The 2018 Outback Adventure started the way the 2017 Lestervan trip finished, with a visit to Kevin and Jenny’s property, Slippery Boards, in the foothills of the Barrington Tops, about 3.5 hours from Sydney.  A good start to get us on the way – and to that end we took Bucketts Way and then Thunderbolts Way as we headed north through the steep mountain ranges and green valleys to Gunnedah.  Saw camels, llamas, sheep, horses and lots of cattle along the way.

The plan for this trip is to visit the more out of the way parts of Australia’s Red Centre, as well as revisiting some old favorite places from our 2016 trip like Alice Springs and the MacDonnell Ranges.  To get there we are doing a large part of the Darling River Run(DRR), an iconic outback touring route which follows the Darling River from Walgett to Wentworth.  We leave it at Menindee where we head for Camerons Corner, the point where three states ( NSW, SA & Qld) join, before driving to Birdsville to meet our friends Chris and Chris, who we stayed with in far north Queensland last year.  We look forward to exploring parts of the Centre with them.

Our first stop of note was Lightening Ridge, an interesting opal mining town, not on the Darling River but a recommended stopping point.  In fact we are following many recommendations from our friend, Fran, who did the DRR in September 2017 and shared her experiences in her  blog, which is very useful.  Its kind of like having Fran along giving us advice on where to stay and what to see etc.  Dick asked me if I would acknowledge that in my blog and I reminded him that I WAS in publishing for over 25 years and understood about copyright! As always the Tourist Info Centre was helpful and we did follow Fran’s suggestion to do the Car Door tours (a series of self-drive tours marked by different colored car doors). Also enjoyed a great gallery (John Murray Gallery), some opal jewellery browsing, and a visit to the Walk In Mine (part of the  Blue Car Door tour). Finished up with a sunset viewing where the first mine shaft was dug in 1902 (Green Car Door tour).  Met a couple from Brisbane there and ended up having dinner with them at the Bowling Club. Planned on visiting the artesian baths that evening but it was a cool night so we called it a day although the 40 degree C pools did look inviting, and are a key attraction of the town.

Before leaving town we revisited one of the jewellers to make a small opal purchase (my souvenirs for the trip).  Then we hit the highway to drive to Bourke. Saw lots of emus and feral goats beside the road.  Along the way we stopped in Brewarrina to see the 40,000 year old fish traps, reputed to be the oldest man-made structures on earth.  They are an elaborate network of rock weirs and pools, built to catch fish as they swim upstream.  At over one-half a km, they are the largest functional and most complex set of Aboriginal fish traps ever recorded and they are still being used today.  The brochures suggested Brewarrina could be an interesting place to look around but the reality was a stark contrast.  Couldn’t find the Tourist Info (no signs), the trendy sounding cafe was behind a large locked door, streets largely deserted and signs warned to take all valuables with you when parking.  We saw the fish traps and left town.

Drove to a free camp 10km’s north of Bourke called Mays End and parked right beside the Darling River, so now it does feel like we are on the DRR.  Even got some lovely sunrise photos over the Darling River before going into Bourke for info, groceries, fuel and coffee near the old wharf.  In the past this river was a major transport route with shipments to and from Adelaide.

Driving into Gundabooka NP had us back on red dirt roads so we let the tyres down before getting into Dry Tank campground.  Did the easy 5 km walk to Little Mtn in 1.5 hours, and from that lookout we could see the mountain we would be climbing next.  I saw a dingo or wild dog slink off as we approached the lookout.  Was a big day for wearing our fly nets.  Had a chat with the neighbors in the campground and all four of us were wearing flynets.

The Valley of the Eagle (Ngana Malyan) walk goes up Mt Gunderbooka and was labelled as ‘a difficult, 5.7km return walk over rocky and very steep terrain’.  Its a 300m (1000 ft) elevation change to the top.  That was our target.  Just before we started the walk in Bennetts Gorge, we were fortunate to meet Jack Bennett (90) who the gorge was named after and two aboriginal women.  They offerred us some of their lunch, which was interesting as no one ever offers anyone anything generally.  They told us some history of the place and that it is a spiritual place for aboriginal people, and that Jack did a lot of the work laying out the park. We had a nice chat with them.  They seemed surprised we were doing the walk, and we found out why.  The distance did not convey the difficulty.  We took over four hours winding up and down the mountain, but I did have two lengthy mother’s day phone calls and we had lunch up at the top. It was a beautiful sunny day, some wind so not too hot but lots of flies. Lucky we carry fly nets!  The view was impressive and we had the mountain to ourselves.  Scientists trace its formation back some 400million years ago.  It was a sanctuary for aborigines during times of drought and has its own creation story.  It was also the place where Captain Starlight (aka Frank Pearson), a well-known bush ranger (outlaw) was arrested in 1868.  Lots of history for a place that is not generally well known.

We retired to the other NP campground, Yanda, on the Darling River.  Starting to get a sense of the huge floodplain of the Darling River.  Interesting to see various stages of the river and the flood destruction alongside it.  Then we drove to Trilby Station (sheep ranch) which was highly recommended by Fran.  Got a private, riverside campsite and made full use of the laundry and showers, and the canoes, as we had a paddle down the river.  Enjoyed meeting our host Liz, who also provided us with a 4course dinner, driven to our campsite.  An upmarket, gourmet ‘meals on wheels’ almost.  She also gave us a book to read that she wrote about her family, life on the station, her adventurous world travels, how the station is run and a history of early pioneers in the area.  We’d seen lots of feral goats along the road but had no idea what a valuable commodity they were and how important an income factor they are.  Sale prices vary from $20 – $200/$300 per goat.  This station is 127,721 acres, has its own airstrip and a Cessna 172.  They carry 17,000 sheep.  26,000 acres are Darling River floodplain and floods are a regular occurence here.  The homestead is on an island protected by levy banks but they have been flooded in for up to 3 months at a time.  The last flood was in 2012. Our stay was made much more interesting by being able to learn so much from Liz’s very well written book.

We continued along the dirt roads beside the Darling River, briefly stopping at Tilpa (population 11).  The pub had no power, no fuel, no anything for the day so we kept going.  Lots of emus, kangaroos and feral goats along the road. All was fine until the right rear Tyre Dog (tyre pressure monitor) beeped to tell us we had a flat tyre.  We were on a dead straight dirt road in the Darling River floodplain with no traffic to speak of.  Out came the tools and the manual and Dick did a great job changing the tyre.  I could hardly lift it!  Thankfully we’d been advised by Chris to carry a huge pipe to help turn the nut spanner.  It worked a treat and otherwise we’d have been in trouble – 80 kms out of Wilcannia (population 745), no phones and only 3 vehicles passed in an hour.  Got to the tyre repair shop by 4:30 and it was locked up as the guy was out on a tow.  Checked into the Warrawong on the Darling CP (another Fran recommendation) and took a bush camp on the billabong about 2 kms from everyone else.  All things considered the day worked out ok.

At the tyre repair place in Wilcannia we learned we had a gash in the sidewall of our tyre, so we ended up with a $50 secondhand BF Goodrich spare.  At one stage both Dick and I were under the van trying to get the spare mounted.  Would have been a good photo with just our legs sticking out as we were parked in the main street.  We drove the dirt road to Menindee, a bit of a boring drive and everything is so dry.  Even the main Menindee Lake has no water.  Then we met the least helpful person ever at the Tourist Info office so that put us off the place.The whole area looks to be really suffering – huge fields of dead grape vines, empty campgrounds, empty lakes, closed roads and not many visitors.  One could imagine having a totally different experience if they had rain and the lakes were full but its very dry and quite sad looking at this time.  We did stop for lunch at the base camp for the 1860 Burke and Wills Expedition, which is now a campground. Then we visited Kinchega NP and saw the historic Kinchega Woolshed.  We were the only ones there so wandered all through the deserted buildings.  As described by Fran -“it was built in 1875 of corrugated iron and red river gum.  In the 97 years it was operational, 6 million sheep were sheared.”  We camped at a free camp on Lake Pamamaroo, which has water and a picturesque sunset over the lake.

This marks the end of our journey down the Darling River Run.  We’ve seen a lot of the Darling River and its flood plain, and started to get an appreciation of the devastation in western NSW caused by the lack of water; due to both natural causes and the major irrigation schemes upstream.