Uluru Vacation: Holiday Road. Day 3. Cobar to Broken Hill

After a night of ridiculous wind, which we had hoped we had left back in Albion Park, the van held together and the wind had gone by 6.00am, which was when I was woken up. The morning was glorious, and having gotten through a couple of key incidents in packing up the van we got out of town just after 8.00am.

 
The landscape changed immediately and the road was straight and long. We finally saw live kangas, along with a plethora of wild goats and even a couple of emus, though Helen amused us all by constantly missing them. I also perfected my “caravanning salute”, which is basically to wave at every car that passes us on outback roads. Many seem to use just the raised one or two fingers, but I have gone for the all-four finger salute leaving the thumb of the steering wheel.

We pulled into Wilcannia at 10.30am, and checked out the mighty Darling River, which currently isn’t so mighty. It’s a real concern when you see how low it is compared to the height of the bridge that crosses it. It was also amazing going over so many creeks that were bone dry, marked only by the gums that lined the sides waiting for the next rain to come. We filled up at Little Toper, and old fashioned outback outpost with the neighbours sheep out the front. The neighbour is ten kilometres away, but every time they take it home, it turns up again a few days later. It loved being petted.

We arrived in Broken Hill just after 1.00pm, 468km in under five hours. After putting up the van and lunch, we headed for Living Desert State Park, where we took the twenty minute walk up to the Living Sculptures exhibit at the top of the hill, and marvelled at the view all around. Magnificent.

 
Back to our van park where I conjured up butter chicken, and now to enjoy the evening with a few beers before getting ready for a full day around the town tomorrow.

Uluru Vacation: Holiday Road. Day 2. Dubbo to Cobar

The Yates’s left at an ungodly hour as they are headed to Wilcannia for their overnight stop. We instead only headed for Cobar, and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and pack up. We got up at 7.00am and we’re on the road before 9.00am.

The scenery became rural immediately, and diving through the lovely towns of Narromine, Trangie and Nyngan showed all the traits of such country townships. The city centre dominated by the one street, complete with three pubs generally named the Grand, the Royal and the Great Western (or close variations).

 
Saw our first emus outside of Trangie, as well as all of the free cotton on the side of the road. There’s a fortune there just waiting for the right person to come along and pick it all up. I am not that person. The tumbleweeds also spoke of the lack of townsfolk we saw on a Saturday morning. Saw some free range mustering of cattle along the highway near Nyngan, a reminder of the old driving days of yore. Well not really but that’s what I told the kids.

 
Josh bought the farm having three times not turned his iPad off when told to and lost it for the rest of the trip. Funny how he then started to see stuff like the red dust storm along the way and the many dead kangaroos. Sometimes it’s hard to believe there are any live kangaroos left in Australia.. we haven’t seen a live one yet.

Arrived in Cobar before 1.00pm where the kids insisted on Subway for lunch. We then had at look at Mount Bourke lookout and the Historic Copper site, though for a $30 entry fee we decided to just look thought the fence.

By 3.30pm it was back to the caravan park, where having spent about half an hour checking over a fried Anderson plug (still working but probably not going to keep the fridge going along the way anymore) and van door that just doesn’t sit properly (livable but slightly annoying) it was time for happy hour, which coincidentally was the wifi password. 

Will cook dinner shortly before settling in to watch Collingwood beat the Giants (the rest of the family hope the opposite) and see if the Dragons can repeat last weeks performance and take down the Rabbitohs.

Uluru Vacation: Holiday Road. Day 1. Albion Park to Dubbo.

A long but leisurely first day to get as many kilometres out of the road early on. We took the scenic route through Yass and Cowra to escape the Blue Mountains and found the road mostly clear of traffic.
Highlights included Josh’s meltdown from the time he woke up until the time he could bury his head in his iPad, the scenes of canola and Helen realising we were going through Cowra and could go to the Japanese Gardens, but denied because we all knew her promise of “just half an hour” would have been three hours, which would have meant arriving in Dubbo beyond midnight.

We arrived to meet the Yates crew at the caravan park, and even had a quiet beer to celebrate the occasions.

  
Hamburgers for dinner, a few beers and a quiet scotch watching the AFL while the kids watch High School Musical.