Chapter 2 - Heading East to Coonararabran

Day 5 - Sunday 24th June - Wilcannia to Nyngan

Well guess what? It was 2 degrees as I started the car.  However a bit earlier it was zero.  It was a very frosty start to the day.

Today was all about moving from A to B, where A was Wilcannia and B was Nyngan.  We headed virtually east all day, apart from the first 20 km which were south.

We had wanted to head to a Farm Stay place near Louth (between Wilcannia and Bourke).  However they had not had rain for 21 months and the gravel road was considered unsuitable for our caravan (by the owner of the Farm Stay).  So we cancelled that option.

The terrain started to become more undulating, although the countryside would have trouble growing anything of value.  We even saw our first hill in four days (or maybe 600 km).

The main life forms were many wild goats, frequent kangaroos, a few sheep and many many birds of prey (99% crows). The goats and kangaroos looked fairly healthy, but most of the sheep were in need of a good feed - or two.

Again many of the sheep and goats had young with them.



Poor Quality Country

About 200 km into the day's driving we were overtaken by the first vehicle to do so for three days.  We stopped at a comfort stop - probably the only type of building we saw outside of the one or two "one horse" towns.

Comfort Station

We duly arrived at Cobar and visited a great pie shop that we have been inside of at least twice before.  I took a photo of the "big beer can" on the verandah of the Grand Hotel.  Other Cobar photos are in my earlier blogs.



The Big Beer Can

After our pie we headed off to Nyngan, around 130 km away.  This is "new' road for us. We stopped at the former railway station, now the information centre and a museum. 

The Nyngan information centre and a museum

Nyngan sits on the Bogan river and is in the Bogan shire, so it is only logical that they have a status of the Big Bogan. The big fella was created in 2015.



Shirley with The Big Bogan

We booked in to the Riverside Tourist Park for two nights, established camp, and went for a walk.  We were impressed with the Camp Kitchen and the Bogan river.  The river is apparently very popular for water sports (read water skiing).

An Impressive Camp Kitchen

Bogan River Along The Side of the Caravan Park

It had been a lovely sunny day with a top temperature maybe just under 20.

I cooked sausages 'n mash with gravy for dinner.

Our drive today was around 400 km.  Click here to view our route to date.

 

Day 6 - Monday 25th June - Nyngan

Another cold start, but we took our time.  The washing machine got a work out in the hope that clothes would dry by the end of the day.

Our first stop was for some cheaper-than-usual diesel and some air for the tyres - to replace air removed on the gravel road two days ago.

Then we visited the Nyngan Solar Plant which is the biggest solar farm in Australia.




Nyngan Solar Plant

Some details on the solar plant...…
It has over 1,350,000 solar PV panels supported by 150,000 posts.  Each panel is set at 25 degrees and is self-cleaning. The plant capacity is 102 MW and it generates 233,000 megawatt hours each year.  This is about enough energy for 33,000 average NSW homes.

Each panel is 1200 mm by 600 mm and weighs 12 kg.  If placed end-to-end the panels would stretch for 1620 km.

The power from the solar generation goes in to the state grid, and helps to support the local industries.

On the way back to Nyngan I took a photo of a few paddy melons that are often seen in remote Aussie places (and some not-so-remote).

Paddy Melons

Back in Nyngan we visited the Historical Museum after taking a photo of a local Iroquois Helicopter. This helicopter saw service with the RAAF in Vietnam and was part of the helicopter fleet to evacuate the 2600 residents during the 1990 floods.

Iroquois Helicopter

We had a stroll through the museum which had an enormous amount of local history from war days, farm life, town life, floods and anything else to do with Nyngan. They have books that provide personal details and war history of every local who went to WW1 and WW2.

Doll Section of the Museum

A local park has a fully restored (mostly rebuilt) Cobb and Co stage coach that would have travelled the roads detailed in Chapter 1 of this blog.

Cobb and Co stage coach

We relaxed all afternoon.  Shirley cooked chicken stir-fry for dinner.

It had been yet another lovely sunny day with a top temperature in the high teens.  Clouds were hard to find.

At 7:15 pm I was under the caravan repairing a broken water tap that allowed our water tank to drain completely.  Luckily I saw it, and luckily I had an appropriate part - as tomorrow we are planning on a National Park stay where there is no water for caravans (just toilets and showers).

Day 7 - Tuesday 26th June - Nyngan to Coonabarrabran

We  departed around the usual time - but 3 degrees today.  We were soon driving through Warren a lovely small/medium town. Warren is known for both its production of wool and cotton.

We did not see much evidence of wool, but we saw lots of cotton.

Top: Cotton Awaiting Collection from the Field
Bottom: Stored Cotton Awaiting Processing
Insert: Cotton on the side of the road

We stopped for coffee at Collie (pronounced Co-lie) and took a couple of photos of local houses.

Rustic Home with Character

Former Church, Now a Private Home

Not long after we left Collie the UHF radio took to life and I was asked by a transport pilot to pull over for a wide load as he was going faster than I was.  This duly happened and the wide load passed by.  Each side of the huge bucket on the trailer was outside the white lines of the road.  We followed him until we stopped at the next town and he was wider than a couple of bridges. Good management meant that he was higher than the bridge rails.

We stocked up on tourist information at Gilgandra and moved on to Mendooran - the mural town.  The only thing of note in the town were the murals and they were quite impressive.  It was much later that I found out that they also have a distillery.

The following are samples of what we saw.....

The pub was also impressive....

Royal Hotel at Mendooran

The last part of our journey was on to Coonabarabran - the central point for two National Parks (NP) that we wish to visit.  We did more NP research, did some shopping and booked into a local caravan park for two nights.

Although it was another lovely day there were a few clouds moving in - maybe a sign of the much need rain that is forecast. These were the first clouds of any significance that we have seen since leaving Victoria.  The locals are not optimistic of seeing much rain.

We dined at the Imperial Hotel for dinner. Shirley had lamb shanks and I had pork ribs.  Both were superb, and were washed down with (dark) red cordial.

Today we drove just over 300 km.


This posting is complete.


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This post was last updated around 7:30 pm on Tuesday 26th June.