Some things never change: finally on the road

As we closed off last time I left you hanging as to where we would head first to begin our unique mother and son trip.

We left her house early because we wanted to get to her childhood home town in time for breakfast at about sunrise and it was a couple of hours away. Locals may have recognised the Major Mitchell monument in the background of the last post (not the bugle tune, by the way) as being in the small Victorian town of …Lexton! Lexton is a town about 50km north of Ballarat, as Mum always told us. It was always attached to the “When I was a girl I used to ride my bike”, etc.

 

Mum had this great story of when she was 8 years old falling from her dad’s car while he rounded a bend. We kids had heard the story for, well, ever! I had to see where this happened, so we got out and I took video of Mum explaining it in detail. At 70 years old, she nearly recreated it falling from her feet! We found her childhood home, school, church and even the old motor mechanic garage that Grandpa used to own. It was interesting to hear the business demise between two partners. I hadn’t had any notion that Grandpa could disagree with anyone! But alas, one day he walked away without a penny.

 

 

So we had our tour and our breakfast and hit the road again. This was the test day and we had planned a long day. I wanted to get to the South Australian town of Burra. It was the test because mum and I had no idea how her back would hold up to this length of travel. It would turn out to be the planning day for the remainder of the trip. If this didn’t work out we would need to modify our itinerary and bring in the ‘plan B’!

As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. The 100 series Landcruiser is nothing if not a comfy cruising machine – this played into our hands. Mum had no problems, and so we cruised. We crossed the mighty Murray River on the punt at Waikerie and had a late lunch at one of my favourite bakeries in the small town of Morgan (actually we only got the fresh bread here. I had BBQ chicken and coleslaw in the fridge). Then we hit the open undulations that meander and slowly climb to the historic mining town of Burra for a late dinner and camp. We passed the wind farms and as the plains gave up their secret base of rock more and more. We passed by roads with names such as ‘World’s End Highway’! In the early settler days I could see why. It would have looked like the end of the world and with scarce water supply, it was for quite a few individuals!

But we made it to Burra in daylight, took 3 minutes to set the camper trailer to overnight mode and set about cooking dinner. Using the remnant BBQ chicken (one chook, two meals) we made chicken satay and rice. The night was cold. More about Burra next time.

 

What would we eat tomorrow? Where would we end up? How did mum go on the camper trailer bed first time?

Talk soon, Camp in Comfort, Scottie B

Have you gone back to visit your home town? What has changed or stayed the same? Let us know in the comments!