bordertown
I've just returned from several days in the middle of nowhere with my mother. *deep breath* Pensioners get a free rail trip voucher each year valid within the state and south of Port Augusta. Effectively, that means to Port Augusta, Bordertown or Broken Hill (which isn't in this state, and possibly isn't south of Port Augusta, but who am I to query their interpretation of their rules?). Most people who use them would book interstate travel, and use the credit against the first leg of the journey to reduce the price, though pensioner pokies trips to Broken Hill used to be VERY popular until poker machines became legal in South Australia. Big blow to Broken Hill's local economy, that was - it hasn't survived on mining for many years. Anyway... Mum's voucher was about to expire, and she didn't want to waste it, so she invited me and usagi to Bordertown with her. Usagi had a prior engagement.
The comments made about my holiday ("where are you going? Boredomtown?") were overstated. It was a fine place to spend a couple of days. We did the walking tour of the town's places of interest the first afternoon. The murals on the library and council chamber walls were charming. To stand in front of the house where Bob Hawke (former Prime Minister) was born and raised was an experience upon which I don't feel able to expand. The croquet lawn was very green.
We had a lovely steak dinner in our hotel dining room, then read our books.
The next day we planned to walk out to an agricultural museum just out of town. While we were checking its opening hours at the vistitor information centre, the tourism adviser was concerned that we wouldn't be able to see local wetlands as they were too far to walk (about 10km out). She offered to drive us out there when she finished her shift. So we wandered around the local park reading the visitor information signs for a while, went back to our room for a lie down, then met our benefactor for a ride out to the swamp. The walk out there was lovely.
Day three. Agricultural museum: a restored shearing shed that's the largest thatch-roof building in the southern hemisphere, according to our guide. Visions of Pacific Islander long-houses floated through my head, but *shrug*, maybe they're coconut matting which isn't strictly thatch, or something. Lots and lots of restored and someday-to-be-restored tractors. Long afternoon nap. Another steak dinner (different pub). Long string of TV movies. 3am walk to the train station (yup, the return trip's a night service *urgh*).
ok, enough of the affectation. I did have a good time - relaxed, but that's ok. The murals really were good. One was a clay tablet mosaic created by local high school students, and it was fantastic. Other community artworks impressed me, too - stained glass windows in the library, and a series of metal creations gracing the signs in the park and popping up in unexpected places through the town. They were native animal forms (lizards, possums, birds, dragonflies) welded up from old rusted agricultural implements, tools, railway spikes and the like. I also enjoyed the wetlands - redgums, hundreds of years old; runaway holes which we could see because it's the dry season, where acres of swampland drain away in a couple of weeks to recharge the aquifer; and birds - many, many birds, even though it is the dry season - cockatoos, parrots, ducks, kingfishers, several hundred native hens in a group; no other people.
I'm still recovering from the trip home, though. It really was quite rude of my mother to wait until the tickets were booked to tell me that we had to catch the return train at 3 am. *g-r-r-r*