Gismo Queen and her King

Silverton - Wednesday 13th July

Happy Birthday, Neill! And for his birthday, Neill had a rest day with a sleep in, lunch at the pub and a lamb spit roast for dinner! It was a great day! We all slept in this morning, after waking to a 6C (inside the van) morning that had none of us keen to head outside. Although it was a beautiful, sunny day with no breeze so much nicer than yesterday. We had our morning tea out in the sun, and then Neill and Jude went to the historic cemetary while Greg and I read. Then we all walked across the river into town, for lunch at the pub. The Silverton Hotel was a lot busier than we have ever seen it, and it's had a revamp since we were last here - especially from a dining perspective. So we ordered our meals and enjoyed them, although we all agreed the Mungarannie Roadhouse burger (on Greg's birthday) was the best burger of the trip. Neill and Jude did the walk around town while Greg and I walked back to camp, checking out what changes have been made to Penrose Park since we were last here (this is now our fourth visit). What was to be a quiet afternoon in front of the fire took a slight turn when Neill discovered his spit batteries wouldn't work. Knowing that he really wanted to test his new toy out (it was his birthday after all), I unhitched the caravan and Greg and I drove into Broken Hill for new batteries. Back to camp, the lamb went on and we all ooohed and aahed as the spit did its thing - over a specially designed second campfire! We opened a bottle of bubbles for the birthday boy, had nibbles and watched the last DVD of The Big Lap on our outside cinema. The lamb was taking longer than anticipated but we had a cracking fire going to ward off the cold and plenty of reminiscing of the best parts of our trip, as this is our last night together. The resulting spit roast lamb and roast vegetables was exceptional. We then put candles and sparklers into Neill's dessert as we sang him a happy birthday. A great night with great friends.

posted by Tracey @ 7:12 pm