16 September 2012 - Spring Hill Rest Area, Barrier Highway, NSW

My entry for today should have been almost a one liner; to say that we were up and away from camp by 8.30 am, that we bid fond farewells to our new friends and headed off across the bush clad plains until we reached our planned camp site on the MacCullochs Range 204 kilometres west of Cobar. That particular overnight stop had been earmarked because it was far enough out of Wilcannia to avoid any trouble and close enough to arrive at an early hour after business hours had started.

But as so often with our days and weeks, we did not follow this plan, but arriving at the rest stop in time to have lunch,decided it was not such a great place to fudge out for the rest of the day and catch up with our newspaper reading after all. Chris was happy to carry on and so we continued on across the wide open spaces, the road frequently bordered by a profusion of purple flowering borage and yellow flowering punty bush. The goats were as numerous as they had been north of Cobar and soon we were seeing far more emus than sheep and cattle.

As we neared Wilcannia, we crossed the flood plains of both the Darling River and the Talyawalka Creek, over an elevated road, surely a causeway in the wet season. And then we were at Wilcannia, ready to face whatever.

Streets of Wilcannia

It came as no surprise that the slander of this very small settlement was totally unwarranted. I accept it is Sunday, but then that could justify the number of delinquent children around hassling tourists. We saw no one except those enjoying family time on their own verandahs and certainly felt comfortable parking just across the bridge and wandering up and down the street. True, there is little to keep the traveller in Wilcannia, unless one wants to try their hand at fishing in the Darling River which seemed to be well below its normal level.

Wilcannia was, in its heyday, considered New South Wales’s third largest port, after Morpeth inland from Newcastle and Sydney. That was in 1860 and things just got better and better with the ensuing years. In 1887, two hundred and eighteen vessels had arrived in Wilcannia with 36,170 tons of goods and two hundred and twenty two had left with 26,552. The bygone wealth is reflected in the remnants of fine old sandstone buildings; the old post office, the police station and courthouse to name a few. Most of the buildings are in a disgraceful state of disrepair and should be bulldozed to the ground. Most of the buildings are barricaded with timber over areas that might otherwise be windows or doors, however the iron bars seen in other aboriginal settlements we have passed through, are few because there are very few shops that are actually operational to be concerned about such matters.

The Darling crossing at Wilcannia

It should be noted here, in an effort to report the positives of this place; it was here that Edmund Resch, the famous beer baron, built his first brewery in Australia.

It also should be reported that in 2010 the Wilcannia Tourism Association was started with an aim to increase tourism in this historic town. If the horror stories we had heard concerning the behaviour of the populace were indeed true, there has been a real turn around in the past few years.

Plan B was to proceed to the rest area marked in our Camps 6 bible and park up for the rest of the day. It sported a symbol suggesting “a lovely place”. When we arrived at the said stop, we found it was on a rise with extensive views all over the plains, but was without trees to offer either shade or privacy. We decided to continue, Chris confirming he was still okay. Here I should note that the distance between Cobar and Wilcannia is 250 kilometres over straight relatively flat roads, the sort that tend to lull one to sleep, and so there is the extra concern of characters crossing the road. At one stage as we came over the brow of a low hill, we came upon an emu just setting out toward the other side. He took one look at us and then continued at an easy pace, such that we had to brake quite heavily. He was lucky we could do so; a road train would not have been so courteous.

The next stop was very much the same, offering views and open to all, so we continued on again, now seventy four kilometres west of Wilcannia and closing on Broken Hill with just another one hundred and twenty two to travel. We arrived at this spot already packed with fellow campers and even though we are all pretty cosy, there are trees and facilities and not enough space for road trains to share. This would do.

Apart from concern about driver fatigue, we were also worried about the fact that we had few overnight camps left before we had to cross into the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone. This means that we should not carry any fruit or vegetables across that imaginary line and not only were we still carrying these items as we always travel well stocked, but we had been thoughtless enough to buy even more at Cobar.

Needless to say the intervening hours since arrival here and sitting down to write this have been spent in imaginative “preserving”, pears poached in a frying pan that is normally reserved for onions and the like, apples combined with canned peaches, avocados, capsicums and red onion into a salsa like concoction, and the prospect of eating mountains of potatoes, carrots and broccoli for dinner tonight. We will present half a dozen onions and about the same of carrots at the quarantine station tomorrow morning, having dealt with the rest in one fashion or another. And then of course we will have to restock in Broken Hill. What a pain in the bottom!

And while all this preparation has been going on, we had a long shower of rain, the first we have had since we were in Port Maquarie about two months ago. I had forgotten that rain could smell like that. Now the sunshine has returned for the last half hour or so, until sunset.