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Published: August 10th 2009
Hello again, I’ve finally managed to find my way back to a keyboard but must hurry with this one as the batteries are a long way from full and I’m sitting in a farmers field at the base of Mount Oxley … a fabulous view from my “wine seat” but certainly a long way from any power source!!!
After I last signed off we have been to a few more places including that of Lightning Ridge, Walgett, Brewarrina and Bourke. We stayed at Lightning Ridge Hotel Motel which is a motel/caravan park. Most people arrive in caravans and there is only one grassy patch for camper trailers which we were lucky enough to prebook the day before! The lady at the desk said ….“if you drive around our 4 motel blocks, through the caravan park, past the private residence and out the other side there is a large grassy area for camping“. When we eventually got there we found the site to be only twice as big as our camper and spent the rest of the night hoping we weren‘t going to get camper trailer buddies!!! Not only that, we had to plug our power lines in to the outlets
on the wall of the private residence and hoped they were the owners of the park! We also used the washing machine at the park but found by the time the washing machine had finished that most of the temporary residents had got to the dryers and the washing lines before us so we ended up spending the rest of our evening surrounded by our pants which we had suspended from the ceiling of the tent! After a few beers it did become quite a hilarious sight!
If you like opals then Lightning Ridge is a must see. It is one of the only places (at least in Australia) where you will find the black opal, very pretty I must say. In all other respects, Lightning Ridge doesn’t have that much to offer although, the eccentric locals are a must see! They have “car door” tours where you can self drive around the arid landscape surrounding the town (otherwise know as the suburbs!) and see the colourful characters that live there, living in corrugated iron sheds and run down caravans and some of them will even invite you in to tell you a story or two. We certainly met
a couple of interesting characters in the IGA and we almost went into Bevans Cactus Garden!!!
While in Lightning Ridge we also visited the artesian spas. They are a 2km drive east of the town. They are worth a visit, very budget friendly (free) and they are a glorious 42 degrees! Heaven! Unfortunately we only managed to dip a few limbs in as we had just had refreshing hot showers at the caravan park. Oh, this one is for the golfers amongst you ….we past Lightning Ridge golf course and had to take some pictures for you …..no more words needed except to say I don’t think any of you will be rushing here anytime soon!!! We certainly had a giggle and we don’t even play!!!! Oh and there was no-one on it …surprised???
So after a whistlestop tour of Lightning Ridge we then headed south to Walgett, who also have artesian spas. The artesian basin covers 22% of Australia, is located through 4 of its states (Qld, NSW, NT and SA) and it contains 8700 million megalitres of water which is pumped up to the surface. It also brings a staggering amount of salt and minerals with
it too and a soak in these baths apparently does wonders for “old bones“. Since we’re not “grey” nomads yet, we left the wrinklies to it!!!!
Walgett appeared to be a nice place and has a busy little airport which we stayed right next to (in Alex Trevallion Park) but we decided to head straight to Brewarrina, about 130kms west, the next day. The Barwon River runs just to the north of Brewarrina, a river rich in Murray Cod and Yellow belly …huh?!!! I’m now down by 4 lures and about 10 worms (along with 10 hooks!) … I’m not so sure they are fish. You can certainly see many rises at dawn and dusk and you hear them during the night when you’re camped right there (teasing you) but I haven’t seen anyone catch anything yet!!! We stayed at a lovely little place called 4 mile reserve just out of town and right on the river. The town of Brewarrina has a community of over 60% indigenous people and while they were very friendly to us, other travellers had told us not to stay in town just to be on the safe side. There is a lot of
broken glass around Brewarrina, not a pretty sight. We stayed next to the river for 3 nights, went on several different walks and saw lots of tumble weed! Brewarrina is quite a fascinating place with a rich history. There are aboriginal fish traps on the river which are thought to be one of the first man made structures to be built about 40,000 years ago and the amazing thing is, the aboriginal people of the town still use them today to get a feed of fish. In the middle to late 1800’s, the river in this area was used by the paddle steamers which travelled from Brewarrina and Walgett, right the way through Bourke and down the Darling River to Adelaide carrying huge amounts of wool and cotton. The paddle steamers had to wait until the water in the river was high enough to carry them through and the movement of the paddle steamers across the aboriginal fish traps must have caused quite a bit of friction between the communities! If you’re passing through this way, stop in at the tourist info as there are lots of stories to tell about this area, far too many to tell you about
The old Historic Barwon Bridge (Brewarrina)
Designed to lift to allow paddle steamers through.on here.
After Brewarrina, we travelled on to Bourke, the gateway to the outback. Henry Lawson (an Australian Poet) said “if you know Bourke you know Australia” and you can see why. Our first stop in Bourke was at the tourist info centre. The staff in there were so down to earth and amazingly friendly. This is obviously a town that thrives on tourism and it has a much safer feel to it than Brewarrina. In Bourke, we visited the old Port of Bourke which was the main port for the paddle steamers this far up the river. We have also walked along its streets and seen their old buildings built in the mid 1800’s. The Barwon river flows from Brewarrina to Bourke but merges with other rivers in the area and just before Bourke it becomes known as the Darling River. We took a walk down the riverside and I have never seen so many white rosellas ever! The trees were just covered in them. Absolutely stunning!
We stayed at a little place called Mays bend in North Bourke, upstream on the Darling River for a couple of nights which is by far the prettiest place we
Sap of the River Red Gum
Aboriginies believe it is where a serpent bit into the tree and injected it's poison have stayed so far. Again those horrible fish were rising and teasing me but I only lost 1 lure here before I gave up. I’m on the verge of setting my worms free and I’m only 4 days into my NSW fishing licence!!!! If you’re in North Bourke and thirsty, then the Northy is the place to go. The Northy is a little outback pub and has a roadhouse adjoined to it. This is where almost all the truckies stop so it is bound to be good. Of course we had to stop and “make a donation to the local community”. The landlord of the pub was extremely friendly and it obviously has a few locals. While staying in North Bourke we also saw the only paddle steamer that travels on the river today, which of course is a tourist river cruise. Our next adventure in Bourke was to climb Mount Oxley …
Mount Oxley is the highest point around Bourke (750metres above sea level) and gives fantastic 360deg views from the top. The property is owned by a lovely sheep farming local couple (called Bill and Denise) whose families have a long history out here. They have hut
accommodation on their property where you can stay for a cost but were kind enough to let us set up our trailer in one of their many fields. It was a fabulous view from our “back door” of the mountain. We had friendly sheep come to see us and Bill even suggested we take a swim in his “ground water”! Very nice of him and it did look inviting but all of the sheep use it too! (Not so inviting!). Anyway, we walked to the top of Mount Oxley and saw the fantastic views and also saw 6 wedge tailed eagles which soar so elegantly above the rock. It’s no Uluru but it is pretty amazing all the same. None of my photos of the eagles came out well so you’ll just have to come and see them for yourself! I recommend you do.
After a hot and sticky walk up the track to the top and back we thought it might be nice to let Woody have a swim in the sheep ground water. Of course being the crazy mutt that he is I had to keep him on a lead otherwise I might never have got him
Showering in the bush!
This is Hayley's shower .... notice the towel rail ... back! He splashed and played around for what seemed like ages and then this happened …. (see photo below) ….needless to say we’re now in search of a hydrobath ….. (who says dogs don’t have fun!) …..
Til next time ….
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Jane Hume
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Glad to see evidence that you two are showering : ) disappointed not to see the ginger beard but hopefully see it 'in the flesh' very soon!! So lovely to read your blog, feels like we're there with you, photos are great, please keep it up!! Is making me smile after a very long late shift!! Gayna and I drank way too much wine last night : ) missing you loads, speak to you soon xx