Goodbye Broken Hill

We drove out of the Racecourse Caravan Park on Friday Morning, pleased to be travelling legally once more, and pleased to be leaving Broken Hill. We had a really nice time here, it is very comfortable at the Racecourse, we even got to see some practice runs, but we have just spent too much time at Broken Hill. It was the only place we could come to during our nine week lockdown at Menindee, and it seems it just does not want us to leave.

Over the past few weeks, we have applied for both QLD and SA border permits, sadly nobody wants us. So, it looks like we will still be in NSW for Christmas, not Adelaide as we had hoped. Guess who’s coming home for Christmas mammy?

In the meantime, we decided to check out a few places we missed. including the Living Desert Sculptures, just out of town.

Finally, white Cliffs here we come, except… on the way to White Cliffs, we saw a sign for Mutawintji National Park, and thought, why not? Well, let me tell you why not. Because we didn’t check the weather, that’s why not.

We arrived at the campsite in Mutawintji after driving over 139 km of dirt road. Along the way we passed quite a few signs saying, “Dry weather Road”. Now, before you judge, on the way out there the road was dry, and we got to see some Wild horse too.

We arrived at the campground at Mutawintji, and it looked like a place we could stay for a few nights. That is until we realised that we had lost half our water. A stone must have hit, and snapped, the tank’s drain tap, emptying one of the tanks completely. Because the tanks work on a syphoning system, and there was air in one tank, we couldn’t get water from the other. No problems though, we still had 70 litres in Big Ears.

That night it rained, and it rained hard. The following day we spoke to some other campers who said there was more rain on the way. Hmmm, lack of water, “Dry weather” roads, lots of rain coming. This was beginning to spell trouble.

We really didn’t want to be stuck here so decided to make a run for it and go directly to White Cliffs, another 150 odd km’s of dirt. But, not before I got some photos of a young Corella and his folks, and not before Peter almost got carried away by a gazillian hungry ants. Who said he doesn’t have any good dance moves? Sadly, I was too busy laughing to get any photos, and Peter refused to do a re-enactment. I know, buzz-kill.

Long story short, the road from Mutawintji to White Cliffs was quite wet but we were taking it easy, especially through the washouts. Halfway to White Cliffs, we came to a section of road that looked a little suspect. We got out to assess the road. and could see the tracks where a big 4-wheel drive had gone through the first section. It had then turned sharply left, to go up the embankment. If he had done that, we figured he must have had trouble going through and wasn’t going to risk the next section. His manoeuvre might have worked for him, but not something we could risk doing while towing the van.

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That left us with two choices. We could go back to the camp at Mutawintji, and hope we didn’t run out of water while we waited for the rain to pass and the roads to dry. Or, back the way we came, back to Broken Hill.

So, open your doors Broken Hill, ‘cause we’re coming home. I might pick up a Change of Address Form while we’re here this time.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!