The morning after our night in the Cockburn pub brought with it the inevitable. The Matron could hardly lift her head from the pillow and her voice was little more than a strangled croak. "Not feeling well, dear?" It's probably just as well that the degree of her affliction precluded any response to the obvious other than a groan.
Liz normally has the constitution of an ox but after nearly a week in the confines of a caravan in which yours truly was doing his best to infect the entire world through the 'fresh air' open windows, it was little wonder that she went down as well. The only real surprise was that it had taken this long, and we were soon to learn that the bug I had obviously brought with me from Adelaide was doing its best to bring that city to a standstill.
I was still cracking hearty but feeling like death, so it didn't take much of a discussion to reach the decision that it was time to give the game away, ring Broken Hill, and see if we could arrange a drive-thru site at what we knew was the quieter end of the park for as long as it was going to take for us to both recover.
Plan 'A' was now Plan 'D'!
Fortunately, despite the fact that at this time of the year Broken Hill is awash with grey nomads all en route north (as we were), we were in luck. A drive-thru was available and we could extend as necessary.
The one bright spot in the day was the fact that we did not have to travel far
on this day when the skies matched our mood which could best be described as gloomy.
Fortunately the highway was all but deserted. I was in no state to be dealing with heavy traffic.
The other blessing was that we knew exactly where we were going. Rakow Street, where our park was located, is a direct extension of the Barrier Highway and only a kilometre or so into town. This was easy stuff.
Our allotted site was right next to that we had occupied when last here. Mooring and setting up was but a minor challenge.
So here we propped, for the next twelve days! Vans came and went either side of us, but the Mobile Marshies remained anything but.
We were able to set up chairs in the morning sun, which on many of the days we spent here was quite warm, but only if out of the wind. Max was as happy as Larry....no cage for a fortnight,
and constant company.
All was well and good, comparatively speaking, until the day after our arrival, when the dreaded 'Murphy' came knocking.....literally. As I was closing the door against the world outside, with every intention of crawling back into bed, the interior section of the handle came off in my hand. It had snapped of internally, completely.
As you may imagine this presented a potential crisis of some import. The prospect of being locked either in our out loomed large. Fortunately, a closer inspection revealed that, with care, we could manipulate the mechanism effectively, but believe it or not a caravan door lock is a wretchedly complex affair and whilst I have repaired two broken external handles, a quick trawl on the Internet made it quite clear that this fix was beyond me.
So, forget feeling like death....this demanded action in the form of a quick drive to the Broken Hill caravan repair shop not too far distant on Rakow Street. Of course immediate repairs are a thing of dreams only, particularly at this time of the year when folk limp into towns like Broken Hill dragging vans with all manner of problems, many of which should have been detected and fixed before they left home!
Once we had established on which side our door hinged (this is critical), the very obliging repair shop proprietress found that there was one lock of the correct sort in stock. That was immediately put aside and after some to-ing and fro-ing it was agreed that the fellow who was in charge of this busy shop would make himself available to replace the lock, provided I presented with the van on the dot of 1500 hours......in three days time!
Three days. Ye Gods, with us both feeling so sub par, the likelihood of forgetting how carefully the door had to be handled (yep, deliberate!) was a real threat.
The other problem was that of night time security. We had been warned that a thief had been active in the park. This was obviously not a problem for us during the day. We were constantly 'at home', but the hours of darkness were a different matter altogether. It was essential that the van was locked overnight, so it was with heart in mouth that I gently worked the locking lug, praying that whatever internal damage had been done would not prevent me from unlocking the catch again. Success!
So for the next three long days our van door has never been managed so gently! Roll on Wednesday.
Roll on it did, but Murphy was not quite finished with us yet. As I laboured away, pulling in the awning, disconnecting the hoses and electrical cords, and hitching the van, the skies were becoming increasingly threatening. The wind had lifted from the north, and the weather men were all warning of a major dust storm to be followed by a cold and wet southerly change.
This was just what the doctor had ordered I don't think. The effort needed to hitch up was challenge enough. Dust and cold rain was about the last straw.
Then at last we had a break. Despite the obvious threat in the skies above Rakow Street, I managed to have the repairs done and get the van back on site before all hell broke loose. It was a close run thing, and the awning and other external niceties did not take shape until the following morning, but at least now we could go in and out without having to stop and think carefully each time.
To add to my particular woes, the irregular heart beat which had been plaguing me since our departure, took a turn for the worse. Liz was recovering nicely, but yours truly continued to languish. I was like a bloody bear in a cave.
Eventually The Matron won out.....a visit to a local clinic resulted in the good news that I did not have the dreaded bronchitis, merely a death bug which had been doing the rounds of half of Australia, but the heart was another matter. So the following day I presented for an ECG, which to my great relief indicated no real problems other than periodic discomfort. The decision was then taken to push on as planned until we arrived at Kurrimine Beach when I would have further tests done.
With the resilience of youth (a comparative term in this case!) Liz was up and about after about day seven, and whilst our previous visits to this town precluded any need for sightseeing, she was determine to make one exception....
.......a visit to the famous Bell's Milk Bar in south Broken Hill
where, as their website proclaims, punters are transported back to the 1950's on entry.
How true this is,
even down to the old juke box in the corner of one room
and the furniture of yesteryear.
The menu of syrups and cordials is breathtaking.
Kola, Ice Green, Lime, Lemon, Sarsaparilla, Ginger Beer, Lime & Soda, Strawberry Creme, Creme & Soda, Blue Raspberry, Chocolate, Jaffa, Vanilla, Strawberry, Caramel, Iced Coffee, Coffee Royal, Lime, Raspberry, Banana, Coconut, Pineapple, Spearmint, Peppermint, Blue Moon, Butterscotch, Custard, Hazelnut, and Wattleseed.
Whew........what a range can be had in this array of bottles.
But that's not the end of it. Here at Bell's one can sip on nine different spiders (a blast from the past in itself), seven varieties of special spiders, nineteen flavours of milkshakes, nine special milkshakes and six extra special milkshakes.
Even the some of the names, such as 'Bodgie' and 'Widgie' evoke the past, for those old enough to remember them. I do!
And then there are the sodas, sundaes, waffles, hot dogs etc, etc, etc.
How on earth one makes a selection here is beyond me, but Liz did manage. She reported that her Peppermint Crisp ice cream sundae was superb.
As they say in the blurb, no visit to Broken Hill is really complete without making the trip to Bell's, but I found that I did live quite happily without it.
But what an institution this place is and in a town like Broken Hill who would have expected to find something like this? Mining and milkshakes....a genuine 'odd couple'!
The days dragged on as we both came good. In fact I think it fair to say that this period could be best described as one of mental hibernation coupled with the frustration of what seemed like an eternity of little progress.
But recover we did, and it was with great rejoicing that we again hit the road to finally make our way to the opal town of White Cliffs, only three weeks later than originally planned.
This delay did throw up another snag. A sign strung across Argent Street told us that our new arrival time would coincide with the annual White Cliffs music festival. It took little time to discover that this is a big bash indeed. Needless to say an immediate phone call was placed to the local caravan park number. Would there be any room in the Inn?
Our hearts sank when the redoubtable Rob (whom we later got to know very well) told us that all the powered sites had been booked out since January, but there were still a few unpowered spots available.
We filled our water tanks and took the punt. Surely life just had to get better than it had been recently. It did, and as you will see in my next few offerings, this turned out to be one of the best decisions we have made in all our years on the road.
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