Tibooburra to Bourke

Monday 23rd September
Today is my Mum's birthday so the first task of the day was to wish her a good one. I hope she had a good day.

Today we are headed for Wanaaring, a little pit stop halfway between Tibooburra and Bourke. A really windy day is predicted, up to 90km per hour winds. The road to Wanaaring, although gravel is in pretty good condition.

Car coming towards us on the Tibooburra Wanaaring Road, throwing up red dust

We got to Wanaaring about 12.30pm and went over to the local hotel for lunch. We met some locals, people and pets and then came back to camp and had a few happy hour drinks with some people from Warrimoo in the Blue Mountains. A pretty bird came to visit, a mallee ringneck.

Mallee Ringneck parrot



Storm passing us at Wanaaring

It was a very hot night and when we got up on Tuesday it had cooled down a bit. Out the side of the van we could see a big mob of red kangaroos feeding on the levee bank around the town. A great photo opportunity for Ray.

Big red roo watching Ray watching it

We got away from Wanaaring early and the road wasn't as good as yesterday. Very corrugated for about the first 20km so we were down to about 40km per hour. Lots of goats around the roadside and plenty of emus
.

2 goats moving off the road

 

We got to Bourke about 11am and decided to stay for 3 nights out at Kidman Camp on the north side of Bourke. It is a beautiful caravan park, like an oasis in the desert. Two swimming pools, lots of shady trees and grass sites which is a real bonus out here.

After lunch we swept and mopped the floors, stripped the bed and washed all the linen and Ray washed the windows inside and out. We had red dust all over the outside but the van washing will have to wait until we get home. We could see out the van windows a lot better after.

Wednesday was a very hot day in Bourke, about 36 degrees so after going into town to shop we came back and had a swim. Brrr, pool wasn't heated but once you got in, the water was very refreshing..
Wednesday afternoon heaps of push bikers came into camp. They were on a Tour de Darling, following the Darling River from Hebel on the NSW/Queensland border down to Wentworth in NSW, a distance of about 900km. They are doing it over 3 weeks and travelling on bitumen and dirt. I tell you they are good as a lot of them were older than us. I don't know whether they are fit or nuts or maybe both.

Thursday morning we were going to go on the PS Jandara cruise but when we got down there it was packed as the pushbikers had a lay day and decided to go on the trip, so we decided to go on Friday morning before we left Bourke.

It is now Friday and we went down to the PS Jandara for the trip on the Darling River. It was lovely and peaceful. The river was beautiful with lots of lovely trees along the banks. We saw 3 kids with some dogs paddling kayaks on the river and two of the dogs actually swam across the river in front of the boat. Good evasive action was taken by the captain. Earlier this year apparently the river was flooded to a depth of 16metres and Bourke was isolated for some time.

 

The Darling River

Going under the old bridge at Bourke

Looking downstream

Looking upstream

Maura with the river in the background

Big old river red gums on the river bank

More river views

PS Jandara

Ray with river in the background

Swallows nests under the bridge. You can see the water level marked on 9th January 2012.

 We finally got away from Bourke about 11am and headed down to Nyngan for the night.
I'll do one more Blog after this one as we will be home on Wednesday.