Silverton, New South Wales

We first did this trip in September 2012 and we've have been wanting to go back so earlier this year we set the date for about the same time of the year.

 

Saturday 27th finally arrives and it's time to depart for the 300 km (180 Miles) to Silverton with a stop off in Broken Hill for lunch. The names of the towns have links to their history.

Our first stop was at Mannahill, an old gold mining/railway town which today is nothing more than a hotel and one or two houses.

The Hotel

The trains pass the town these days and they don't stop unless the siding is used to pass an on coming train

The old station building

From here our next stop was MacDonalds, Broken Hill for dinner (lunch) and then over to the supermarket. Just as we finished lunch Heather spotted a red bike park next to ours and the I saw a blue ST1300 stop. We were expecting three from Mildura and we didn't plan on meeting but sometimes it happens.

Shopping centre car park.

After the supermarket the only thing we needed was fuel but we had enough left for the 45 km return trip to Silverton so I chose to leave that until the next day.

About 7 km later I saw a NSW Police highway patrol car coming from the other way. I wouldn't have mentioned it but I checked the mirrors and I noticed the brake lights of the police car come on. Thinking "Why me, wasn't speeding or anything". The last I saw of the car was as it stopped on the side of the road. So we just went on our way.

Usually if we went anywhere like this we would take the tent and camp overnight in a caravan park but I thought for a change why not have a little luxury and we stayed in what the park calls a Bunk House.

 

Our bedroom for the night

 

 

Just after we unpacked our gear from the bike and trailer the third member of the trio from Mildura arrived on his blue ST1300.

 

Another person from Canberra was around the place somewhere but we hadn't seen him or the bike at this point in time.

 

It turns out that John was over near his accommodation so Heather and I walked over and we all chatted for a while. It was also a chance to look at a new Triumph Trophy (also blue) which John rode over and left the ST1100 at home.

 

Just before sunset all of us but John rode out to the Mundi Mundi Plains Lookout to watch the sun go down. The photos I took of the sun didn't turn but I got the bikes and us at the lookout.

 

 

 Heather, Malcom, Rick and Michael

 

 

And the last shot of the day

 

Rick, Michael, Malcolm and Heather next to their bikes. The red one is a Suzuki Hayabusa which I've ever heard of.

 

 

It was off to the hotel for tea (dinner) and to meet John who went to the lookout earlier. Heather and I had fish and chips. Around 9pm we headed back to the park and ended up in our unit for coffee before retiring for the night.

 

We missed John the next morning as he left at 6:30 am for the 1120 km (695 miles) ride back to Canberra. He arrived 11 hours later.

 

We were ready to leave by about 8 am and I took some photos around the park before we left.'

 

Our ST1100 and trailer

 

 

Heather closing the door

 

 

The parks chemical storage shed which was used as a jail in one or more movies.

 

 

Two peacocks

 

 

One of the steam engines that used to work out of here 

 

 

 

A Galah

 

 

Some Budgies (Budgerigars) and I don't know what the blue one is.

 

 

I'm not really into the names of our birds so no idea what this one is

 

 

Cockatiel is one of the easier ones to teach to talk.

 

 

The Victorian trio are ready to roll so we said our good byes

 

 

 We left about 8 am and stopped for fuel as planned in Broken Hill. For the 345kms we did since leaving home the bike took 23.8 litres or 14.5 k/l which for riding two up plus trailer and about 1/3 of the distance in hilly country, one can not complain when doing about 100kph.

 

The road out of Broken Hill heading west towards the border town of Cockburn.

 

My dad was in the old South Australian Railways (SAR) and used to work at Cockburn when I was aged 5 or 6. I started school there in 1960/1 and some of the school is still there.

One of the water storage tanks which was used to service the steam engines. There's lots of these tanks scattered along rail routes that are no longer used and the tracks removed.

That was our weekend but don't let the blue skies fool you. Sure it wasn't cold but we had a 35/40 kph wind coming from the north (our right) for the trip home and anything above 90kph would cause a little to much trailer sway.

Winkler Park Saddleworth

Yesterday we had one of those "let's go for a ride" moments so we left for Saddleworth at about 10:30 am this morning.

Most of the 140km trip was ok but having a 60kph road work speed limit for about 30km slowed us down a little. Heading north just south of Terowie were quite a few cruisers of various makes and even some riders waved.

Winkler Park is about 2km south of Saddleworth and we arrived about 12:30 and rather park the bike in the car park and walk I took it over and parked next to one of tables.

 



It didn't take long to unpack the bike with what we needed for lunch either. As I took this Heather was trying to break her camera by taking one of me. The Galaxy Note 8 is on the dash shelf and is mounted with one of Samsung's mounts which is made for it.

 

 

Somehow this photo got taken with me behind the bike.

 

 

Then Heather wanted one taken as well. I moved the mount to the fake tank cover for the trip back home and it seems better there.

 

 

I loaded some music on the tab and tried out the little Bluetooth speaker that Heather got a freebie with her phone. I used a lead rather the pair the speaker with the tab. At 3 watts it's not what you'd call loud but good enough for around the table and inside a tent.

 

 

After lunch we packed everything up and went for a walk around the southern half of the park.

 

 

We managed to get a photo of one the parrots

 

 

and a red bottle brush just coming into flower.

 

 

and a wild pea. The only other flower in abundance was the sour sob. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis_pes-caprae

 

 

The park is between the Barrier Hwy and the Gilbert River though up here it's more like a creek.

 

 

At about 3:30 pm we left for home via Clare so we could avoid the roadworks on the other road. It's about 10km further and with stopping at the supermarket in Jamestown we did it in about the same time and arrived home about 5:20 pm.

Our ride map. The new Google maps won't show the route we took the same as the old maps so here's the link http://goo.gl/maps/mbrsx

The little 8 inch tab performs 100% as a GPS using the SYGIC app. But it's being used as more than just a GPS. I have a fuel/maintenance/trip app called Driver Diary from Google Play installed on this one just for bike use and the same apps on our 10.1 tab for the car. Plus I can load music like I did for today and all in one item.