Nyngan to Forbes

Friday 27th September.
Got to Nyngan early and had a relaxing afternoon. Attached to the caravan park is an animal park with camels, donkeys, goats, ducks, kangaroos which you can feed scraps to. So we had a walk up and fed some bread to them. The camels went crazy, like they had never been fed.

Greedy Camels

Ray patting the camels with their big soft velvet lips

The next day we packed up and headed to Trangie. Ray's nephew is a policeman based at Trangie and works at Narromine also. We parked up out the back of the police station for the night. Maxwell lives 2 doors up so we made tea for him and when he finished work we watched the football. A relaxing night.

Guess who they put in the lock up

On Sunday Maxwell came in early for coffee before he went to work and we got away from Trangie about 8am and headed to Condobolin.

After setting up camp at the River View Caravan park we went to get some lunch and then headed out to Utes in the Paddock. These are old Holden utes which have been painted by Australian artists as a tribute to life in the outback.

Golden West Medley

Clancy stopping the overflow

Drizakubra

Emuute

Epitaph to fossil Fuel

The Stockman

Ute of Arms

We decided to stay in Condobolin for an extra night as the area around the caravan park is so nice. it is right on the banks of the Lachlan River directly above the weir. There are huge gum trees everywhere and a heap of different birds. A very peaceful place. It is an old park and needs a bit of TLC but the amenities are clean and that is a big plus.

looking toward Condobolin Weir

Our camp at the caravan park at Condobolin

The Lachlan River at Condobolin

Volume of water flowing over the weir at Condobolin

We got away from Condobolin about 8.30am. We only had 100km to get to Forbes so we were there in time to set up and go and have morning tea with Freda and Bob (Ray's cousin and his wife). It is Bob's 69th birthday today so we said we would go out to dinner so we did. we enjoyed a nice meal at The Forbes Inn. We had a storm this afternoon. It is the first major rain we have had in the day time since we left home.

 

On Wednesday morning Ray decided to take a drive to look for his Uncle Franks old farm. Ray, his parents and brothers and sisters used to go out to Franks farm every Xmas holidays when they were young. Frank sold up in the mid 70's and the family moved into Forbes. ray has great memories of those times so off we went to find it. We drove out about 15km from Forbes to where he thought it was but to no avail. We finally rang Freda and she told us which lane to drive down and so we found "Robeengrae". We spoke to the children and some friends of the people who own it now and Ray had a good look around outside. He showed me some of the places where they used to swim and generally play around. Very interesting. It would have been a lovely place.

 

We then came back to town and met Bob and Freda for lunch, once more at The Forbes Inn. One of young Scott's work friends at The House With No Steps had a birthday so we went to celebrate too. We had a great time with them.

 

After this Bob took us for a drive out to Bedgerebong, where Bob, Freda and Scott are going on Tuesday to a festival, where they will play and read poetry. A lovely spot.

 

Then back to the park and get ready to go home tomorrow.

Friendly magpie in caravan park

 

That is all the Blog for now. Hope you have enjoyed it. The next one will probably be next year when we are heading back to The Kimberley and then back across the Savannah Way to Cairns and then down the coast to home.

Bye for now.

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.