15-34 degC; 81-35% humidity Due to nothing being open until 9am we didn't leave until 8:45am. First stop was Woodsie's Gem Shop which was a gem of a find. We didn't expect to spend too long there, but 50 minutes later we finally left. It was a house full of all kinds of semi-precious stones in all forms. There was even an Aladdin's Cave where the owners displayed their personal collection of gems and stones. There were many temptations, but none were bought. Next...

19.5 - 39 degC; 98-30 % humidity Biked and river cruise: 36km We left at 8:25am, five minutes earlier than our scheduled ETD. We considered waiting another five minutes for any new riders to appear, but immediately dismissed the idea! We rode back towards the Murray River to check out the timings and costs for the lunch cruise. Once that was sorted we continued on the river towards the Chaffey Homestead. The Chaffey brothers are credited with enabling the surviva...

Day 56 Tues 5 Jul 16, Mildura to Parkes, 687km, 6 to 8deg, rain most of the day. We had a conference last night and after checking the weather forecast for the remainder of our Eastward journey, we decided it was time to go home more quickly than we'd planned. While we've seen lots of interesting places we had never been to before, caught up with some wonderful people we hadn't seen in ages, well and truly tested out the van and had a great time, the weather from...

Day 55 Mon 4 Jul Burra to Mildura 336km, 6 to 12deg cloudy with showers throughout the day. Not sorry we're leaving Burra, although it's a great place, but this morning it started to drizzle as we were packing up. That continued for the first hour or so of the trip, then just cloudy till Mildura where there was more drizzle. Arrived at the Calder Van Park, Mildura at 12:30pm so a good steady run on mainly back roads which were a tad lumpy. Set up, had some lunch ...