Outback Wanderers: Day 25-26: East to Sydney

December 9-10, 2010

As soon as we leave the Flinders Ranges, our outback holiday seems to go into suspension. We have one thing in mind now: getting to Sydney by the 12^th. We drive two long days, 420kms one day, 500kms the next. We drift through South Australian towns whose names pass briefly through our awareness without lodging in our memories as anything significant – Carrieton, Orrorro, Peterborough, Nackara, Paratoo, Winnininnie, Olary, Mingary – until we arrive in Broken Hill, the first town east of the New South Wales Border.

Broken Hill is home of the mining giant BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary) and the town boasts of many fine buildings that attest to its wealth over the past hundred years. For us it’s a place to stock up – food and fuel – but a supermarket is not forthcoming as we drive through the wide streets. Eventually we stop at an IGA on a side street, but the shop is small, dingy and unappealing. Still, I can’t be bothered driving around looking for a supermarket so I buy enough supplies to get us to Sydney.

The Barrier Highway is mostly a desolate road that juts through the central north of South Australia and New South Wales and used primarily by transport vehicles. We camp a night near a swift flowing river on the edge of Yunta, a small farming community, and another night in a roadside rest area between Wilcannia and Cobar.

The ABC news reports tell of record rains and flooding in many of the areas we are to pass through. We listen intently, following along on the map as the reporter rattles off names of towns that have been inundated and roads that have been closed. Indeed that dry, arid landscape we’ve passed through over the past three weeks has given way to a land teeming with water. A farmer’s wife we talk to in Nyngan says they’ve received twelve inches of rain in the past week. Their bumper crop, which promised three times the normal yield, has been flattened and the wheat buds have started to sprout. It’s only good for stock feed now, she grimaces. Another disappointment to bear after twelve years of drought and a brief promise of reprieve with the wet, wet winter.

As we edge closer to Sydney, the countryside turns lush green, creeks flowing across fields of long green grass, rivers running high and mighty. The small towns remind us of England both for their lush greenness and their quaint architecture – there must be intriguing histories in these places that grew out of the tentacles spread out from Sydney in the early settlement years. But we don’t stop to investigate – our goal is to reach the Blue Mountains by Saturday – a last dalliance with nature before heading into the big city for three days.