The World's End

Day: 3 - Mildura to Orroroo via the Barrier Highway

Distance Travelled: 455kms

Weather: Light rain in the morning, half cloud cover the rest of the day but cleared up later for a beaut sunset

Today's Biggest Challenges: The initial rain was a bit of a bother but it cleared. The wind created by the road trains was pretty intense and sometimes was a bit of a struggle to deal with… I don’t know, perhaps it’s something in the Victorian air XD

Highlights of today: Wow, so many! We left Mildura to a slight rain and so we were pretty much racing the rain for the first two hours - was kinda fun dodging it! Made for some spectacular views over the Murray-Sunset country. The first 60kms was a Dead. Straight. Road. - you often could see as far ahead as 12-15 kms - which is quite a bit when you think about it. Saw a few ‘flocks’ of emus - I have no idea what a group of emus is called (someone find out for me!) - but it’s great seeing them. We crossed the SA border and were promptly stopped by the ‘Fruit Police’ - South Australia’s great quarantine station. You have to hand over ALL fruit - even if it was bought within the exclusion zone - so we lost all the apples, bananas and tomatoes we had bought in Mildura :( Hoping to get more in the morning. Renmark was particularly nice, we had a brunchy sort of thing there; lots of rose gardens, a great cafe/bakery with amazing food (I think it’s called the patissiery but I could be wrong), and the nicest looking public toilets I’ve ever seen. From there we continued on and rode past the Big Orange, something that I actually mistook for a nuclear plant at first until I saw oranges everywhere. Another nice sight was the sheer amount of vineyards - hundreds of hectares worth, especially around Mildura and on the way to Morgan. Soooooooo many vineyards over South Australia.

We had lunch in Morgan on the Murray while watching the ferry cart cars across every ten minutes. Had fun looking at a 110 year old Indian motorcycle outside an engine museum while the owner had a giggle about our eyes goggling at how uncomfortable we would be on the rock-hard seat! Left a bit later and headed for Burra. MY GOODNESS. This road is one of the most beautiful. The plains are gorgeous in their barrenness and we (or at least I) couldn’t stop admiring them. We took a few photos next to the water pumps (so iconic for Australia) and headed for the hills of Burra. Had fun checking out the various road signs, one advertising a ‘stud merino competition’ and another taking you to the World’s End Highway before reaching Burra.

Burra is an old mining town from the mid-1800s with a mining stack built in 1857. Was nice to see some colonial history and we had a short break there while I trolled a bridge. Finally we continued on the Barrier Highway to Orroroo to camp for the night, trying to get ahead a bit to give us more time in the Flinder’s tomorrow. My goodness, this section of the Barrier is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I think I’ve left a piece of myself there… the sheer plains dotted with colonial ruins and the sight of the hills hundreds of kms away was a stark but awe-inspiring sight… something about it silences a person… who were the people that lived there? What were their families like? Who were their friends? Why did they live there? What were their dreams, ambitions, hopes, desires? What hardships did they suffer? I asked myself these questions many times on the long stretches.

Well, I’m sitting here at the caravan park enjoying a fire and a gentle breeze. It’s much warmer than in NSW (still a crisp 5 degrees) but no dew tonight. I would HIGHLY recommend staying at this place again - a cute, quaint little place, beautiful views, peaceful solitude but still with facilities and comfy grass. Very friendly folk. I’ll be back.

I don’t know when I’ll get to post again as we are about to go out of range, however I’ll keep writing and updating where I can. Take care till then and let me know if you have any questions! Till next time (or Uluru), MMG

What I've learned from today: Zero, absolutely ZERO fruit can cross the border haha!