Darling River Run

Before I start this post, I want to thank Rae and Les for their help in identifying some of the birds from my last post, it’s great to have the feedback.

The Darling River Run begins with the Barwon River at Walgett (the Darling starts at Bourke) and goes through to Wentworth. The entire run is about 950 kilometres. It was a last-minute decision to drive the Darling River Run, but we are pleased that we did. We joined the Run about 40 kilometres south of Bourke, where we once again hit dirt road for our trip through Gundabooka (previous post).

We covered about 250kms of corrugated dirt and noisy corrugated gravel road. It’s a bit rough on the old innards and I can see why these are called ‘hunting roads’ – you go from left to right and centre, and often off the road altogether hunting for a smoother section. Anyway, it’s fun, and you do get to see more of the countryside, including fields of tiny wildflowers; ok, maybe they are only weeds; I don’t care, they were pretty. This section took us through Louth and Tilpa, and as per my previous post, don’t expect to get supplies from either of these towns.

We stopped at Dunlop Station, and what a lovely spot it was, and they said “Sure, we have water. Bore water that is.”

So, here’s the thing. For those of you who have never drank bore water, and it is perfectly safe to drink, you must be aware that it is heavily mineralised.  What type of minerals, how dense, and how strong the flavour depends on the area. Let’s just say if I had had any potatoes to boil, I wouldn’t have needed to salt the water.

But as I said, we were desperate and we gratefully half-filled our tanks, settled down on the banks of the river and enjoyed a well-earned, salted coffee. Hey, it’s good enough for caramel. 😊

It was quite tranquil sitting beside the river, with a raging fire to keep us warm, firewood courtesy of the owner, all chopped up and ready to go. To add to the atmosphere, come sundown a small mob (ok a flock) of sheep dropped by for a chat. Not sure why but the didn’t stay for coffee. We were also visited by a stack of goats… alright already – a trip of goats and a couple of rabbits hopped to the river for a drink. What more could we ask for? How about a few birds?

Dunlop was once a major sheep station of a million acres, but now it’s down to a little over two-thousand acres and while we were there they carried just a hundred sheep and several thousand goats. The goats are basically wild but are herded up occasionally and selectively sent off as a valuable by-product.

We only stayed here one night, the following day we stopped at the Tilpa Weir. Yet another great spot for a night or two. As we drove down to the weir we had the option to turn left or right. There were already quite a few travellers to the right, so we went left and found a great spot for the night. I left Peter to start the fire while I went for a walk, with my camera of course, and saw…wait for it. Birds! What a surprise, but the real surprise was this prickly fellow, or lady. He really made my day.

We continued on south-west believing that Wilcannia would be a good town to resupply. We couldn’t have been more wrong, virtually everything was boarded up. We managed to go through town, refuel and leave without seeing a local (just one trucky refuelling), even the servo was unmanned with an auto-pay facility. Although we went through there before the region started reporting Covid-19 cases, given that over ten percent of the town now has Covid-19, it’s probably a good thing that nothing was available to us.

So on we went to Broken Hill in search of food and unsalted coffee.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!