The Lake via Flinders and Orange

What's a road trip without stopping at a few wineries? First stop Orange to check out Word Of Mouth and Borodell wineries. They were so good we had to buy some wine - unlike us. The whites they making out there are truly first class.

Second stop - Broken Hill. Could have shot a gun off on the streets of Broken Hill on a Friday night and not even hit the horse. Managed to find a very well done 'rare' steak. Hmmmm.

Third night saw us sleeping under the stars in our swags in the Flinders Ranges - what a beautiful place. An unexpected delight.

Fourth night William Creek. This out on the Oodnadatta Track near the western shore of Lake Eyre North. There is a pub and a caravan/camping ground and an airstrip - that's it! Not even a horse. We took a 2 hour flight over the lake which is so vast that it is almost incomprehensible. Sadly most of the birds had left and the next shift hadn't arrived. They must have been waiting for Coopers Creek to reach the lake with the water from Cyclone Yasi - which apparently is still some weeks away. Typical QLD - laissez faire attitude to time and agendas.

However we did see black swans, pelicans, silver gulls (AKA common seagulls), chats, banded stilts, avocets (in the distance), gribs, and orange capped plovers. Also saw plenty of stupid emus on the road - "I'll stay on this side of the road - no wait, here comes a car, think I'll dash across, no wait, I'm going to change my mind" and so on...  managed to avoid collecting any.

We headed back to the Flinders after meeting a local who said "You can drive for 4 hours on a shit road to the other side of the lake and it will look exactly the same as this side", so we took his advice and headed to Arkarola on the eastern side of the Northern Flinders. Absolutely stunning! Very Kimberly in terrain and colour. It has recently been saved from uranium mining within the wildlife sanctuary - thank the gods for greenies and protesters!

We have a name!

Finally we have come up with a name for the truck. I was really keen to have a wine related name - for obvious reasons.

To explain our new moniker: there is a unique wine produced in small quanities in the region of Jura in France called Vin Jaune (literally 'yellow wine'), hence our unimog will be now be known as VAN JAUNE. Sadly only wine geeks will get it - but so be it.

Practice run

We've decided to take the faithful Land Cruiser for a final run before we put her in the stable. We're heading out to Lake Eyre on July 22nd to see the water - long way to go to look at water and birds, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The lake is filling due to the floods and cylcones in QLD (there's an upside to everything!) and is about 85% full - highly unusual, so there's a lot of water and we figured by the time this happens again, we might be too old and decrepit to get out there.

Will someone please tell the Brolgas I'm coming and I'd like to see them dance!!

Oh - and we have new (ish) bathroom!!

Is it just me?

We have finally started our renovations. The house is being painted so take no notice of anything I write here as I suffering from inhaling noxious fumes and am possibly delerious. Anyway I'm seeing a book and mini series out of this - not the renovations, but the journey. The big question is - who is going to play me? Meryl Streep is getting a bit long in the tooth. Ms Jolie is a bit thin, maybe Cate Blanchett??

We have a Unimog...

Lawrence has returned from his travels, spending our retirement funds on a large yellow truck. He has driven 2200kms across Europe and left it with some complete strangers in Lancaster UK. I only hope it is still there when we arrive and hasn't been sold for parts on the black market.

Update on Kate: She is now officially a truckie! The lovely Brett allowed her to pass her licence. Possibly to prevent her coming back for further lessons and endagering his life and his truck. What's wrong with doing 50kph on the M4??