For the last week we have been travelling in Western Victoria. We visited Golden Point Mine in Ballarat and saw their Light and Sound show. It's basically a reenactment of the events leading to the Euraka Uprising when the Goldminers built a Stockade and took on the Police and military. They got flattened about 20 killed- but it did lead to reform of the Gold License system and votes for Goldminers. In Bendigo we went down a Goldmine and had all the terminology and machines explained to us- it made a lot of sense of what we have seen in gold workings in NZ.
After a couple of days in the Grampians/ Hall' Gap we moved on up to Little Desert and Big Desert National Parks.
The transition from tar sealed roads to rough tracks can be very abrupt. Inside these two deserts the tracks are just sand. The sandhills can be quite formidable. You have to travel in High Ratio 4WD. to maintain enough ground speed- the sandhills are all about momentum. So you end up charging a hill in second gear regardless of the bumpy/cutup track and then, and then doing a quick change into first just as it starts to bog down.
Yesterday we did about 70 km of such sandy tracks, so this will be good practice for the Canning Stock Route later in the year. We camped by ourselves at a waterhole in Little Desert a beautiful spot. However its a bit eerie at night when your hear loud footsteps approaching your tent! These are Kangaroos grazing at night and they dont mind making noise. We have also seen wild emus, big lizzards and lots of rowdy birds. In the next week or so we intend to visit Mungo National Park and Broken Hill the Silver mining area.
Regards to all. Bob & Jill Dickinson
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Non club trips 
