Michel wanted to take us on a walk from his place. It sounded for all the world as if he was determined to find [and where Michel is concerned, determined really does mean determined] a Human Hovel. ¿Que? Don’t ask. We were happy to be led and entertained.

A short distance from Michel’s pad is Cook Lane which pretty soon becomes a rough track through the bush. Given all the trees and undergrowth in which to hide, though I did spot a few insects, once again it was the bird life which held my attention most.

For identifications, though Michel does have a book of Australian birds, I was quite reliant on iNaturalist for help (and I wanted to record my sightings, anyway).

First up was this little cutie, an Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis). Well, it has a coloured breast so maybe that was the naming inspiration.

A little further along the track this character settled in a tree close to me. Unfortunately it settled a bit too high up but I was able to get a recognizable picture. This is a Red Wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata) – the red wattle being just about visible beneath its eye.

Eventually we broke out of the interesting bush to join a less than interesting road. We tromped along it anyway until Michel found his target. The target turned out to be a modest brick monument to “Hume and Hovell”, who passed this way in 1824. Ah ha, “Hume and Hovel” not “Human Hovel”. These were two explorer chappies who mounted a famous expedition – famous if you’re an Australian, anyway – in search of new grazing land in the south of the new colony. Naturally, once having heard “Human Hovel”, this is all it could now be to us.

Human Hovel found, we headed back on our return trek, which began a little differently. It was getting quite warm now, though, topping 30°C, so by mutual agreement we cut short our return detour to re-join the main outbound track.

I’m very glad we did because I was next entertained by this lovely little chap with white eyebrows, a Grey Fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa). Grey Fantail? It couldn’t possibly be called a White-eyebrowed Fantail, could it? No, of course not. Such are common names.

I finished with a star, though. Quite unexpectedly, there being no visible water nearby, a larger dragonfly zoomed across the track in front of me. Even more unexpectedly, especially given its Hawker-like appearance, it settled on a tree trunk beside the track. It remained long enough for me to collect a series of decent pictures. It was a Multi-spotted Darner (Austroaeschna multipunctata) and another new one for my collection. Excellent!

This had been quite a lengthy walk in the heat and definitely required a few cold Hazy IPAs to slake the thirst.

After a late night, this morning was a bit delayed and quite leisurely. Eventually Francine and brother Michel went off to a PYO farm to collect some blackberries.

I tried my luck at a small pond below Stanley Barge Dam where, on our previous visit in 2017, I’d found some damselflies. This time- nada, nichts, nothing; not a sausage or pas un chat as the French would have it.

Michel took us to Albury where we sat on the River Deck enjoying lunch overlooking the Murray River. Being stuck in a rut I had the burger and I didn’t even have to tell ‘em to “hold the pineapple”. It was a good one so I’m hopeful I can get off my burger fixation now. Francine opted for a roasted squash salad with lentils and Michel demolished a classic Australian barramundi fillet.

As lunch was beginning to digest, Michel ran us a short distance to Wong Wetlands so I could walk off my burger and look for dragonflies. He was definitely getting in to finding water.

I did find some but they were less than scintillating – the usual suspects for this time of year pattern, I suspect – and mostly less than cooperative.

Much more interesting on this occasion were the birds. We were lucky enough to watch a quite cooperative White-throated Treecreeper (Cormobates leucophaea) working its way up a tree trunk, as they do, quite close to us. Its very slightly bigger (about 1cm) than our native Treecreeper, to which is is unrelated [it says here].

Equally as interesting, though a lot less cooperative in that it was stuck out on a branch with painfully bright backlight, was an Australasian Darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae). We’ve seen other Darters in Sri Lanka and Africa so it was interesting to add an Australasian version to the collection. Darters are sometimes called Snakebirds because of their long slender necks. They’re a bit Cormorant-like, really.

Wonga Wetlands essentially acts as a reservoir of “reclaimed water”, that is water from sewage treatment. This water is not allowed to be dumped back into the Murray River so it’s being used to create this wetland habitat. There are signs warning you to keep out of the reclaimed water, which makes you wonder just how treated it is, but the wildlife seems to thrive in it.

We’ve got far too many blackberries. 😀

I just love some of the Australian place names and this one is no exception. This would probably not be the case if one was prone to stuttering a little, which might lead to asking directions to

Yackand-and-and-and-andah

Happily there are no other places in the vicinity beginning “Yack…” and with very few roads to choose from, following the road signs simply by looking for somewhere that begins with “Yack…” in blissful silence is a doddle. This was where we headed on our first solo excursion of our 2017 visit so we were quietly confident.

We both had reasons to want a Yackand-and-and-and-andah [whoops] reprise. In 2017 Francine had been taken by a cleverly arranged collection of old, empty picture frames in an equally old wooden cart positioned outside a gallery. For one into the more abstract/arty genre of photography, they were an irresistible subject and a second go was called for.

Sadly, the passing years have not be kind and, though the frames are still artfully arranged, the colours were dreadfully faded losing much of their charm, much to Francine’s disappointment. Here’s an impression of what they looked like six years earlier.

For my own part, this was where I had completed my collection (females to go with earlier males) of Austroargiolestes icteromelas (Common Flatwing). [Anyone having trouble with Yackand-and-and-and-andah, might be advised to avoid attempting that 12-syllable name.] These had been in Commissioner’s Creek. Since our latest visit was at a very different time of year, I wanted another look.

Austroargiolestes icteromelas [steady] were there none. However, my efforts were rewarded with another splendid new species for my collection, a male Synthemis eustalacta (Swamp Tigertail). The creek also gave me my second look at Austrogomphus guerini (Yellow-striped Hunter) which I had first seen below Woolshed Falls.

Like many old gold mining towns, Yackandandah [got it] has arcaded streets to shield pedestrians and coffee drinkers from the sun. We wandered up one side of the main street then down the other before our lunch bell sounded and we needed refreshment. A pub menu beckoned.

Franco is a fan of a decent hamburger. Now, here’s the thing; Australia has a love affair with beetroot such that nearly all hamburgers come with beetroot included. I was aware of this and I quite like beetroot. Here, though, a second ingredient reared its ugly head – pineapple. Pineapple, in a hamburger!? I think not. Pineapple in a hamburger is akin that another gastronomic abomination, usual tagged “Hawaiian” or some such – pineapple on a pizza. Ye Gods, Italians would probably turn in their grave. I ordered a hamburger sans pineapple and all was well. Could’ve done with a bit more beetroot, actually. 😀

My previous trips to Australia have been in the first half of their dragonfly season, between October and December. This was my first chance to see the effects of being there in the second half of their main season, between January and March. The equivalent timing in the UK would be between July and September, when the mix of species changes and the variety begins to fall off. I’ve been keen to see if the same pattern would be repeated in Australia, as I suspected it would. We’d found a couple of example sites in and around Stanley so I set off to investigate.

My first port of call was to Stanley Barge Dam, within walking distance of our base with Francine’s brother. I actually visited it a coupe of times but I was stuck with just five species, exactly half of the 10 species I’d found here in October 2017. Nonetheless I was very happy to be able to snap a pair of the delightful and diminutive Ischnura aurora (Aurora Bluetail) in tandem.

In 2017 I’d visited Woolshed Falls which I’d found quite entertaining, though I was surprised to discover that I’d seen just three species. Perhaps that was down to novelty and spending time snagging Hemicordulia tau (Tau Emerald) in flight.

Prior to our trip, I’d investigated sightings on iNaturalist and discovered a new spot, actually the Reedy Creek free camping area, some way below Woolshed Falls. Our local guide managed to get us there over some unsealed tracks. This was a well worth while exercise with five species, one of which was completely new to me: Austrogomphus guerini (Yellow-striped Hunter). Francine’s brother, our guide, even seemed to be enjoying looking for dragonflies, too. He was scouring the river and calling me when he spotted something. I saw this new suspect again back up at the falls. Since I had not seen it anywhere in October 2017, maybe this is a later-flying species. [I should point out that the Australian Field Guide has no flight season information.]

The other local spot of note is Lake Sambell in Beechworth. This didn’t make a fair comparison, however, because I discovered a previously unexplored piece of habitat at the south-western end of the main lake; it was a little like a flush. This year I got up to seven species, including a particularly cooperative male Anax papuensis (Australian Emperor).

Well, that’s complicated and, possibly, so would today be. Today we said goodbye to Busby II when he gets to the end oh our road trip at Maui’s Melbourne depot.

Our final leg is 90kms. Getting on the road was a little more complex than unplugging the mains supply in that we had to repack our bags. Why is it that repacking a bag makes closing it more difficult than it originally was? We’re using packing cubes which helped a little and got it done. We have Maui’s “express return” package so I had no need to empty the grey water tank or, indeed, the chemical toilet, though just as a matter of courtesy, I did empty and rinse the loo at the dump station just outside the campsite.

About an hour later we drove into the Maui depot and parked in the rental returns area. A few folks were hanging around outside, maybe waiting to collect and begin their adventure. I found a helpful chap to take our keys – finding a warm body who isn’t tied up can be a trial, sometimes. He checked our return package and all was well. He asked if we needed a taxi and phoned to arrange one. We needed to get to the Avis car rental desk at Melbourne airport for our third rental vehicle to get to Francine’s brother in Stanley, Victoria. “Make sure the next cab is going to the airport”. We waited.

Eventually a cab drove in but it was delivering another customer. He asked, “are you waiting for a taxi?”. “Yes, to the airport”, I said, questioningly. “OK”. As we were loading bags another cab drove in and it became obvious that this was the one that had been ordered for us. With apologies to cab #1, we switched our bags to the correct cab. I thought dropping someone off and then taking someone away, a fare in both directions, had been a little too organized.

The journey was about 17kms and it took us more or less an hour. We were stuck in four lanes of stop-start (mostly stop) traffic ‘cos some inconsiderate people had had a fender bender closing two lanes immediately before the airport exit. Finally we got to the Avis depot and collected our car. It was a Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross with a mere 12kms on the clock and had the unmistakable scent of brand new car. We asked if it had satnav. It does but you need to plug your phone in. Fortunately Francine’s phone had an eSIM from Telstra so we could navigate using Google.

It’s 290kms to Stanley and Francine’s brother along the Hume Highway. After about 100kms we pulled in for lunch. I realized I had lost my very necessary hat, my beloved Tilley. I can only think that I’d left it in the cab on the back seat in my haste to pay the driver and collect our car. “Bother!”, said Pooh, crossly.

Other than that, the journey was a doddle and we met Bro-in-law in the centre of Beechworth, the nearest small useful  town to Stanley, only 10kms away. I managed to buy a replacement bush hat to protect my scalp from the very welcome sun.

We’re here.

Twice now we’ve huge colonies of many thousands of Fruit Bats, one colony roosting during the day in Ipswich near Brisbane and a second colony setting off on an evening foraging expedition at Toowoomba. Now, at the campsite in Moama, we have a colony of several hundred (maybe not thousands) Sulphur-crested Cockatoos.

These are the chaps; they are large birds. If anyone remembers an old TV show called “Baretta”, it featured an American cop with a comedic pet Sulphur-crested Cockatoo injecting a bit of light relief. In the evenings at our campsite, several hundred of these birds, maybe not quite thousands, burst into noisy life flying around between the many gum trees of the campsite cackling furiously.

This morning I talked to one of the locals and, whilst we, as tourists, found it all a very entertaining spectacle, they didn’t find the aggregation quite so amusing. The group sometimes descend on a tree in town  and strip it more or less bare and apparently upset golfers by digging up the golf course, presumably looking for grubs.

Today we were off to our final road trip stop in Heathcote before handing Busby II back. Heathcote is almost 100kms from Maui in the north of Brisbane. Heathcote is just about 100kms from Moama, too.

We broke the short journey with stop for coffee and a custard tart in Rochester, which we chose ‘cos it has a river but there was poor access and no wildlife action. We continued choosing a back road which past a lake but that turned out to be too large and too far from the road so I just kept driving in all the journey took little more than an hour.

Happily, at Heathcote we were expected again. Francine’s online booking before we left the UK had mostly worked well, particularly for sites with an online booking system. We found our hardstanding pitch and got Busby II settled for the last time, before going for a wander.

There was a large neatly mown grass area in the centre of the site which seemed a bit odd to me at first in that it could’ve housed more camping units. It looked a bit like a cricket pitch but was actually used as an evacuation assembly area. This was another town subject to flooding. The grass was less a little less neat in that it was clearly also being used as someone’s toilet – the grass was adorned with neat droppings.

I went down to the river, with its flood depth indicators, just outside the campsite and wandered along that. Things looked unpromisingly quiet, at first, despite the access being reasonable. Eventually that changed as we began seeing dragonflies hunting over and beside the river. On the left, an Australian Emperor (Anax papuensis) unusually offered itself up for portraits and, on the right, I did find what I think is a brand new Tigertail for my collection, which I believe is a Royal Tigertail (Parasynthemis regina).

In the evening, the perpetrators who had been using the evacuation area as a toilet came into the campsite and showed themselves, a mob of 10 or so ‘Roos. They were, naturally, quite habituated, and the young ones were a delight. Even some of the Australian campers seemed entertained.

Next stop Stanley, this time in a car, via Melbourne.

Our campsite is one of the good ones and is in Moama on the NSW side of the state line – the river. This was a rare day off driving ‘cos we have two nights here. Our plan was to wander over the bridge across the state line into VIctoria to look at Echuca and investigate the old historic river boat docks.

Echuca was once a great trading centre with paddle steamers ferrying logs and bales of wool along the Mighty Murray. We were somewhat surprised to learn that the industrial revolution in Europe placed a great demand on Australian wool. It is apparently the done thing to refer to the Murray River as the Mighty Murray. Together with the Darling River, which to me looks even mightier, it drains the massive area of the Murray-Darling basin, essentially the entire bottom right hand corner of Australia – I think, about 17% of it – and please remember that Australia is about the same size as North America. It’s a huge area.

The level of water in the Murray varies dramatically by season, so much so that the timber boat docks are built on three levels to accommodate docking and loading with the river at various heights. The river flooded very badly in 2022, the worst flood since the 19th century, and much of the surrounding land, including our current campsite, was inundated. I have this to blame, largely, for the lack of Wi-fi connectivity over the last three days.

As luck would have it, we arrived at the historic boat dock approaching 10:00 just before a 1-hour river trip on a restored paddle steamer, the Pevensey, was due to depart at 10:15. Well, it would’ve been rude not to – we bought tickets and enjoyed our 1-hour boat ride past both historic paddle steamers and modern gin palaces, most of which seemed to have a hot tub on board. Well, if you’re going to be ostentatious, do it properly. There was a log barge demonstrating how logs were ferried along the river, placed horizontally across the barge overhanging each side.

We’d had a glass of Chardonnay each on the boat – the sun was over the yardarm somewhere on the planet – but now it was time for some serious refreshment. We repaired to the American Hotel where, as well as having my now favourite Balter XPA on tap, they served a very creditable grilled Freemantle octopus. Yummo!

We called in to a bottle shop – supermarkets are not permitted to sell alcohol, you have to go to a bottle shop but there’s normally one right outside a supermarket – to top up our red wine supplies. After today we have just one more night on the road so we don’t need too much. Lucky, really, ‘cos I had to carry it back into New South Wales across the bridge. I felt a bit like a smuggler.

… or you could call it Mildura to Echuca. Moama is in NSW on the north side of the Mighty Murray, whilst Echuca is in Victoria on the south side, the river being the state boundary.

We’re happy to be leaving Mildura. It may well be a pleasant town but, after due consideration, the Apex Riverbeach Holiday Park is the poorest campsite we’ve ever stayed on in any continent. The pitches are miniscule, a meagre 50m² at best and many of those have a huge tree trunk obstructing a serious amount of the minimal pitch. There is another pitch jammed up against these two vans. The norm on a basic campsite in France is 100m². The  “amenities” [read “facilities” or “sanitaires”] are in desperate need of overhaul and decoration, with paint peeling and tap heads falling off. Our so-called “primitive campsite” at Broken Hill was luxury that eclipsed this without question. Australian caravans are large, heavy affairs and watching one attempting to manoeuvre into a space too small was quite entertaining.This place is to be avoided.

Our journey today was about 400kms. On the first 300kms to Kerang [isn’t that a radio station?] we sailed down a tree-lined road passing nothing but humongous wheat fields.The fields seemed about the size of Bedfordshire. The harvest was already in and nothing remained but stubble. Francine wondered what the hell do they do with all that straw. Basket, anyone? This was the most tedious road that we’ve driven in our 2000kms thus far. At least it was a 100 jiggle road, though, and it raced by.

One of Britain’s biggest historical cock-ups must’ve been sending the convicts down to Australia, a mineral rich land the size of North America. The smart move would have been to leave the convicts in Britain to continue stealing their loaves of mediocre bread and come down to Australia ourselves.

We’ve had a much more recent disastrous cock-up, too, of course.

Returning to a more sensible nation, we made a first stop along the road at Lake Tyrrell, a shallow salt-encrusted lake. There’s a visitor parking area a short distance off the main road. Francine started wandering off for 1.6kms, across a photogenic board walk, to have a closer look. It was about 40°C. I followed. We’ve seen very saline water go pink in southern France and here was no exception. Then we tackled the 1.6kms back to the shade of Busby II.

For a second brief break, we stopped at a roadside stream that looked like great habitat as we neared Kerang. It was, indeed, good habitat and we spotted five species of odonata in a short stretch of water. It was, in truth, a bit hot for any lengthy odonata hunting, though, and we hit the road again after about 10 minutes.This one is a Wandering Percher (Diplacodes bipunctata). Still, I’d given it a go.

Approaching Kerang, the mercury topped out at a gonad grilling 42°C. Many Brits start moaning about a heat wave at 24°C or 25°C. Jeez, get real, people. Honestly, you get the climate you deserve, i.e. a crappy one.

We rolled in to our campsite to a very friendly welcome [licked to death by a small dog] with the mercury at about 40°C. We’d booked and paid or one night before leaving home, though we wanted two nights. Francine coughed up for the extra night. We requested a pitch with some shade, under the many gum trees. With the sun racing along, we did have to follow the shade, though.

Technically there is Wi-fi. Sadly the Wi-fi has no Internet access. Bloody brilliant! This will be the fourth and fifth nights that we are unconnected. Two nights at Starview we knew would be off-grid. Mildura was off-grid due to last year’s floods, the damage from which had still not been fixed, and now we were essentially suffering from the same flood damage. Our hosts explained, apologetically, that Telstra was not good out here, so they’d switched to Starlink, courtesy of Elon friggin’ Musk and his night-sky-polluting chains of satellites which, apparently, don’t actually work here. Private enterprise has absolutely no business ruining the majesty of the heavens, it’s quite outrageous, especially if they don’t effin’ work. ‘Nuf said.

Time for several cold beers.

I’d never tried astrophotography before but, since the Starview Campsite is named after the ability to gaze at an incredible night sky in close to complete darkness, I thought I should try. I was intrigued to see the Orion constellation looking a bit weird, to my eyes. Here he is but his sword is pointing upwards – he’s upside down compared to our northern hemisphere orientation.

If you have never been to the southern hemisphere then you really haven’t experienced the Milky Way in all its glory. Regardless of the time of year, the Milky Way is much stronger in the southern hemisphere. This seemed weird to me when I was in New Zealand in 2017. It made me start thinking – why? It’s nothing to do with seasons and the earth spinning ‘cos it’s always  in the southern hemisphere. Since our solar system is “far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy” [credit to Douglas Adams], the Milky Way galaxy, the only explanation is that the southern hemisphere is constantly looking into the more densely starred centre of the galaxy and the northern hemisphere is always looking out at the skinnier, more sparsely starred edge of the galaxy. How can this be? It means that the rotation of our Solar System is oriented more or less vertically compared to the horizontal disk of the galaxy itself. How did that happen? I checked my conclusion which is apparently correct, weird though it may seem. Orion, which nuzzles the Milky Way, is still here in this image but I’ve brought out more of the fainter stars, though I confess to not knowing what I’m doing.

Our last early morning was brightened by an emu, real as opposed to a cartoon one, wandering into the campsite for a drink at one of the water pipes. It cooperated enough to allow me to get a decent picture.

After the Emu, today was going to be a trip of 300kms from Broken Hill to Mildura. I’d dropped only one notch on the fuel gauge with local travel yesterday but with a cheap station on the road, I filled up. For some reason my JL credit card threw a wobbly and refused to work. I hope that’s a glitch.

We were basically on one sparsely vegetated road for 265kms before a left hand turn.The landscape was classic, bland, outback Australian emptiness which I love. This is why I enjoy watching Australian movies. I was tempted to call it desolate but that’s not right, it’s just flat, bland and empty. You do not suffer from any neighbour noise out here. We saw the occasional feral goat again and twice I had to veer to the opposite side of the road to avoid an ex-kangaroo. Happily we came across an opposing vehicle only every 10 kms or so. We past a few groups of happily alive emus, too.

The first sensible stopping point en route was Wentworth, only 60kms before Mildura. There was a  place called Coombah that turned out not to be sensible, at about 195kms. It was only an apparent roadhouse, apparent because it looked for all the world to be closed, though there was one of Australia’s long Road Trains parked. We pulled in – there were two fuel pumps which may or may not have worked – but Francine chose to use the on-board facilities before we continued, rather than going and rattling the doors.

We more amusement as we drove past a rest stop wittily called the Seven Trees Rest Area. As we sailed past we counted … yes, you guessed it, just three trees. This had clearly been named by the same person who named the Twelve Apostles off the coast of the Great Ocean Road, there being just seven left standing when we visited in 2001 (?). I think there may now be only six.

We stopped at Wentworth for lunch. It stands on the confluence of the Murray and Darling rivers and had apparently been a major trading port in its heyday. Then along came the young upstart of Mildura with a railroad which did for Wentworth. There was a neat old paddle steamer moored beside our car park. We moved on for the final 60kms.

In Mildura Francine had booked a “prime” river view pitch beside the Mighty Murray. However, this pitch was in blazing sun at 36°C with absolutely no shade. Since Busby II has no awning, we could not generate our own shade. Added to this there was a fence and a road between us and the Mighty Murray, so a “river view” seemed a bit of a stretch and a tad pointless. We asked to move to a “cheaper” (A$3, big deal) pitch with some tree shade and sod any refund, we just wanted some shade. All good, except that these facilities are very tired and it’s certainly the poorest campsite so far. Thankfully, it’s just for one night. Oh, and there’s no bloody Wi-fi either; it was wiped out by the 2022 floods and has not yet been reinstated.

Given these driving distances, if you want to play tourist at any of the stops, you really need to stop for 2-nights. We’re glad we did that at Broken Hill but it looks a bit pointless here. We do get two nights at the next stop of Echuca, though.

We’re at the Starview Campsite in the outback about 10kms north of Broken Hill. It is tagged as a “primitive campsite” although, in truth, it isn’t really that primitive. It has two flushing toilets en suite with excellent showers, together with a single “portaloo” to supplement the facilities should they be full. One of the toilet/shower rooms also has a baby change facility. If you want to change your baby, apply in writing to the town council.

There are 15 pitches and a tent area. What it’s missing is electricity and running fresh water, though there is a rainwater tank which could be used for topping up the van’s flushing water, for example. Neither is there any Wi-fi and any4G signal is sporadic. Daytime temperature is a very pleasant 33°C which drops to 17°C overnight so it isn’t difficult to sleep. Last night was quite comfortable. [That’s Busby II in the bottom righthand corner pitch.]

Francine fancied a poke around Silverton, a former silver mining town about 30 kms north, so after a normal early morning making ready, off we set.

It really is like the wild west and featured heavily in the Mad Max II movie, hence the Mad Max II museum which (happily) was closed. There is a more appealing movie star in the form of the Silverton Hotel, which featured in A Town Like Alice, as well as countless other films where an outback setting was required.

On the same street was the Silverton Bakery advertising pies and coffee so we succumbed to a lamb pie each with a short black coffee to serve as brunch. Very pleasant.

There quite a few old VW Beetles littered about – I counted five I think – mostly not defaced like this one. Some call it art. It seems like a 3D version of Jackson Pollack (said the art numbskull]. The artist is actually John Dynon who does very nice but very expensive cartoon-like emus.

The VW outside the Silverton Hotel (above), complete with front-mounted engine obscuring the view through the windscreen, looks related to Mad Max, too (?) and there was another parked in the grounds of a church making me think God might drive one … but then I remembered some of Marc Cohn’s lyrics:

If there’s a God in heaven
He’s got a Silver Thunderbird

Having had our fill of the wild west of Australia, we dawdled back into Broken Hill itself to take in a few art galleries [yawn]. The first was actually quite interesting as it is home to the world’s largest acrylic canvas depicting an outback panorama which measures 100m, arranged in a wraparound fashion a bit like an iMax cinema [not that I’ve ever been in to an iMax cinema, you understand]. It’s housed in its own round room, onto which projects a central viewing platform. The painting is fronted by a diorama of a classic Australian outback filling in the floor space.

Next stop was at the Palace Hotel for a beer, just because it features in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – a movie about three drag queens which everyone should see just for the sheer spectacle of the costumes. Terence Stamp camps it up magnificently as one of the flamers. We love it. I have also seen the stage show but, really, it pales compared to the movie, in my view. The hotel, however, paled compared to most things.

We made our way to a second art gallery which proved to be closed “for some reno” [read “renovation work”]

Broken Hill is a town surrounded by vast spoil heaps making it impossible to forget that this is a mining town. Attractive, it isn’t. It is dominated by a heap topped with a memorial housing the names of those miners who lost their lives making someone else rich.

Broken Hill has an historically famous (?) old milk bar called Bells. I haven’t seen a milk bar for many years but we thought a visit would be a hoot. What we know as floats are called “spiders” here, for some unaccountable reason. Francine ordered a ginger beer spider while I had a green lime spider. Refreshing but a little on the sweet side, just right for a type II diabetic. [What’s wrong with this picture? Yes, there’s no alcohol involved.]

Bro-in-Law had told Francine of yet another art gallery: the Pro Hart Gallery. “Pro” was, we were told, a shortened nickname from “Professor” since he was always experimenting. There were two very impressive things: some of his artwork featured very stylized damselflies and there was an impressive collection of four Rolls Royces just outside the main entrance, one of which was painted in the Pro Hart style. Bizarre but delightful. I’ll take this over the “Jackson Pollack” Beetle.

I bought a Pro Hart damselfly stubby cooler and repaired to the Starview Campsite to try it out before subset dragged us up to a collection of 12 Broken Hill Sculptures. Francine got aan all-encompassing view of the set but by far the most impressive is one with a hole, through which, if you’re lucky, you can get a starburst of the setting sun.