Dubbo to Broken Hill

We’ve missed out on internet access for a day or two, so here’s a bit of a catch up.

Terramungamine Grinding Groves

Friday 22 July: We’d heard about some aboriginal grinding grooves near Brocklehurst, about 10 km north of Dubbo.  This is in the opposite direction to the way we needed to go but as the trip from Dubbo to our next stop at Cobar was less than 300 km, we weren’t in any particular hurry.

The grooves are important to the Mungah (Ironbark) clan of the Wiradjuri Nation and are easily found overlooking an attractive reach of the Macquarie River.  The age of the grooves is unknown but the oldest could date back 2000-5000 years.

Ooo, Ah, Glen McGrath!

From Brocklehurst it was back to Dubbo and then on to the Mitchell Highway heading north-west towards Narromine and Nyngan.  It must have been a cushy job being the road surveyor on this stretch  of road – bung a peg in the ground at one end, go 100 km north-west, bung another peg in, draw a straight line between the two, go to the pub…

Narromine is the birthplace of almost everyone’s favourite cricketer, Glen McGrath and it would be a very unusual Council that passed up the opportunity to milk that fact.  Narromine Council hasn’t been slow to grasp the opportunity. 

Hence, Glen McGrath (he’s the one in bronze)….

Now Heading West

From Nyngan, the Mitchell Highway continues on to Bourke so we turned left onto the Barrier Highway and were now (finally!) heading due west.  Despite meandering a bit, we still managed to reach Cobar with a couple of hours of daylight left.

Family Carcass?? – Cobar Main Street

Rock strata at New Cobar open cut gold mine

Hauling up the ore

On to Broken Hill

Saturday 21 July: Trip from Cobar to Broken Hill is about 460 km so we didn’t waste a lot of time getting away.

The country along the Barrier Highway looked to have had good rainfalls in recent years and was in top condition.  Some will complain that “there’s nothing to see” along this stretch of road – poor bastards!  Yes, there are no Maccas or KFCs every few kilometres and no theme parks but the countryside is magnificent – spectacular red soil with vegetation in varying shades of grey and green shining against the deep blue sky.  And then there’s the birdlife.  We lost count of the number of raptors we spotted – black kites, grey falcons (we think), Australian kestrels and little eagles, one of which gave us a start when it flew up from the roadside just as we passed by.

There wasn’t a lot of wildlife apart from several emus, although the feral goat population seems to have taken off, probably due to the good seasons recently.  We spotted at least 30 groups of them grazing near the road.

Wilcannia was reached just after midday but we only stopped long enough to take a few photos of the Darling River.  Wilcannia was a river port in the days when boats were able to navigate up as far as Bourke. It never got the railway and it just died when the river boat trade faded into history.   The old centre lift bridge is a reminder of the days when large boats needed to navigate further up river.  The heritage-listed bridge has been replaced by a particularly efficient, but depressingly uninteresting, concrete structure.

The Darling dried up completely at Wilcannia in the nineties and early naughties but rain in western Queensland has seen flow restored, although the river certainly had more water in it when we last passed though in 1989.

Wilcannia must have been a vibrant place in the 1800s judging by the number of substantial public buildings, now unoccupied.

Red soil country between Cobar and Wilcannia

Centre Lift Bridge and Darling River, Wilcannia

Closer to Broken Hill, as we approached the Little Topar Roadhouse, we both thought we were seeing a mirage as an unexpected lake appeared next to the road.  However, if it was a mirage, then the hundreds of water birds swimming on it were being deceived as well.

The lake was real enough, although not shown on our map – another indication of the good seasons here recently.

Not a Mirage – Lake at Little Topar Roadhouse

Rarely seen inland shark – Lake at Little Topar Roadhouse

We arrived at Broken Hill at about 2:30 PM, having gained a half an hour due to the change from Eastern Standard to Central Australian Time. This gave us time to visit the Broken Hill Sculpture Symposium, about 10 km from the city.

More on that later.

Posted from Broken Hill

Castlereagh to Dubbo

Thursday 21 July: We got away at a reasonably early hour (9 AM – well, early for us!).  Departure was less complicated than usual because we delivered Black Jack to her holiday home last evening.  This meant that we avoided the usual pre-departure cat-astrophe of searching under beds, in wardrobes and behind (and on top of) cupboards for a small, black feline, who was quite happy to stay at home, thank you very much.  The wee beastie will undoubtedly make us pay for this indignity when we return.

Elvis Lives!!

For the first couple of hours we passed through well travelled territory so we didn’t stop until we reached our regular morning tea spot – the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre – two hours later (almost to the second). On the eastern entrance to Bathurst we were welcomed, as usual, by The King. He’s always been there whenever we’ve been to Bathurst in the past, and there he was again. This time we took a photo.

Don’t be cruel…..

Morning tea disposed of, it was on to Orange before heading north west towards Molong.

Animals on Bikes

Beyond Molong, the usual route to Dubbo is via the Mitchell Highway through Wellington.  However, while searching on line for interesting places to visit on our travels we came across ‘Animals on Bikes’.  This  is a paddock art trail extending for 120 km along Obley Road (a back road from Molong to Dubbo via Cumnock and Yeoval). According to the official website, ‘Animals on Bikes’ consists of “45 creative 2 metre high sculptures (and smaller letter boxes) – created by local farmers, farmers wives, Men’s sheds, sculptors, preschool kids, playgroup mums – anyone with an artistic flair!”.

Well, there was no way we were going to pass that up! – especially as the road is sealed (more or less….) and there’s no difference in distance, if Google Maps is to be believed.  Here are a few pictures:

A Tradition Continues…

Years ago when we went on holidays, it became standard practice to bring a home-cooked curry and, on the first night away, have it in a motel room served with a decent sized portion of chips from a local fish and chippery.

Some traditions are worth maintaining….

This was washed down by a local 2004 Lazy River  Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.  Dubbo isn’t well known as a wine region but there are half a dozen or more wineries here.  We don’t have time to visit any of them so this one was picked up at a local bottle shop.

It’s probably unfair to judge a wine district on the basis of one wine but that’s never stopped us before.  Let’s just say that perhaps Cabernet is not best suited here.

Posted from Dubbo

On the Road Again

 

This trip has gone through several changes in the planning.

Initially the idea was to drive to Adelaide, leave the Magna in long term parking, fly(!!) to Darwin, visit Kakadu and Litchfield, etc., hop on the southbound Ghan to Alice Springs, hire a car to visit Uluru and Kings Canyon, return to Alice Springs, board The Ghan again to return to Adelaide, pick up the Magna and head off to Kangaroo Island….

Whew!

The wings started to fall off this plan when we realised that flights from Adelaide to Darwin are not ideally scheduled. There’s only two direct flights per day – one via Qantas (expensive) and another by Jetstar, which is cheaper but which arrives in Darwin at about 2AM. Two-bloody-A-bloody-M!!  And we thought New York was “the city that never sleeps”….

Other alternatives are to be had if you don’t mind travelling via Sydney  or Melbourne or Brisbane or Perth or Cairns (or two or three of those), turning a 3 and a half hour direct flight to Darwin into one of at least 9 – 10 hours, with inconvenient and time-wasting stopovers!  The other problem was that it proved to be difficult to match up the two trips per week of The Ghan with the amount of time we wanted to spend in Uluru/Kings Canyon/Alice.

Then one of us – the one who hates flying – got the idea of a flight over Lake Eyre while it is more or less full.  The other of us thought this sounded like a great idea – after all, seeing Lake Eyre full is a ‘bucket list’ item.

OK. Plan B!

What about we put off going to Darwin until another time and, instead, drive to Uluru via Broken Hill and Port Augusta, then drive back to Adelaide and on to Kangaroo Island.  That would involve a lot of driving, though considerably less than we covered on our trip to Western Australia and back in 2009. It would also take us through the opal town of Coober Pedy which is a couple of hundred kilometres from Lake Eyre.  Flights over the lake are available from Coober Pedy by Opal Air.

Aerial Views of Lake Eyre (Opal Air)

So, after careful reflection, Plan B it is.  The distance from Castlereagh to Uluru is a bit under 3,000 km and although it can be done in (say) 4 days, we will be making a more relaxed trip of 9 days with a couple of ‘breather’ stops on the way.

First stop, Dubbo – then Cobar before our first ‘breather’ of two nights in Broken Hill.

In the words of the late, great Jackie Gleeson – “and awaaay we go…”

 

PS: The header image is from our 2009 trip.  It was taken during a morning tea break near Salmon Gums, Western Australia – between Esperance and Norseman.

Posted from Castlereagh