FLINDERS RANGES VIA MILDURA/BROKEN HILL

FLINDER'S RANGES via MILDURA-BROKEN HILL 

Monday  Oct 12 2014  

Arrived in Mildura late afternoon and made a visit to the home of Agnes Connors in

Deakin Ave.  Agnes’ late husband Laurie was a good friend through the Australian

Clay Target Association where he served in many capacities, most notably as President.

The last time that we saw Agnes was some years ago when we attended Laurie’s

funeral in Mildura. We continued to receive Christmas cards from Agnes after

Laurie passed away, but missed one last Christmas (2013).

As the phone had been disconnected and we had no other means of making contact

we feared the worst and was not sure what news we would receive when we called

at the house. There was no answer when we knocked on the door and by the state

of the property which had always been kept in an immaculate condition, it was

apparent that no one was living at the house and had not for quite some time.

An enquiry with a neighbour confirmed one thought that Agnes could be and was in

a Nursing Home, however finding which one appeared as though it would be a task.

Not so though as our first enquiry at “the best Nursing Home in Mildura”, established

that Agnes was a resident in relatively good heath but suffering from memory loss.

This being so it came as no surprise that while we were able to converse with Agnes

she did not recognise us and had little to no memory of the many years

that we had known both her and Laurie.

While this initially disturbed us, we gained some solace from the knowledge that

she was in good health, well cared for and wanting for nothing.  After saying our

goodbyes we left the Nursing Home feeling rather sad in the knowledge that we

had seen Agnes for probably the last time, but pleased that that she was happy

and in good spirit when we left her.  I have since discovered that Agnes has a

niece Leanne in Mildura. I have been able to make contact with Leanne who

will keep us informed from time to time about Agnes' well being.

Tuesday 14

Mildura to Broken Hill

A 300km trip in relatively good driving conditions with few cars 

heading our way - not one vehicle passed us on the road. 

After locating our accommodation we headed to Silverton, (about 30km

from Broken Hill) the home of Mad Max and other outback movies. 

Hard to believe that over 5000 people lived there in the late 1880’s.

While the population today has been reduced to around 50, there

is no doubt that despite looking like an almost deserted wild

west town, Silverton is in fact very much alive and a popular

tourist attraction in the Broken Hill area. 

Wednesday 15 

Today we went on the Artists trail and spent some time

at Pro Hart’s where despite what were apparently strict

rules to the contrary, we were allowed to take a few

photos of Pro Harts extraordinary works.

   

An opportunity exists for a good picture hanger! 

 

Oh, Mr Hart  

Fantastic to see so many Pro Hart’s under the one roof, 
one can only wonder about their aggregated $ value. 

There are seven of Pro Hart’s Rolls Royce’s on the property
including this one spectacularly painted over by the artist.

From there we went to Jack Absalom’s Gallery and were
pleasantly surprised to find the artist was in residence. 

We had been told that he could be a bit grumpy but if he was in a "good mood"

might be up or a bit of a chat.  When he approached us in the Gallery he

poked me in the stomach and said “get rid of that”, then punched his

stomach and asked “can you do that”?  I said yes and lightly punched

his stomach which started him laughing and then told me about his

approach to eating, an approach which he said might be good for me.

He then asked where we were traveling to and when we told him the

Flinder's Ranges he said that we must stay at Rawsley Park, if not it

would be better to turn around now and go home. He was genuinely 

pleased when he knew we were staying at Rawsley Station where we

are booked for three nights and then proceeded to tell us about

the area where he painted some of his best paintings.

We were on pretty good terms by this time, talking and joking about many

things including shooting (he having been a rabbit and roo shooter in his

earlier days) and something about which he appeared quite passionate.

He said that he always shot the rabbits in the left eye

so they would fall that way for easy packing.

He was quite agreeable to us taking photos in the gallery and readily posed

for a photo on the understanding that he framed the shot, selected

the background and instructed the person behind the camera

as to how and when to take the shot.  

After some more stories he proceeded to show us a large painting

of the Flinder's Ranges and asked me how long did I think it took

him to paint it, a question to which I could only take a guess at.

When he said that it took him seven months, I jokingly

suggested that he should have stayed a little longer

and finished it and he fell about laughing.  

 
We spent a great hour or so with Jack Absalom at his Gallery and thoroughly
enjoyed his humour, the experience and the time that he afforded us. 

We also spent some time at the Royal Flying Doctors Base at Broken Hill Airport and
was most impressed about the level of medical care and attention freely
provided to those in outback areas where medical
facilities as we know them are non existent.
http://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/About-Us/Our-History/  

The RFDS began as the dream of the Rev John Flynn,
a minister with the Presbyterian Church. 
The Rev John Flynn witnessed the daily struggle of pioneers living in remote areas
where just two doctors provided the only medical care for an area of almost
2 million square kilometres. Flynn’s vision was to provide a
‘mantle of safety’ for these people and on 15 May 1928, his
dream had become a reality with the opening of the
Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service
(later renamed the Royal Flying Doctor Service) in Cloncurry, Queensland. 
  

 

Later in the afternoon we were at the Broken Hill Information Centre having a coffee

and Lyn went back to the car to get the camera. She came back extremely upset as

she had lost her rings, five in all which she remembered taking off and putting

on her lap in the car when applying some hand lotion. A fair degree of panic

set in as we retraced our steps over and over all to no avail.

Having left our phone number at all the places we had visited as well as

the Broken Hill Police, all we could do was to hope that they had been found

 by “some nice person” who would hand them in to the Police or to one of

the places we had visited.  Lyn however said she would also put her faith in

St Anthony who had helped her before and hopefully would do so again.

Thursday 16

A restless night as we were still concerned about the lost rings.  We searched the car again and went back over the areas we had been to.  Everyone we spoke to was very sympathetic to our cause particularly one lady, a nurse with the Royal Flying Doctors, who rang us to say that she returned to the area last night with her mother and conducted her own search, however despite everyone’s best efforts our search proved to be fruitless.

We decided that we had done the best that we could to locate the missing rings and that we should put them out of our mind as there was nothing more that we could do.  So we headed out of town to see the Broken Hill Sculptures.  

On the way Lyn was in tears over the loss of her rings and said that she had asked St Anthony for help, to which I answered that "he would need to get on the job as we were leaving Broken Hill the following day".  No sooner had she said this than we passed a direction sign to Pro Harts Gallery which we had visited the day before, but had omitted from our search as we thought that we had been there after the rings were lost.  We decided to leave our phone number at the gallery on the off chance that someone visiting the gallery may have heard about our loss.

When we arrived I parked the car at the same spot in the street as the day before and hopped out to speak with some people standing on the footpath.   As I was explaining our situation I looked down at my feet and there, sitting in the gravel waiting to be found, were Lyn’s five rings.

So 24 hours after the rings were lost, and less than 10 minutes after Lyn told me that she had called upon St Anthony for his help, the missing rings were found.   

Make of that what you will! 

We spent the rest of the day looking around the area before returning to the Royal Flying Doctors Base with a gift for both Jodie, the nurse who was so concerned about our loss she returned to the area where we believed the rings to have been lost, and her mother who accompanied her in the search.

 The Big Picture in Broken Hill -  nowhere near the quality of an Absalom

Friday 17 BROKEN HILL TO FLINDER'S RANGES 

 

Broken Hill to the Flinders Ranges today via Peterborough and Hawker to Rawsley Park Station (about 15 or so km from Wilpena), where we will spend three nights (Fri-Sat-Sun).

Visited the Information centre at the historic railway town Peterborough 

While at Peterborough we noticed that we were not that far from Burra where James McGilchrist, (William Robertson’s nephew), lived and died in 1909. We decided that if we could we would return home via Burra and make some enquiries.

Arrived at Rawsley Park Station late afternoon after a relatively uninteresting but easy drive through flat open country, and then to Wilpena for a brief look around before calling it a day followed by a BBQ dinner washed down by a cold beer.

Saturday 18

After checking out the various options we decided that as it was going to be a 35 degree day, (milder temperatures at this time of the year had been described in our research), bush walking was out of the question so the thing to do, was head out early on the unmade roads to and through the various gorges which had been suggested to us, Bunyeroo Gorge to Brachina Gorge coming out at Blinman.

From Blinman via the Glass Gorge to Parachilna where we visited the

Prairie Hotel, famous for its feral meals.  

As we would be returning that way the following day we decided to

give a pub meal a miss in favour of tomorrow.

 Parachilna Gorge-Angorichina-Blinman 

We returned to Rawlsley Park via the Parachilna Gorge-Angorichina-Blinman and checked out the ½ hr flight over Wilpena Pound but could not convince Lyn to take a flight having been put off the experience after speaking to some people we had met earlier that day.

It was a long enjoyable day full of interest with the scenery nothing short of spectacular. 

Not so many kangaroos out in the heat but no shortage of emus and their chicks.
 Dad and his chicks stopped "just long enough" for a hasty photo opportunity. 

Sunday 19

Despite the heat we decided on taking the 2 hour (mostly uphill) walk to
Arkaroo Rock to see the aboriginal cave rock paintings -
longest two hours I can remember but well worth the effort.

We returned to our accommodation for a shower before taking the Morarina Scenic Drive

to Parachilna where we would have a late lunch at the Prairie Hotel. 

 
What an interesting place and friendly staff.  The man taking orders plonked a pint of  Coopers Pale Ale on the table and said, if you are the driver then you need this.   Noticed from other diners that the meals were on the large to larger size so we decided on sharing  a famous Prairie Steak Sandwich which we failed to do justice to.  However we were told that we must have a vanilla slice with passion fruit sauce, which we did at a cost of $11.80. 

He then asked me did I like his pointy silver shoes.  I said that I had noticed them when we came in and was going to ask if he had a pair in my size but decided against this in case he did!   An interesting place Parachilna with great accommodation for the fly in tours which come through for short stops every seven to ten days.

On the way back we stopped at The Aroona Run
an abandoned sheep station first setted in 1851

When we arrived back at Rawnsley Park I noticed that a tyre looked a bit down on pressure, and when I checked the pressure was down to 18, as against the usual 35. Reset the pressure and made a mental note to check again in the morning before we departed. 

Monday 20

Just as well I did as the pressure had dropped overnight to 15.  Reset it to 40 and hoped that I could have it attended to at Hawker about 40km down the road.  Was pleasantly surprised to find a tyre business employing six men (would have to be the biggest employer in Hawker) as we came into the town.  Didn’t take long to find a 3 inch nail in the tyre which was quickly repaired with minimal delay.

Next scheduled stop was Peterborough where we revisited the Information Centre, and enquired further about the trip to Burra and from there to Hampton.  Decided on returning home via Gawler-Murray Bridge where we stayed the night.

Found Burra to be a bit larger than expected and visited the Historical Society to see what we could find out about James McGilchrist, https://jamesmcgilchrist.blogspot.com  (William Robertson’s nephew), who was in business in the town prior to his death in 1909.  The volunteer on duty was on his own and  being new to his role, was not able to provide us with  much information.  He did however give me the President’s e-mail address and when we arrived in Murray Bridge, I e-mailed what information I had on James McGilchrist and was pleased to receive a reply the following day, which helped with filling in a few of the missing pieces in the Robertson Family Tree. 

Tuesday 21 

As I wanted to be home tomorrow for my 77th birthday, we left Murray Bridge around 8.30am (after the obligatory McDonalds breakfast) refreshed and ready for the 700 or so km drive to Hampton where we arrived around 5.00pm, not as fresh as when we started the drive, but also not tired from it.   

  
The evening sky in the ranges was as clear as you could ever get 

 the morning sunrise (6.45 am) spectacular

We certainly enjoyed the short time spent both in and around
Broken Hill and the Flinders Ranges, an area which we would like to revisit

in say late August-early September, to take advantage
of the various walks and cooler conditions.

All in all a great ten days away albeit in reasonably
trying conditions whilst in the Flinder's Ranges.

Mentioned to Lyn on Tuesday when driving from Murray Bridge
that it was our friend Ned Sorati's birthday that day.
Was saddened to receive the news two days later that Ned,
who had not been in good health for a number of years,
had passed away at Yamba, NSW, on the

22nd October,a day after his 91st and my 77th birthday.