Photo gallery trial in this post – at end of post. Please allow time for pics to load- hopefully the enlargeable thumbnails should be there by the time you finish reading. Fingers crossed. Feedback welcome.
Leaving Tibooburra afforded us some great views, hills of large granite boulders, past which were jump ups on the horizon. Very pleasant in the early morning sun leaving us with the impression that the town’s residents were lucky to live somewhere so beautiful.
The road, ’The Cut Line’ west to Wanaaring was an ‘interesting’ drive on an unseasonally hot 42 degree day in the midst of a howling gale! No wind as we left Tibooburra, passing the 3 dead pigs plus a piglet left in the middle of the road alongside another of the town’s attractive silhouette entry signs. The pigs stank, as did the inconsiderate act of leaving them there like that! What, if any, statement was being made we didn’t know, it seemed like an exercise in ignorant redneckism to us, perhaps amusing whilst pissed to the perpetrator, but gross to everyone else. Yuk!
Around 50kms out of Tibooburra the wind began to blow, & it blew hard for the rest of the day, making travel quite unpleasant. Imagine, a hot wind which feels like it has come from a furnace. Now place yourself in the greehouse like environment of a two seater cab vehicle, windows shut to keep out the constantly swirling dust & air conditioning turned off to help keep the engine temperature below 90 degrees. In the circumstances, you, like us, could not help feeling like you were in an oven, with the only relief occasionally having our hot, sweaty (& by the end of the day- wilting) bodies exposed to the brief hot, but cooling draughts afforded by opening the windows in the rare dust free moments. Often our vision was restricted to just a few feet in front of the car, like a thick fog, except this ‘fog’ was not what we wanted being sucked into our motor’s air cleaner. The sand blown onto the road ‘fluffed up’ the surface & created soft ridges which pulled the vehicle one way then another. 4wd was reassuring. Roadkill is something I always try to avoid running over, the bones represent a puncture risk, but in these circumstances, even when vision cleared a little the carcasses were hard to distinguish as they had been transformed into mounds of sand. It was a long 234km drive to Wanaaring where we were exceptionally grateful for the air conditioning & cold drink at the pub to revive our sagging spirits. If nothing else the swirling sweaty storm was spectacular, but I wasn’t about to expose my camera to it, so no pics.
It was particularly nice to be remembered by the landlady from when we had been in Wanaaring a couple of months earlier, then heading north, now west. We enquired whether Gary would be around later as we were keen to seek his permission to once again camp at his gorgeous waterhole on the Paroo. ’No Worries” the landlady said, “he would be more than happy for you to go down there again, I gave him the note you left him last time, I’ll let him know you’re down there” .
Just as the flies ‘go to bed’ just on dark, so to does the wind drop. Not sure why this is, but it’s a desert phenomena which we have become accustomed to on windy days. Actually just a little before dark, which is convenient as it generally gives a short window of opportunity to cook (outside kitchen) before all the buzzy flying things attracted by our lights make their presence known. This night at the waterhole was no different, but had the bonus of watching birds & ‘roos having last drinks. Whilst sitting eating we could see up to a dozen roos drinking at any one time, some stretching their necks to reach down to the water, some enjoying getting right into the water. All took their time as though it were an enjoyable social ritual…… which of course it most probably is.
The following day was cloudy, grey & with rain drizzling on & off all day, constantly threatening to become heavier, but the threat didn’t eventuate ….. thankfully. The red dirt road, sometimes clay, sometimes sand, but all horribly corrugated, got darker with the drizzle, but luckily remained firm enough to drive on. The nice surprise was the last 50 or 60kms of the 200kms to Bourke had been sealed. A lovely smooth road, but which revealed that new noises we ‘thought’ we had heard from our vehicle on the corrugations were not imaginary. A movement & vibration related squeak from somewhere at the front right of the vehicle tormented me, & despite several stops to investigte remained a mystery.
Approaching Bourke we first saw what looked like roadsides littered with snow, but having then seen the humungous ‘OCD’ manicured cotton farms, with their equally humungous & OCD manicured water storage dams we realised that the litter was cotton. We stopped & picked up some, just like cotton wool balls. This cotton litter was everywhere in ‘cotton country’, lining roadsides for hundreds of kms. Not only does the industry contraversially use huge amounts of water many feel should be more equally shared around, but also seems happy to ‘waste’ what cannot be described as small amounts of what they produce! In a dry country with ancient soils cotton growing is seen by many as an unsustainable get rich corporate crop. The companies responsible no doubt spruik their ‘giving’ of employment, & have the loyalty of those who’s wages they pay, but for us it appeared that the extensive littering, with a product unlikely to decompose quickly, displayed corporate arrogance.
Bourke was a reality shock in that suddenly not only were we driving on two lane bitumen, it had white lines on it too! Initially it felt quite uncomfortable being restricted to a single lane after the more ‘freeform’ dirt roads we had become accustomed to. Now there was always other traffic to contend with. This felt very different after a couple of months of a maximum of just a handful of other vehicles per day.
We should have spent more time exploring Bourke but it was grey, drizzly & a relatively chilly 27 degrees. I was struggling with the ‘re-entry’ process & really didn’t want to be in the ‘crowded metropolis’ I found myself in. (Of course it wasn’t that in anything but a relative way to that we had enjoyed in the deserts). We shopped in a supermarket with far greater choice & lower prices than we’d seen for a while, I got grumpy & we left town ending up at a riverside camp 100kms further east just outside of Brewarinna. Even here we found the camp ground relatively crowded with campers set up within 50 metres of each other. It was a pleasant enough spot though, & a reasonable transition back to ‘life ‘in front of’ rather than ’Back’o’ Bourke’. 🙂 (For non – Aussies the term ‘Back ‘o’ Bourke refers to anywhere ‘out the back’ (west) of Bourke ie. the Outback).
Continuing east from Brewarrina the following morning we arrived in Walgett, with no real sense of where we might go from there. An almost random choice took us south east on the ‘Come by Chance’ road, intially bitumen for 40kms but then 2wd capable smooth & dished dirt road for another 60kms to the small rural town of Pilliga on the promise of a dip in the town’s Artesian spa pool. Still some evidence of cotton growing, but increasingly we were passing through huge bare heavily cultivated paddocks, & farms with enormous grain storage sheds. Such different practice to outback stations! Again we couldn’t help but wonder about the long term wisdom of the farming practice we were now in the midst of. There was no evidence of irrigation & we knew that we were still in a region of very limited rainfall. Our guess is the paddocks must be productive enough when it rains to compensate for what must be a large annual financial gamble of sowing seed. The soils now brown, not red. Camping next to the Pilliga pool with unlimited pool entry for $5 per vehicle per night sounded good, as did the opportunity to visit the Pilliga Scrub (forest) of which we had heard much last year during extensive campaigns to prevent gas companies destroying the integrity of this large forest area to ‘frack’ for gas.
Whoa! Tamworth – a town of 60,000, ‘Were in the city now!’ Shopped at a large chain supermarket, topping up a few items which we’ve used regularly, but have not been available in smaller centres & then on to the Visitor Info centre to fill up with water.
Everywhere we’ve been the Visitor info centres have been a great source of drinking water, or have directed us to somewhere else to find it. In Tamworth we were met with blank stares followed by ‘Dunno’. In the end however, following lots of head scratching & then several phone calls, during which the phone was passed to me to be given some verbal directions we left to find the water. The directions, as it turned out, were far more complex than necessary. “Just follow this road to the rest stop on the right in a couple of kms” would have sufficed & made our task far easier. The tap we needed was there but in a carpark only just large enough for us to turn around, fine when empty, but impossible when others pulled in to park. In short the whole process of finding & obtaining water was a real pain in the derriere. “Tamworth – you can do better!”
Finding a large hardware store & a launderette was a far easier task thanks to locals we accosted on the street. With the rain having continued all the way to Tamworth & up to 25mm forecast for tomorrow we headed to the farmstay a few kms out of town. We are now set up, sitting on a settee in the camp kitchen, with a Tv to watch (for the first time since we left home), an electric toaster, microwave & gas cooker, the Tvan tent set up under shelter & us ready to sit on our own private little verandah to manage any rain that comes our way in comfort. 🙂 All for $15 per night. Wouldn’t suit everyone, but it feels like luxury & good value to us.
Oh…. and I found the source of the car’s mystery noise, fixed with two tek screws & a small steel bracket. 🙂
[foogallery id=”1143″]
Another well written story Cuppa and enjoyed reading it
Another fascinating trip record. Thank you Cuppa and Mrs Cuppa for sharing your tour with us.