White Cliffs to Menindee

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This morning we checked out of Dugout 3 at the White Cliffs Underground Motel and pointed the nose of the MU-X southwards on the Opal Miners Way to Wilcannia. We are really homeward bound now!

Travelling on Opal Miners Way, which is a sealed road, was a welcome relief from the dirt road driving that we have been doing over the last couple of days! Even though the road is sealed, it’s still a ‘long paddock’ so, in addition to watching for kangaroos and emus, we had to be on the lookout for black cattle. And … we saw all three! Three kangaroos jumped across the road, a black cow/steer (?) stared us down from three quarters of the way across the road as much as to say ‘I’ll finish crossing in my own time’ and, thankfully, the emus ran away from the road as we approached.

Most exciting, though, was seeing three wedge-tailed eagles on the road side. They were partaking in some road-kill in long grass, on the opposite of the road. They took flight, fortunately heading away from our vehicle, as we sailed by. We executed a U-turn and managed to photograph two of them in the tree they had retreated to.

We arrived in Wilcannia to find that just about everything was closed due to a planned power outage! That was concerning because we didn’t top up the tanks in White Cliffs. Fortunately, when we found the BP Servo, we could still pump fuel AND pre-pay with our credit card because they were running a generator. Phew! We probably would have had to drive back into Broken Hill before driving to Menindee, which would have added around 150 kilometres to our trip, if we hadn’t been able to refuel.

After refuelling I noticed that we were missing a bolt in one side of the bogan light bracket on the bull bar. What?! That road to Paroo-Darling National Park already broke our CB aerial yesterday now it looks like it must’ve shaken a bolt out of the LED strip light fixing too. Damn, the MU-X is coping well with all the dirt road driving, but the accessories that Bernie has had fitted not so much. Hopefully the aerial will be replaced under warranty? Surely it should be engineered to survive more than what we have put it through? And, thank goodness for gaffer tape. Bernie put a roll of gaffer tape in his kit so now the bogan light is taped onto the bull bar to get us home.

Wilcannia must have been a very handsome town in it’s heyday as an inland port on the Darling River Run. It has some lovely stone buildings but, unfortunately, many of them are now falling into disrepair. The once beautiful Post Office is draped with orange flags to stop people going under the verandah due to concerns about its safety. So sad to see these heritage buildings being neglected.

The Darling River was flowing steadily under the Centre Lift Bridge. The bridge, completed in 1896, was the first bridge crossing of the Darling River between Wentworth and Bourke. Prior to its construction, all stock and vehicles crossed on punts, although sometimes large herds of stock were swum across led by a bullock who had been trained to swim the river! The bridge is listed with the National Trust and is one of the few remaining examples of the 23 movable bridges that were built on the Murray-Darling river system.

Both roads from Wilcannia to Menindee were closed after the flooding in mid-March. On Monday, the man at the TIC Broken Hill thought that the west road was open again and information on the internet seemed to confirm this. With the owner of the BP Servo also telling us that it was open, we felt confident to set out to Menindee on the route along the Darling River. So that was another 154 kilometres of dirt road driving!

The road varied between hard packed sort of clay, course white rock gravel and red dirt with occasional sandy patches. Bernie had to keep his wits about him to tackle the constantly changing road conditions. Meanwhile, I marvelled at the variation in vegetation from predominantly mulga, to more eucalypts, to stands of casuarinas and then areas where only saltbush seemed to grow. Along this section of the journey we saw another wedge-tailed eagle with some ravens. It was impossible to determine if the wedge-tailed eagle was harassing the ravens or vice versa. We also spotted a few emus, some goats and some sheep.

We made it into Menindee at about 1.30pm and rushed straight into the Tourist Information Centre. By the time we had spent 10 minutes in there with the very helpful staff member we had to rush straight to the General Store to find some lunch before it closed at 2.00pm. I think the owners must’ve been very happy to have us buy most of the pies left in the pie warmer 10 minutes before closing.

With our late lunch done we headed down to the other end of town to check in at the Bourke and Wills Motel. We unloaded our gear and decided that we could probably complete most of the Heritage Trail on foot. After hoofing it around between numbers 3 to 12 we jumped back in the car to drive to the rail bridge (1) and the railway station (2) before heading back out the Broken Hill Road to Dost Mahomet’s Grave(14).

Dost was an Afghan camel driver on the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition in 1860-62 . He was one of the party who remained at base camp at the Dig Tree. He returned to Menindee and made his home in the town. Following his death in 1881 he was buried at the site where he used to pray. A headstone was first erected in 1952 and a more recent replacement in 2006. We were a bit surprised that the headstone seems to be more about remembering the Burke and Wills expedition and glorifying the Menindee & District Progress Association in 1952 and the Central Darling Shire Council in 2006.

For dinner we literally walked across the road to the Historic Maidens Hotel from which the Burke and Wills expedition set out on the 19th of October 1860. The hotel boasted an extensive menu and we all had trouble deciding what we would have.The food when it arrived proved to be really good pub grub.



Woo hoo, we gain an hour of sleep tonight with the end of daylight savings time.

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