History – Page 3 – The 2 Bradshaws

The Great Northern Highway

We couldn’t do the Gibb River Road of course in our campervan so we headed off down the Great Northern Highway towards Broome.

We took a short detour up to Wyndham, which is the most northerly town in Western Australia. It was worth visiting to drive up to the Five Rivers Lookout. The Rivers Ord, Forrest, King, Durack and Pentecost enter the Cambridge Gulf here. The Port of Wyndham services the cattle industry and the huge cattle yards can also clearly be seen from the lookout.

Wyndham also has a big crocodile in the main street.

The first part of the highway was very scenic with ranges and interesting rock formations. We’ve been impressed by the free overnight camps in WA too. They’re off the highway, well maintained, have toilets, dump points, bins and are generally in scenic spots.

The next part of the highway from Fitzroy Crossing only had boab trees and termite mounds for scenery. A couple of the boab trees were very impressive though.

There were also a lot of unfenced cattle we had to be wary of, as on more than one occasion we’ve seen a driver and a cow that have come to grief.

Alice Springs to Tennant Creek

Continuing North along the Stuart Highway.

Barrow Creek Telegraph Station

A historically interesting stop with more info about the building of the Overland Telegraph line.

Wycliffe Well

Claims to be the UFO hotspot of Australia.

Has a caravan park that’s fairly run down and some alien souvenirs at the shop. Someone quipped on Wikicamps that Wycliffe Well was probably the last place aliens would visit.

The Devil’s Marbles/Karlu Karlu

These are 393km North of Alice Springs. They are huge, rounded boulders, scattered over quite a large area. According to Aboriginal legend, the boulders are the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent laid during the Dreamtime. To the first English people who saw them, it looked as though the Devil had emptied his bag of marbles around the place. Geologically I believe they are called a ‘degraded nubbin’.

Tennant Creek

The town has a population of around 3,200 and is 70% indigenous. It was interesting to read an article written in The Guardian this week that said people in the town are diagnosed with infections and diseases that have been eradicated from the rest of Australia for nearly a century. An African health care worker said the town reminded him of his home in Zambia.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/may/20/return-to-tennant-creek-healthcare-going-backwards-says-di-natale

We stopped at a very nice caravan park but that’s the best thing I can say about the experience. The only part of town that showed any signs of life was the pub which absolutely stank as you walked past.

Tennant Creek Caravan Park. The view from our van.

Alice Springs

Lasseters Casino

This part of Alice Springs felt like a world away from the town with a convention centre, luxury hotels and landscaped gardens.The Casino was the final destination for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert where the three drag queens performed a show.

The Olive Pink Botanic Garden

Miss Olive Pink sounds like a formidable woman. She was an anthropologist who moved to central Australia in the 1930s to study and advocate for the Warlpiri and Arrernte people. She was a pioneer in using native plants and created the gardens as a ‘soulfeeding antidote to the restless rush and materials of what modern living entails.’

The NT writers’ festival was taking place at the garden and I took the opportunity to listen to a talk while I was there by Tim Low, a biologist from Brisbane who is writing a book about rare plants in Central Australia.

The Ghan stopped for a few hours in Alice Springs on its way to Darwin from Adelaide. It’s a very long train and these passengers had a very long walk down the platform in the heat.

Going Underground …

… in Coober Pedy, Outback South Australia.

About 50% of residents live underground in Coober Pedy to escape the heat and their houses are a constant 25 degrees. You can see the air vents poking out of the hillsides. Staying in an underground hotel was listed as a must do experience and there were a couple of underground motels that allowed dogs. So we decided to have a break from the van for a couple of nights and booked into the Comfort Inn. The ceilings have upside down umbrellas suspended below the air shafts to catch any debris falling through. Winston couldn’t believe his luck when he was allowed in to the motel. The owners have a Cavoodle called Winston too and they were instantly great mates.

Most of the residents of Coober Pedy are opal miners which comes in handy for digging an underground house. The Old Timer’s Mine had a great tour and a museum. I also bought a pair of beautiful opal earrings from one of the many jewellers in the town.

All in all an amazing town to experience but not live in!

Historic rail country (2)

As it’s now school holiday time in South Australia, it was great to find a quiet free camp just south of Peterborough. For almost 90 years from 1880, Terowie was on the main line from Adelaide to Port Augusta. Passengers and freight had to stop at Terowie and change trains as it was the ‘break of gauge’ point where the broad and narrow gauges met. We followed Bob the Railway Dog’s interpretative trail along the old railway line from the restored railway station to the cemetery.

During WWII, there was an Army staging camp in the town. General Douglas MacArthur made his famous “I shall return” speech on the railway platform in March 1942.

The station closed down in 1989 and the town is largely deserted now. The Terowie Citizens Association are doing their best to keep the history of the town alive and have restored several buildings.

Historic rail country (1)

It was a long drive from Broken Hill, with little to break the journey and we planned to stay at the RV park when we reached Peterborough. However, there was no shade, it was dusty and full of spiky Three Corner Jacks (also known as the Devil’s Thorn so you get how painful they are). We had a walk round town to stretch our legs before a re-plan and took a look in at the Town Carriage Museum. This turned out to be great fun as there was a virtual ride aboard a restored first class sleeping carriage from the early 1900’s.

There is a statue of Bob the railway dog nearby. Bob was a familiar sight to passengers at the end of the 19^th century as he loved to ride the trains. Apparently when he died in 1895, he was ‘mourned by the travelling public all over Australia.’

As a bonus we saw the Indian Pacific pass by. This is a passenger train which travels from Sydney to Perth through the Blue Mountains and across the Nullarbor Plain.

Quirky Broken Hill

This site lays claim to the only hostilities on Australian soil during WWI. When on New Year’s Day 1915, a picnic train was fired upon by Turkish sympathisers. Six people were killed including the attackers.

Broken Hill had no actual connection to the Titanic

A Rolls Royce owned by the painter and Broken Hill resident, Pro Hart

The Big Bench, ‘Line of Lode’ historical site

Broken Hill Mining History

‘Line of Lode’ memorial to the miners who lost their lives

I’d never thought about what the initials in BHP stood for but now realise it’s the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Ltd. The company was formed in 1883 after a boundary rider discovered what he thought was tin but turned out to be silver. Broken Hill became known as the Silver City and in 1907 was the second largest settlement in NSW after Sydney. Many people became wealthy but it was the miners who paid the price.

Each has their name, date of death and cause of death engraved on a glass plate. There must be almost 1,000 names. Most were killed in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

Mining is still big business in Broken Hill today.

It’s the Murray Darling

No I haven’t become slightly affected – it’s the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers at Wentworth. The Darling is Australia’s longest river.

A bit more history

Our path often seems to cross with the route taken by explorers Burke and Wills. They crossed the Murray River at Swan Hill and there are some commemorative markers around town.