Our journey began early Sunday morning after a weekend of celebrations for Lisa & Chris’ wedding. We headed out west via the motorways, followed by large black clouds – though luckily didn’t have to drive through any of the rain that hit the mountains later that afternoon. We arrived in Orange at around 4pm, a beautiful country town with wide streets and ‘victorian charm’style houses.
Many residents of the town were at the annual Orange Cup races so we enjoyed a peaceful afternoon visiting the spectacular Borrodell Winery on Lake Canobolas Rd, Orange NSW, had a tasting session and soaked in the tranquil valley view. Next time we’ll come and land on the available helipad (…dreaming).
Later on in the evening we met up with a friend of ours ‘Granpa’ and headed into town to meet some more friends of ours – Aleisha & Claudine for dinner at the local pub. It was great to start the journey in Orange with friends and hearing about local life and bookies ghosts that smoke cigars on Saturday nights.
Day Two (29th March, 2010)
After a slow start on Monday, we left Orange and headed off towards Nyngan. We stopped for lunch in Dubbo (no not the best bakery in Australia) by the river and then continued on our way to Nyngan. Nyngan was flooded in 1990 when the Bogan river broke it’s banks. The town has now built higher levees so this will not happen again but that didn’t stop Jamie and I wondering if we were going to be carried off in flood waters as the torrential rain poured down on our tent all night long!
Day Three (30th March, 2010)
We awoke the next day glad to see we had made the night through and that the water in the river had barely risen at all – it’s amazing how noisy rain sounds on a tent!
There was still a lot of driving to do before we found red dirt underneath so we quickly headed off towards Cobar (Copper mining) then onto Wilcannia. Wilcannia sits right on the Darling river which was flowing quite steadily. The old lifting bridge was still in tact from the days when the Darling was the main way to transport wool. Wilcannia was once a busting town, but the river industry declined with the advent of better transportation types and the town has slowly falling apart. Whilst the White man brought industry there has been little since for locals. In the last few years Wilcannia has cleaned up its image, petrol sniffing problems and no locals stopped us to request a toll to cross the bridge.
We made it to White cliffs in the early afternoon so we had time to drive around the rock heaps, visit the local post office (which my (Vanessa’s) great grandfather used to run) and talk to a few of the locals who love to chat! We spent the night in the Underground motel. Not surprisingly its very silent underground, but happy. White Cliffs truly is a strange and interesting place, from the air all that can be recognised of the luna styled White Cliffs landscape are the Opal digging holes.
Next post
On to…… Mutuwinji National Park, Lake Menindee in Kinchega NP, Silverton (aka Mad Max territory & Mundi Mundi Plains),Broken Hill (Pro Hart, Geoscience Australia, the Sculptor’s Symposium exhibit at sunset)
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