So Tuesday the weather was kind to us and allowed us to have a bit better look around the town. For a town that really has not much else going for it except tourism, the lack of customer service and just basic marketing skills are amazing. One shop selling opals and artwork was so covered in cobwebs that I'm seriously considering relocating any future Halloween parties to that location. Judging by the amount of cobwebs on some of the artwork - its been for sale for a while. Not to mention I think the poor guy bought all of his "genuine opal jewellery" at a sell-out for unwanted goods. In fairness he seemed like a nice man - just lonely and with absolutely no idea how to run a business.
Then there was shop number 2 where upon walking in the door you were immediately assaulted by the "aroma" (and I use that term very loosely) of some sort of Asian food and I don't mean that which had been freshly cooked today - I mean that which had been cooked over a considerable amount of time. That smell was as though it was ingrained into the store itself, closely followed by a very amorous Shih Tzu who was more intent on lining up your leg for a good humping than coming to the shrill voice of the Asian lady shuffling through the shop trying to herd him into the back room. In the meantime, while trying to hold our breath and see if there were any items in the shop to take our eye, we were watched by a strange man somewhat resembling Mr Burns off the Simpsons who stood the entire time we were in the store tapping his fingers together.
I think we'll be asking ourselves questions about that setup for many years to come.
The third store was a far more professional setup. From the moment you approached you knew this was a much classier arrangement. It was clean, well lit, set out in a stylish manner...... and then there was the assistant who was on the phone and clearly agitated by the conversation he was having. We wandered through the entire store finally settling on a fridge magnet and had to wait at the counter until he finally took a break from his call only to launch into a rant over how he was arguing with the owner of the business who apparently was trying to run the store from a distance and (according to our not so friendly store assistant) had no clue how to run a business. Oh the irony.....
We had almost given up when we entered another store where a European lady greeted us warmly and asked if there was anything in particular we would like to see. She spoke fondly of the town and in conversation explained how many years ago she had followed her husband in his dream of opal mining and left their home of Shepparton. It was there I found my birthday gift - thanks to Shane - I have always loved opals and wanted a nice necklace. The photos really don't do it justice.
As we were due to leave the next morning we decided to hook up the van on our return in daylight that night and order a Pizza from the Van Park's restaurant which I had also had the night before and was very nice. Unfortunately - in keeping with the whole "things don't always go to plan" Powell theme - the restaurant had been closed for the night to cater for a massive influx of Army personnel who were set up camp in the paddock next to the caravan park, availing themselves of not only the amenities for the night and the next morning, but also the restaurant. Due to the volume of orders, those in charge had decided to close the restaurant to all other patrons. So it was snacks and wine for dinner while we watched the sun set. Not a bad day to celebrate at all.
Next morning we headed off but sadly as this was our northern most point it was the road south we chose. We were unsure of our destination but I must admit that I was secretly hoping there would be room again at Lake Hart in the hope we could have a better night there after the storm cell we endured the week before. It's the one thing that makes Free Camping a bit of a gamble. Generally speaking the earlier you get to your destination the more likely you are to get a good spot. Last time we arrived at 1.30pm and were fortunate that there were only a few campers already there but those spots were taken up well and truly half an hour or so later. This time we were approaching the ground at around 3.00pm to find less people there than our first encounter. You can sometimes be lucky. We pulled in a little further up than our last visit and shortly after getting settled another Victorian couple pulled in beside us. The fact that we both had dogs I guess started the conversation between us. Then soon after a lovely Scottish lady pulled up in a small van and asked if we were camping for the night as she didn't like staying in places on her own. We all ended up having a truly entertaining evening with nibbles, drinks and lots of laughs and I think it was without doubt one of the most enjoyable nights we've had of any of our trips on the road.
I had been really keen to have a bit of a play around with some night shots, so when everyone had headed off to their own vans, and dinner was over, we took the camera and tripod out and I was really pleased with some of these photos of the camp site and the night sky.
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