Keith to Portland

Young grape vines

Grapes and roses together 

Historic buildings

Plantation Pine trees the main business in Portland .. 3000,000 ton of chip bark every year exported.

 

The port and the chip bark

Lots of  Wind farms 

The Barossa Valley

This is a very beautiful part of our country.. The grapes , miles and miles of them. The  old buildings built of sandstone and bluestone and the wineries. At this time of the year the autumn colours are beautiful and it made me feel like I was in Germany .

Markets in old Churches.

My own sewing shop

Cheese tasting in Nurioopta

Gin tasting in the Barossa but no Maggie to meet.

Chateau Tanunda

Maggie Beer's kitchen and garden 

Peterborough South Australia

This is a beautiful part of Australia but like many areas in Queensland and New South Wales a lot of this area is suffering from drought.. 

I stumbled on a little treasure here. The quilt they made for the centenary of Federation. A lot of little stitches and different techniques to tell the story of the town of Peterborough.

This town was once the hub of all rail traffic in South Australia. I love the emus.

 

 The town has their history explained in a museum that is well worth seeing and at night the museum runs a sound and light show. You sit in an old railway carriage and watch a very informative show about the history of Peterborough.

For some crazy reason Australian states had different width railway tracks and  each time rail crossed state borders change had to be made. In those days it meant the whole train had to be unloaded and reloaded. This happened at Terowie. 

South Australia Bound.

For the next 4 weeks I will be travelling in South Australia. We left home on the 8th April and headed to Lightning Ridge, Cobar and then Broken Hill.

Lightning Ridge is a very different town, population -unknown, it appears to have no real rules about building or mining but very famous for opals especially the black opal which fetches the most money for the miners. The ridge as it's known is a place of
 "make- do". People use anything and everything to build things and make art.  Lightning Ridge is also the home of a well known Australian artist John Murray who treats the subject of the outback with some humour. 

Build your own castle

Mullock heaps - evidence of opal mining throughout the town 

creative signage 

no rules 

Old is important 

John Murray's Gallery

Some creative metal art

 

COBAR 

 Cobar has a sliver, lead ,zinc, copper and gold in the area. So red and so dry. The landscape really lives up to the name so often given to Central Australia -  "the red centre" 

Beautiful old pubs.

Town Sculpture 

 

  Broken Hill has large deposits of silver, lead and zinc as well.That same ore body became the largest single source of silver, lead and zinc ore ever discovered on earth, generating over $100 billion in wealth.  It was also the home of  Pro Hart another famous Australian artist. 

On our way to Broken Hill

Rest time for the driver BM

Broken Hill

Memorial to miners 

The mine 

 

Travelling with Pam and Tony 

Out side of Broken Hill is Silverton , once a thriving silver mine now almost a ghost town and a  famous location for movie making. MAD MAX 2, parts of  Mission Impossible  and Priscilla Queen of the Dessert were filmed there. It is certainly the place if you want to show isolation, the red colour of the outback and miles of nothing.

Mel Gibson ??

Not much grows in the dry climate 

Open space forever 

See you at Peterbourough.