The home stretch

The last time I wrote we had just arrived in Smoky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula SA. I won’t write too much about that as it was basically our Christmas/New Year holiday except to say that we choose the perfect spot for a 10-day stint. The local oysters were some of the best I’ve ever had (and cheapest), the prawns were delicious and the champagne cold. The town of Smoky Bay was a very relaxing place. While we were there, we also explored the nearby Streaky Bay and Ceduna, and some of the beaches in-between. We didn’t have huge success with the fishing, but did have a nice time trying.

After our relaxing 10 days in Smoky Bay it was a bit tough to have to pack up for the big drive to Broken Hill via the small town of Kimba.

Kimba’s claim to fame is that it is halfway across Australia and has a ‘big galah’. We stayed in the donation camp there which was excellent – great amenities and a camp kitchen close to town. We stayed hooked up and just walked around town for a bit (not too long as it was very hot). The campground is a perfect example of why towns should be investing in free or donation facilities like this. Had it not been there we probably would have just driven straight on. But because it was, we stayed and spent a bit of money to help the local economy along. It’s always a topic of debate in some of the travelling Facebook groups.

We were up early the next morning for the big drive to Broken Hill. The inland way is the fastest way home, but unfortunately the hottest. But given the east coast was getting slammed by rain, in theory this was also the driest. Regardless, it was the way we were going, but we were careful not to book anything ahead in case we needed to change our plans due to the unpredictable weather.

So much for being the dry way! In the four nights/days we had in Broken Hill we had over 65mm of rain (average annual rainfall is about 225mm). It seems that our rainmaking skills had returned! The campground hosts (we stayed at the racecourse) were very grateful to us for bringing the rain. I guess we aim to please! I would have been happy to put up with the rain if it hadn’t been accompanied by wild thunder and lightning. On the plus side it did cool things down for a bit. Unfortunately it also made things very steamy so we endured four days of 35 degrees plus and very high humidity. All the locals the whole way along the journey north were complaining about the humidity so once again we’d hit the ‘unseasonable’ weather.

Weather aside, Broken Hill is actually quite a nice place. It has lots of nice cafes and a bustling main street and some beautiful old buildings. It wasn’t particularly dog-friendly though which was a bit of a challenge. Poor Jett struggles in the heat in the best of times and not even being able to escape to a shady beer garden somewhere meant he was out in it far more than he would have liked.

We visited the miners’ memorial while we were there. 802 miners have been killed just by going to work in the mines in and around Broken Hill. The memorial lists them all, including the way they died, which in some cases was rather horrific. It did highlight the dangers of the industry, particularly back in the early days when safety standards were non-existent.

While we were in Broken Hill we popped out to Silverton, a town of 52 people and four donkeys. Again, it was a brutally hot day but we persevered to visit the museum (which was inside the old jail) and the Mad Max 2 museum. We also popped into the historic Silverton pub which has a huge beer garden – I think the town is probably quite busy in the winter season. We also went up to the lookout to look over the Mundi Mundi Plains – an enormous area of sameness that went as far as the eye could see, and also the setting of some of the scenes in Mad Max 2.

Broken Hill is home to a fantastic Royal Flying Doctor Service museum and exhibit at the airport. Not dog-friendly of course, so Jim took one for the team and missed out. We had a really nice hour or so being shown around on our own guided tour, then went and picked up Jim to visit Bell’s Milk Bar – Australia’s oldest milk bar. The milkshakes were delicious, made from syrups made in the traditional way. They have 39 different flavours, so it’s probably a good thing we don’t live there…

As Broken Hill is the last real big stop before home, we stocked up on a bit of food and picked up the odd bit of ‘back to school’ kit. I also escaped the heat with an afternoon in the library – sometimes having to go to work is a bit of a relief when it’s hot!

Four nights in Broken Hill was probably the right amount of time, and even if it wasn’t, it was time to move on.  

Wilcannia was the next destination. We knew very little about this place except that it is on the Darling River, which of course feeds into the Murray-Darling River, a waterway that we explored quite a lot earlier in the trip.

Here we chose to stay at a fantastic little campground on private land on the Darling River. Normally we’d choose the bush camping option right on the river, away from anyone else. Instead however we chose a powered site, firstly because we’d had four days of overcast weather and Jim was worried about the power situation in our batteries, and secondly we’d driven through some floodwaters on the way so camping down near the river (and driving down there on soft river sand) didn’t really seem like a good idea.

Anyway, for the first night it was a great choice. Nice and quiet spot right on the billabong. On the second night however, we had to endure a bunch of oldies (or grey nomads as they’re known when they’re old, AND on the move…) regale us with their boring stories and terrible taste in music. We can’t seem to catch a break with two good nights sleep in a row it seems!

We didn’t do much in Wilcannia except have a look around the town at the historic buildings. The history is all based around the river, and the paddle steamers that used to ply their way up and down the Darling. Today however, the town is in decline, which is a bit sad to see. It was a good spot to do a bit of work too, and I commandeered the camp kitchen (which overlooked the billabong) for a morning.

We had two nights in Wilcannia before moving on to Cobar, another town that I knew very little about, except that it has a fair bit of mining going on. Sure enough, there’s a huge mine pit in the centre of town, and then a whole lot of stuff going on underground that you can’t see. Here, we stayed in a free camp about 5km out of town on a sheep farm. The farmer popped by a couple of times to make sure we hadn’t melted (and just for a chat). The beauty of being just out of town was that the stargazing was spectacular. We forgot to count on the first night, but on the second night we counted 51 satellites, seven shooting stars and three planes in the space of an hour.

Once again, the local library saved us from the heat and I did a couple of hours work while the kids powered through some books (and Jim suffered back at camp with the dog, who was also suffering a bit in the heat). I then took the kids to the local pool which was fantastic. We made about one thousand trips down the waterslide, interspersed with dips in the main pool, then drove home to swap with Jim so he could go and cool off too.

This was another two-night stop (we wouldn’t have contemplated those early in the trip but we’re so slick with the pack up now), and again was a good amount of time to spend there to see all the things. Next we were off to Bourke for a one-night stop.

Bourke was a complete surprise. Green and lush, and with the insane heat and humidity it was a bit like we’d just driven into Cairns. Here we planned to look around the town while still hooked up before driving out to the free camp on the Darling River north of town. It didn’t take us long on the road out to the camp though to realise that it was far too wet to get there and we were bound to get bogged in the soft red dirt so we turned around and booked into the campground in town instead. A good thing too, as a huge storm that night added to the groundwater and probably would have bogged us on the way out as well.

There wasn’t much going on in Bourke so we were pleased we’d changed our plans to only stay there one night. We did visit the pub for lunch to escape the heat (still had to sit outside though), thinking that we’d then be heading off to our hot free camp. As it turns out, camping in town worked out well as Jim and the kids could then walk to the local pool (another really great aquatic facility like the one in Cobar) for a swim, then I swapped with Jim so I could cool off too.

The theme of this post so far has been the heat. We knew it would be hot (it is summer in the outback after all), but what we hadn’t expected was the ridiculous humidity and the almost daily wild thunderstorms. So, when Dad offered to pay for us to stay in a cabin in Lightning Ridge I have to say we were very relieved and grateful (as was the dog…).

With that in mind we were pretty happy to be heading to Lightning Ridge. We checked into the cabin as soon as we could, cranked the air conditioning and did not leave for the rest of the day. You could just see the dog getting back to his normal self and the kids were very excited to not have to put their beds together. Jim and I were pretty pleased to not be putting the tent up in 38-degree heat too.

Lightning Ridge is a pretty quirky town. Like Coober Pedy, it’s all about the opals and full of people who have gone a bit crazy after years of digging up their fortunes (or not, as it seems to be in most cases). Lightning Ridge is the world’s only source of black opals, more valuable than the lighter coloured ones in Coober Pedy. They’ve also discovered dinosaur bones, and even more interestingly, dinosaur bones that are now infused with opals! The government has chipped in $40 million to build a huge dinosaur attraction so when that is done, I think it will put Lightning Ridge on the map in a big way, similarly to how the dinosaurs have put Winton on the map in Queensland.

There’s also a massive swimming complex in town (outdoor 50m lap pool, full indoor 50m Olympic-sized pool) and water park, and free artesian baths which were only 200m from our campground. We didn’t go to the town pools as the campground had a pool, but Jim and I did take turns going to the artesian bath. It’s between 40 and 46 degrees. It might seem odd to visit when the outside air temperature is 40 degrees anyway, but the water is rich in minerals and comes from 1km below ground – great for easing our general aches and pains.

We looked through the opal shops and a fantastic art gallery, then did a few ‘car door tours’. These are self-drive tours that take you out amongst the mines so you can see how the locals live. The trail is marked by car doors, painted in particular colours, and provide an interesting insight into the lives of the miners.

We’ve had three nights here, and it’s probably no surprise that we’ve made good use of the air conditioning in the cabin. We’re off tomorrow though, for what is forecast to be a 38-degree day in Moree, then we’ll be back in Queensland! Ironically, that means we’ll be much cooler as we’re going to Stanthorpe, where the temperatures are expected to top at a very pleasant 28 degrees!

So we’re in the home stretch! Just four more nights left until we roll back into Bardon and real life…it’s going to be quite the transition and we’re not sure yet quite how we feel about it all coming to an end!