Into the Sunburned Country

After 8 weeks of heading north from Melbourne, we finally turned the car towards the west and started our journey thru the outback of NSW. Spent one night in the small town of Goondiwindi, then continued on to the mining town of Lightning Ridge - famous as the source of most of the world's black opals.

Lightning Ridge was a pretty rustic place, still dominated by the mining activity that goes on here in search of the sought-after opals. This was one of the original miner's cottages on the main drag...now open as a tourists photo stop. Thing is - most of the other buildings in town (and all of the shacks on the various claims) looked pretty much the same.

Case in point being this one which served as the home of one of the original miners for over 50 years...and which is still an active claim.

Here's a good look at the highway west of Goondiwindi. Parts of it were as straight as a pistol shot, and all I had to do was engage Cruise Control, point the car in the right direction, and try to stay awake. Saw several big Red Kangaroos cross the road ahead of us, as well as a couple of herds of wild goats, which caused me to cut my speed (posted limit of about 70 mph) about 30 mph since I didn't want to hit one of them at speed.

Also saw about 50 wild Emus grazing along the side of the road and in the fields that stretched left and right of the highway. Once the trees and other vegetation gave way to open grassland it was like driving thru the African savannah. Stark, but beautiful in it's own way.

After departing Lightning Ridge we continued further west to the town of Cobar (good luck finding it on the map). Passed thru Wilcannia on the way - in fact stopped here for a cup of coffee and a short walkabout to stretch our legs before continuing on. Lots of old Victorian buildings from the flush times about 80 years ago when this whole area was the center of wool production in the colony of NSW.

Only spent one night in Cobar, but had time to walk around the town a bit and meander off into the bush a few kilometers along a heritage trail. Came upon this flock of Galahs grazing in the grass of the local golf course, whose fairways were grassy but whose greens were all sand. Not sure how they putt out to complete the hole, but that's bush golf for you I guess.

Our most surprising encounter was with this young camel who was grazing in the scrub next to one of the athletic fields (or ovals) along the trail. She had apparently broken loose from her tether at some point and was completely on the loose.

 From Cobar we proceeded on to the Silver mining city of Broken Hill - the Capital of outback NSW and the only oasis of civilization between here and Adelaide. We'll be there for 4 nights.