Broken Hill have we had a day with no jetty in sight. In fact, for much of today, nothing was in sight because the flatness of the country made it impossible to see anything in detail. It could be seen but it just looked a long way away.

Our last day on daylight saving time and another impossibly late sunrise. I've always been pro daylight saving but keeping it going into April is a bit silly when sunrise is 7:47am. Regardless, we were on the road by 8:15.

First stop was Balranald for morning tea. Nothing flash but it wet the whistle. While I caught up on so correspondence, Sue went for a walk and found an enthusiastic bunch of blokes who run a men's shed. Their prized possessions are life-sized replicas of the planes of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith: the Southern Cross and the Lady Southern Cross. The original Southern Cross is on display at Brisbane Airport and the only part of the Lady Southern Cross which remains is a wheel which is held by the Powerhouse Mouse in Sydney. The rest in the sea of Burma.

Then out we went onto the Hay Plain and its unrelenting flatness. We had a second close call for the day when an oncoming truck driver made an error of judgment in overtaking and our windscreen became full of truck until I moved off to the left with our tyres rumbling in the gravel. An earlier version of the same event happened not long after we had started from Mildura.

Lunch was in the conveniently placed RV parking lot in the heart of Hay, on the site of the former Caledonian Hotel. Remnants from the Hay Mardi Gras were still on the street from the previous weekend.

The last leg of the day was driven by Sue - her first drive of the tour. We arrived in Goolgowi to a council owned caravan park. Bit of an exaggeration: a flat, grassed area of land away from the main roads that intersect at Goolgowi, which has a newish amenities block, power and water. You pay and pick you key up to the amenities block at the RSL club. Cheap as chips, very tidy, very pleasant. We sampled the crowds at the RSL (dead, lest we forget) and the Royal Mail Hotel (altogether to lively). At the Royal, Daryl Braithwaite was singing about horses, Sue was drinking ancient red wine and we happened to be there when ten blokes in their twenties emerged from a minibus in Hawaiian shirts and emptying a couple of dozen stubbies into the bin outside before singing their way inside. We left discretely in case someone played Horses again.

Click the camera to see today's photos

Another long drive tomorrow. This time Dubbo and a day off to follow. Tamworth on Tuesday.

Not much in the way of photos today.