Half way between Broken Hill and Bourke

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Sunday morning started with our traditional omelette breakfast. As we sipped our coffee Joan announced that her throat was still feeling really sore and probably it was time to seek medical attention. What better place than Broken Hill, the last city we would see for quite a while. An internet search found two medical centres but showed that in Broken Hill you can not be sick on a Sunday, as this was the day they both were closed. We were heading through Wilcannia, but that did not inspire confidence. Bourke was the next major town and they had a number of medical centres, so that will have to do in a couple of day’s time.



Stopping for mid-morning coffee we spotted an old 4WD connected to a very old Kombi van on a trailer. It looked as though somebody had found themselves a major project. No sooner had we returned to the road when we caught up to the Kombi van doing all of 50kph. This became our third overtaking manoeuvre. After stopping for fuel in Wilcannia and also a lunch stop some distance later, we caught up with a very slow road-train. Strange, they usually sit on 100kph. But wait, there was something in front. Yes it was the Kombi van again, still doing 50kph! So after the road train we got to pass it for a second time!



We settled in to a convoy, with the road-train sitting 200m in front of us and another road-train the same distance behind, all traveling at 95kph. About 45km from our day’s destination the road-train in front began to wander over the road in a rather erratic manner. Its speed also began to vary. It was looking very much as if the road-train driver was falling asleep at the wheel! This was getting scary so Greg increased our separation distance. Oncoming traffic seemed to jolt him awake for a little time, but then he would begin to wander again. Should we radio him over the two-way? We decided against it. We counted down the kilometres to the Bulla Park Rest Stop. Finally two kilometres from the rest stop Greg radioed the road-train behind that we were about to pull off to the right, allowing him time to drop back a bit, avoiding having to break. A cheery thankyou as we pulled in was the response.

We are now set up for our first free camp of the trip.

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Comments

[Angela Reimann]

Knot lingo?
Does the wire knot have a name? Twirly Bend or something like that? There is a barb wire museum at the Spalding pub ..