Tashi delek from Tibooburra,

As today’s leg was to be a relatively short one, I didn’t depart the motel ’til 7:45. I stocked up on Baker’s Delight Danishes (again), refuelled, and headed north west for a 50km (return) side trip out to the so called “ghost town” of Silverton.

I had then to retrace my path back to Broken Hill, and head north along the Silver City Highway to my digs for the night. I had morning tea on the roadside ’round 10 (by my watch, but I’d passed back into the Eastern Standard time zone, despite having gone north).

Lunch was had at a roadside rest area, ’round 12 (EST), just past the Packsaddle Roadhouse. I arrived in Tibooburra  right on 2pm, after covering 418km. The road frequently alternated between 10-20km stretches of bitumen and dirt.

On settlling in, I changed into shorts, t-shirt and sandals. The motel room is basic, but clean, well maintained, and roomy. It’s run by the Toole’s Family Hotel across the road. I’m staying in Tibooburra for 3 nights, and will have to switch to a room in the hotel for the third night, as a bus tour group has booked out the motel. The only downside to that is that since the hotel is so old, the rooms don’t have en-suite bathrooms.

As I expected, there’s no WiFi access here, but I was prepared for that! This post is coming to you via my iPad, acting as a (somewhat oversized, and expensive) mobile broadband modem. The data plans for the iPad are quite “generous”, compared to those for a mobile ‘phone. For example, I’m paying Telstra $15/month for 150MiB on my iPhone, but can get 1GiB for $10 (prepaid) on my iPad. Whilst free WiFi access in motels is becoming quite common, when it is charged for, more than a couple of hours access could easily cost more than $10. Although the iPhone allows “tethering” with a PC to share its data connection, that option isn’t available on a “standard” iPad. However, I’ve “jailbroken”  my iPad, and have installed a non Apple approved application that allows me to do so. Thanks to the great coverage of Telstra’s Next G network, I’m able to get a 2Mib/s link in a “remote” place like this!

The Scotch Fillet I had for dinner at the Hotel was excellent, particularly when compared with the dry, overcooked steak that I was served at the motel restaurant in Broken Hill last night.

Cheers,
Julian