Road Trip to Broken Hill and.......

It's Saturday night, I'm off all next week and I'm leaving tomorrow for Echuca after I've completed my Photoshop course with Stuart and Landon at SMLXL. I should make Echuca by around 4.30pm then I'll spend the night with the rellies and on Monday morning I'm off to Mildura hopefully for lunch. Craig has given me a location just outside of Mildura to visit and I'm told I should go see the sand dunes. Hopefully there is somewhere to pitch the swag at the sand dunes, find a good spot for a sunset shot and then it will be back to the swamp to shoot wildlife. I'm taking my kayak so watch out birdies.

I'm really hoping that this trip will rekindle my photography spirit which is waning a little at the moment, fingers crossed. I'm looking for support so if you want to help me get some of my vim back then please leave me some comments. I had hoped to visit Lake Mungo but there's rain forecast for Monday and I think that the road will be closed.

Sunday
Well, I slept in. I was supposed to leave at 8am and I had just dragged myself out of bed at 8.15am and still had my camera gear and kayak to load into my car. Luckily my son Phil got up and helped me load up the kayak and I finally got underway around 08.40am. I arrived at SMLXL at 9.15am and they hadn't started so all was well.

1.30pm, we finished the course and I was away on my run to Echuca. I had the Hume and the Northern Highway almost to myself and arrived at 4.30pm and parked up ready for the long trip the next day.

Monday
Jumping into the car at 8.30am I waved goodbye to my mother-in-law and headed out of Echuca towards Mildura along the Murray Valley Highway. I knew there was rain forecast for today and I'd barely reached Gunbower before it started to rain. Although I didn't know it, it was going to rain almost constantly all the way to Broken Hill.

I spotted a couple of good wildlife photography hotspots on the way and recorded them on my sat nav for later exploration. One of these sites contained some of my favourite wildlife subjects, birds of prey. Hopefully a reader of the blog will be able to identify this bird for me.

Having had a wet yet uneventful trip to Mildura, I refuelled, ate and then pushed on to Broken Hill. I'm not stopping here because of the wet weather so I'll visit on the way back to Melbourne. I saw very few cars and just a few trucks mainly going the opposite direction, I was conscious of the skies being dark and rainy and wondered whether I would have problems with kangaroos. Having only seen several dead ones I need not have worried because they were nothing compared to the amount of herds of goats that were wandering along the Silver City Highway. There were also quite a few emus and birds of prey along this route, it was way too rainy for me to be bothered to take any shots. besides, I had dressed for the long drive and this meant I was in shorts, T-shirt and thongs which don't work well in the rain.

I arrived at Broken Hill around 4.30pm, checked into the motel and went and bought some supplies. I have another night in the Motel tomorrow then it is out in the swag but I'm going to go kayaking and camp by a river/lake.

I'm thinking of having a trip to Silverton tomorrow, site of the filming of Mad Max 2 as well as around another 20 films. I'm also going to look for Wedge Tailed Eagles.

Tuesday
I awoke at 6.30am but I didn't get up for sunrise chiefly because I had no idea where to go to get some good shots. So I had breakfast and set off for Silverton at 8.30 instead. On the road there I saw plenty of Emu's and some kangaroos as I approached this very small town.

 

There were also a few horses that were allowed to roam free however they were obviously used to human contact because unlike the Emus, they didn't move even when I jumped out of the car to get some shots.

Silverton itself was a big disappointment reminding me a lot of the small settlements in the Falkland Islands. There were a couple of cars made up to look like Mad Max vehicles, one outside the town's pub. There is also a church built in the 1880's but little else to hold my attention so I moved on to the Mundi Mundi Lookout.

Mundi Mundi Lookout looks out over the Mundi Mundi Plains, a vast area of flat plains that stretches to South Australia and beyond. Sadly the only two man made things visible are a road and a 'Private Keep Out' sign. Why some idiot thinks they need a keep out sign is beyond me, keep out of what?

After the visit to the lookout, I headed for Menindee Lakes and looked for a place to camp when I leave the motel tomorrow. The road to the lakes is the place to find Emus as there were hundreds of them. However, I was disappointed because there was hardly any wildlife at the lakes themselves that I could see so I think I'll give the lakes a miss. So back at the motel, the dilemma is now, where to go tomorrow?






Keep a watch out here because I'll be updating with text and pictures hopefully most days.