Danny's Rusty Nail and Great Coffee

On this journey I have been to a few pubs and restaurants but none quite like the Rusty Nail!  We had great food but even better company as Danny himself sat with us and chatted all through our meal.  His restaurant is constructed out of all recycled material and has a character all its own!  It is just outside Warracknabeal and is worth the trip all on its own.  This is a photo of Danny chatting with Darrel and Deb.

Another place we found was Mason Clarke Preservatives Co. in Dimboola, they made the best coffee I have had so far in Australia, roasting their own beans right on site.  We also had home made scones and jam with thick cream.  I have to confess I do love the Aussie tendency to put cream on desserts and just about anything!

Ain't No Mountain High Enough...

Travelled to Mount Arapiles, a popular mountain climbing spot near Natimuk (not far from Horsham).  We didn't go up the hard way as these adventurous souls did...

Deb, Darrel and I drove to a lookout at the top, then went to an area with some caves which were a bit out of our reach!  We did get some help from some climbers who recommended a trail that we could manage without gear to get to the top...it was well worth the climb, the view was amazing!

Saw a few kangaroos along the way, here is a mom and joey, I can't tell if I was the tourist or they were...

Two weeks...

Well I am two weeks into this adventure and so far it has been amazing! My Kerang/Cohuna friends definitely went out of their way to make my time here educational (I learned a lot about trees and even some new words :-), it has been a lot of fun, and very beautiful! A great BIG THANK YOU to everyone for the great hospitality, the warm welcome, and all the laughs shared!

Now I am off to the next part of my journey, travelling to the Horsham area and the Grampians to stay with Deb and Darrel. New exciting things to see...koala photo hunts perhaps...

1000 kms and no Kangaroos…

During my journey north to Wentworth and area we travelled over 1000 kms and to my disappointment we didn’t see any kangaroos (my Aussie friends were not upset by this as they are a real nuisance and can be very dangerous for cars – like our deer friends in Manitoba). Anyway we did see many other animals, including foxes, rabbits, snakes, feral cats, and feral goats, none of which I have pictures of…these are a few I managed to get photos of...

Emus...More Emus...
A Heron...

Cormorants...

More Cormorants...
Pelicans...

More Pelicans...

A Wedge Tailed Eagle (a large bird of prey)

Apostle birds...

Kookaburras...

Magpies everywhere, including our back fence...

A Stumpy Tail lizard...

But no kangaroos…

...until we returned to our cottage on the last day and finally trying to get through the fence into the yard of the house where we were staying…a kangaroo!

Beyond the Thunderdome

Next we journeyed to Broken Hill (about 260 kms north of Wentworth) which is a silver, lead, and zinc mining area, you can see the results of the mining.

Here we also saw one of the bases for the Royal Flying Doctor Service which provides medical services to the vast areas of the outback and remote Australia. It was really interesting and it was all started by Rev. John Flynn a Presbyterian minister who started an inland mission, the School of the Air a radio school and the Flying Doctors branched off of it over time…

About 20 kms outside of Broken Hill is the Dreamtime Mine an old silver mine that is now open to tourists. I ventured down and managed not to hit my head too many times – you wouldn’t want to be a tall miner!

Just west of Broken Hill is Silver City where many movies have been filmed over the years including Mad Max…

This is the view from just outside Silver City - I was a bit disappointed by the view…very green and not at all what I thought the outback would look like, so much vegetation is unusual for the area, it is normally much redder, however; the recent rains have made it very green. As I whined about that my Aussie friends were exclaiming over how green it was and taking pictures of the grass…

Back in Wentworth we made one last trip out before we headed home to Kerang…this time to Lake Victoria where we saw a lot of bird life and I tried my hand at fishing…it is hard work, here I am fishing away, once you cast they you attend your rod very carefully, from a distance and with a cool drink…alas we didn’t catch any fish or yabbies (freshwater lobsters).