Here it is Saturday and we are in beautiful downtown Mooralla.  Which, for the untravelled is about 45 k's east of Hamilton.  We are staying with friends of ours at their sheep farm.  This has been an awesome time.  I am now a qualified farmer as I have ridden on the tractor, opened farm gates, fed the sheep and been for a burn around the property on a quad bike.  How cool is that.  The weather is fairly crap as it was been drizzling with rain for a while.  I think I have just given away my non-farmer status.  I was supposed to say the rain is awesome and just what we need.

We left Ballarat on Wednesday morning and we were glad to get away from there.  It was bloody freezing.  We headed off up the Western Hwy towards our next destination of Horsham.  The road is so much better than I remembered as it is dual lane highway most of the way.  Deb even got behind the wheel and had a drive.  There is no stopping this woman now as she is a fully certified Grey Nomad.  We stopped at our first 'BIG' item of our trip.  We had to stop and get a photo of the BIG KOALA at Dadswells Bridge.  It is just the first of many BIG things that we will photograph over our trip.

 

Arrived at Horsham and booked into the Caravan Park.  There was only another 3 or 4 vans there and it was like a desert.  There was no grass on the site and most of the area is just sand.  This was really crap as when you walked on the sand it stuck to your shoes.  After walking around for 5 minutes unhitching I had grown about 5cm in height.

Made a trip to the town centre for a quick look around before retiring to 'Club desert sands' for the night.  Which by the was was also freezing.  The next morning up bright and early, too cold to stay in the van, and into the information centre.  Obtained all the info and decided that we would soak in the artistic side of Horsham.  Yeh I know, maybe artistic is a bit of a stretch of the imagination for Horsham people.  As can be seen from the photos we went on the arts walk and photographed some of the treasures of the area.  Also a walk through the Botanical Gardens???  At least they did have a really good chainsaw sculpture there.    This took us about an hour, which was about all of the culture we could suck in.  Besides that, it was freezing, the wind was howling and there was no sun.

Totem pole.  Very artistic.

From there it was up bright and early on Friday morning and off to the Sheep ranch.  Already I am driving around looking at other sheep and comparing them and discussing the merits of whether they have been shorn too soon and their general condition.  My next step will be the shearing.  Yeh sure.   

The difference in the terrain is just incredible.  All of Horsham is just a desert, with very little greenery in the paddocks and the closer you get to Hamilton it is obviously a lot more blessed with the weather.  The paddocks are all green and lush and just full of livestock.  It is easy to see why this region is the sheep capital of Australia.

Anyway enough of my nature lessons for the day.  We are just settling in for the night and will be here until Monday when we head off to Mt Gambier.  Until then keep well........