2017 Caravanning​ Eastern​ Australia

We were happy to wake to blue skies this morning and had packed up and left by 8.30am. We made good time and crossed the border into Queensland and arrived in the outback town of Cunnamulla well before lunch. We had intended to continue on to Charleville but after visiting the Information Centre decided to stay the night and explore the town. We saw our first beautiful “Queenslander” home as we drove into the town. Cunnamulla is notable for the “Cunnamulla Fella” who was apparently made famous in a song by Slim Dusty. There was a very large bronze statue of the “Fella” in the main civic area. We took a tour of “The Artesian Time Tunnel” which was a very interesting and told of the history of the Great Artesian basin” from when it was first formed millions of years ago to how it is used today and how there is now a very strong environmental focus on using the water responsibly.   We went for a drive around the town, out to the weir and on the way back stopped at the cemetery to tak...

After rain all night we were hoping that today would be dry but it was not to be. This meant that we couldn’t explore some of the tracks and points of interest due to the poor conditions of the roads. We opted to do some much needed washing and had to “hang around” to use the dryers which were in high demand.   We did manage to check out the Long meadows Cotton Fields and Irrigation Dam which was huge. Bourke was traditionally a wool growing area and was once one of the busiest inland ports transporting wool and other goods down the Darling. Wool is still grown here but since 1966 cotton has taken over as the major industry. There are 2 cotton gins in Bourke so you can see that it is a very important industry for Bourke. We did a quick little walk around town looking at some of the historical buildings. 

We have been quite fortunate with the weather so far. Although it has been a little on the cool side on some nights the days have been fine but today that changed. During the night we heard the rain and it continued in spurts during the day. It was never very heavy but enough to be annoying. We visited the Back O’Bourke exhibition centre in the morning and really enjoyed the very interactive experience. We both learnt a lot more Australian history of this region. We spent about 3 hours here and at midday headed for the centre of town to see a very old but beautifully restored Crossley engine start up. The engine was originally used in the Sydney powerhouse before being used in the Bourke area. We had a bit of a laugh as the two blokes running the engine for the 30 or so tourists were the same 2 fellows who worked on the paddle-boat that we’d been on the day before. The council owns the paddle-boat and these guys do two runs in the boat at 9 am and 3 pm and in between go back to town a...

We had a cool but comfortable night at the camp and set off heading for Bourke or beyond. Rob had spoken to the council worker who was cleaning the facilities at Glen Meadow and he told Rob about a lovely Caravan Park on the Darling River, just out of Bourke. We made good time and arrived in Bourke around lunchtime. We thought we’d book into Kidman’s Camp Caravan Park for one night and spend the afternoon looking around Bourke and then move on in the morning. The park was lovely with beautiful amenities and grassy sites right next to the Darling. We are in the upper reaches of the Darling and the river is quite narrow here. After lunch we headed down to the tourist information centre and were extremely impressed with all that we could do while here. We immediately booked in to do a cruise on the Darling River combined with the Back O’Bourke Exhibition centre. We decided to do the Exhibition Centre tomorrow because you need lots of time to do it and so we had to quickly make tracks bac...

A quiet day today spent mainly in the car. We travelled from Broken Hill and at our morning coffee break met two couples from WA. We had a lovely chat to them talking about our wonderful travels in WA in 2016. Just out of Wilcannia we stopped for lunch and met a couple from Tailem Bend who had sold up everything including their house to go travelling Australia in a large Winnebago. We saw so many dead kangaroos and even a few goats on the road and the verges. We also saw many emus but they seem to be clever enough not to wander on the road at the wrong time. We have stopped at a free-camp for the night called Glen Meadow. There are quite a few shady trees around the place but I can’t really see the glen or the meadow. 

We ventured out to the small town of Menindee and the Darling River and lakes system close by.   It was 110 kms from Broken Hill so took us quite a while to get there. We drove to the centre of the small town and picked up a map before heading out to Kinchega National Park. We thought we would see some lakes but only saw floodplains. There were quite a few historical station buildings around the place which were interesting. We did plan to do a lake drive ring route but were really disappointed when after travelling a long way on some very rough roads found the road we needed to take was closed. We enjoyed following the Darling River for quite a few kilometres and finally found the huge Menindee Lake on our way back to Broken Hill. Once back in Broken Hill, Rob cleaned the car while I visited the cemetery and did a self-guided walk of famous Broken Hill people. The artist, Pro Hart had a spectacular grave. We finished the day off having a drink in our neighbours motor-home. They a...