Feb 3: Broken Hill to the Barossa Valley

Finally headed to the wine country of South Australia.  But first we were told that two “must-sees” were about 10-15 miles out of town on the same road, but not on the road to the Barossa.  We had time so we went out to the mining ghost town of Silverton (should have skipped it….a few buildings remaining from the 1880’s filled with art and antiques, which might have appealed to an Aussie but not to those of us familiar with Columbia, Coloma, Bodie, Cripple Creek and Central City, CO.  God we sound like Californians!

Silverton:

Sheep:

Emu

Gallahs

But 3 miles farther down the road we came to a rise and overlooked the Mundi Mundi Plains.  You could see forever, and it was green with wild grasses and shrubs.   The guidebook showed it as all brown, but the rains from a few weeks ago had worked their magic.  I am certain that this is the sunset spot for old and the make-out spot for the young.

Then back to town to a McDonald’s. Yes, pardon us, because we did not go for the food.  The more than 700 McDonald’s in Oz offer free wifi, and I had been frustrated for days so we went there, had a snack, and posted the last the days to the blog.   Thank you Ronald McD!

The drive from Broken Hill again looked like Nevada for 150 miles, and then became more pastureland for sheep and cattle.   At the South Australia border….just like California, the agricultural inspector boarded the RV and took away all of our fruits and some vegies.  We understood. We knew the drill.

But every once in a while when traveling you stumble upon something very soecial.  And today we did.  In the tiny village of Terowie was an old railroad station.   We went into town to check out the few plaques of railroad history here, and stumbled upon this.

Near the tracks was a plaque:  “General Douglas MacArthur his famous speech “I shall return! on this very spot.”  For those of you uninitiated to the finer history of WWII in the Pacific, General MacArthur was supreme commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, and in 1942 was driven by the Japanese from the island of Bataan.  He and his wife and child fled for 36 hours on a gunboat before reaching an island airfield under Allied control, and then flew to Darwin and then on to Alice Springs.  After the second flight his son refused to board another plane, and the three of them rode a train towards Adelaide.  In Terowie everyone and everything from the north had to disembark because all of the rails to the north were narrow gauge.  Then they transferred to standard gauge trains into Adelaide.

It was on this spot while changing trains in front of a large contingent of the press, MacArthur gave his famous speech, pledging to return to the Philippines, rout the Japanese, and push all of the way to Tokyo.  “I SHALL RETURN” became the rallying cry for all Allied soldiers and sailors in the Pacific, and MacArthur made good on his pledge, retaking the Philippines in 1944 and then gaining Hirihito’s surrender in Tokyo Harbor on Aug 9, 1945.

Sometimes you just need to follow that little voice in your head when it tells you to check out a side road.

From there we drove on to Burra, a mining town where the early miners dug their homes into the banks of the river, still visible today. And then finally there were vineyards, more and more as we drove on,  and we finally were in the Barossa in the pretty little down of Nuriooptu.

Tomorrow we have an escorted wine tour of the Barossa.  Until then, after 1300 miles of two roads from Toowoobie, we ARE twolanersinoz!