Our days in the big city are over. The vast lands of Australia await us.
We just picked up the campervan from Britz and head out to Bendigo. In
the middle of the goldfield region.
We have to drive on the left which is always a struggle at first,
especially with the windowwipers and direction indicators switched
from place.
So every time you want to give direction, your window wipers flash in
front of you.

Bendigo is the third largest city in the state of Victoria, but with
only 80.000 people. It's a quiet but nice city. Wide streets and
beautiful houses. The first night in our campervan we spend on the
communal campground, which is actually the showgrounds with toilets
and showers. It is really not a camping. So it feels a little bit
awkward and we hope this will not be the same for all the other
nights, but then again, it makes a good first experience!
We spend the afternoon strolling past the beautiful buildings of
Bendigo, but we are actually on the way to Broken Hill, so it is soon
time to make diner before it gets dark.
Very early in the morning we get back on the road again. First to
Mildura, which is the fruit capital of the region. Out of nothing we
suddenly drive through fields of fruittrees and just as suddenly as it
started, it stops as we cross the Murray river north of Mildura into
the state of New South Wales.
300 km of vast nothing! We arrive in Broken Hill an hour before
sunset, so we quickly find a caravanpark and a supermarket, cook
diner and get some sleep!

The next day we have time to explore Broken Hill and the semi-ghost
town of Silverton (filmset for movies like Mad Max). We first visit the Royal Flying Doctor Service. They have
a little museum and a short tour through the base. Broken Hill is the
only place that does that. So we get to see the nervecentre and the
planes. It all gives a good idea of how it all began, how it evolved and
what is happening nowadays. Unfortunately, a little bit less romantic than the TV series and definately no Dr. Tom, Margo or Dr. Geoff :(
It's time to head off to Silverton. This is really nice. Not much
happening here, but the surreal views of a semi-ghost town in the
desert are fantastic. Unfortunately for us, there was so much rainfall this
year that the desert is exceptionally green and is not revealing as
much red earth as usual. So the real desert feal is lacking a bit.
They even postponed the filming of yet another Mad Max movie, because
it's too green!
But then again, seeing the desert in bloom is beautiful as well, so we
are not complaining :)
On the way back we drive a dirt road for 30 minutes (which is not
allowed with our current rental van, moehahahahah) to see an old silvermine. We
actually go down about 30 meters with batteries and headlamps. Our
guide is a weird but funny man who has such a strong accent, it's hard
to follow him. Very nice!
On the way back we just have time to visit the Broken Hill Sculpture
Symposium. A set of carved stone statues on a hill, beautiful changing
color during sunset. This is a really nice spot with beautiful views
of the desert, sunset, and oh yes the sculptures. But the best moment
is the drive to and from the place where we get to see our first kangaroos in the wild. Really great !
We end our day without seeing much of Broken Hill, but actually there
is not much to see. Broken Hill is an arty mining town (nice combination ay). The mine is
not open for tourists, because China and Japan recently started
mining silver again. The mines were already almost completely shut down, because Australia didn't want to continue investing in the mines any more. But apparently there's enough left.
The next day we take an hour to briefly see the museum and art gallery
of Pro Heart (please google for more info), before we head back to
civilisation: the wine region of Clare Valley. As soon as we leave
Broken Hill, the vast empty desert takes over immediatelly. The
landscape starts to change only in the last 100 km, when we suddenly
find ourselves driving through green hills and vineyards. Clare Valley
is touristy, but manages to keep a real countryside feal with nice
little villages, old monumental buildings and pubs serving diner until
9 pm.
After setting up camp in Auburn we treat ourselves to a pub diner with
a glass of local wine of course! The next day we spend wine tasting
and sightseeing. We end up buying 6 bottles of gorgeous wines for ourstrenuous trip through the Outback :-) And man, did they taste great! In the
afternoon we already drive 200 km to Port Germain on the coast (with
the longest wooden jetty in Australia) to make the trip to Coober Pedy
for the next day a bit shorter.