Day 4 – NSW Roadtrip

Sean and I took a little road trip through New South Wales to do a bit of camping and sight-seeing. These are a few (late) posts telling the story of our trip.

We decided to leave early the next morning to avoid the relentless heat but by 8am it was already over 20deg and the sun was streaming into the car, needless to say a lot of sunscreen was worn. For most of the trip to Wentworth, our first stop for the day, all we saw was the horizon which was just breath-taking. It’s hard to actually describe how open and free it is until you see it but I thought it was amazing and SO beautiful!

Our 1^st stop was Wentworth where we saw the place where the Darling and Murray River meet. The one river was so clear and the other so dirty that you could see the difference immediately.

It was a lovely little town that even had a small statuette in the centre of a tractor to commemorate the Massey tractors that help protect the town during the 1959 flood.

We also paid a quick visit to the Old Goal, but it was closed so we just paid a visit to the little antique store which had been converted from the old offices attached to the goal.

Our next stop was onto Mildurra where the 1^st inland irrigation system was installed by the Chaffey bothers who had come over from America. It has a dry arid area and Oasis surrounded by vineyards and fruit orchards. We did a bit of sight-seeing including the original homestead of the Chaffey brothers.

 

We were going to camp in a small town called Balandrad but had made such great time that we decided to have lunch in a lovely little park and keep going to Hay where we stayed at the showground. The whole area is very dry and reminded me of a showground in the Karoo. We spent the evening sitting under peppercorn trees watching a very beautiful sunset.

Day 3 – NSW Roadtrip

Sean and I took a little road trip through New South Wales to do a bit of camping and sight-seeing. These are a few (late) posts telling the story of our trip.

We woke early on day 3 to make our way from Dubbo to Broken Hill, we had a lot of ground to cover, a mere 753.1 km so getting up early was the best way we could there in time to set-up camp. We nearly didn’t make it though because the only petrol station for 200km had broken down but thankfully we just got to Broken Hill as the tank was running low!

Just a few kilometers outside of Broken Hill is a small one road town called Silverton, often used to shoot movies and commercials. In fact it’s where they shot the movie Mad Max 2 and they have a museum dedicated to the movie, starring Mel Gibson. We wanted to see the museum but unfortunately got there about 5 minutes after it closed so we had to head back to Broken Hill without getting the chance to look around. It’s a gorgeous town established in 1883 in the outback for mining, with beautiful old buildings that look like they were among the first ones built when.

  

We set up camp in the local caravan park and thank goodness they had a pool because it was scorching hot! It was quite a busy campsite and there were a lot of ‘Grey Nomads’ around who just wanted a good chat which was lovely.

Day 2 – NSW Roadtrip

Sean and I took a little road trip through New South Wales to do a bit of camping and sight-seeing. These are a few (late) posts telling the story of our trip.

Day 2 took us from Lake Keepit onto Dubbo. We wanted to set off early in the morning but due to a very bad sleep thanks to a deflated air-mattress situation we ended up leaving much later than we wanted to.

   The Gunnedah Rural Museum

 

But it did mean we got to stop off at Gunnadah Rural Museum.It has a beautiful collection of everything rural and old from old cars and guns to restored tractors and farm equipment.

From there our next stop was gorgeous Dubbo, such a lovely, quaint town. We got the chance to visit the old Dubbo Goal, where we learnt all about some of the famous criminals of the past and a very different hangman called Nosey Bob, who lost his nose when a horse kicked him it the face!

   At the Dubbo Goal

That night we stayed at one of my favourite campsites of the trip called Tandara. It had 2 old railway carriages on-site, a pool and some showers. It was in such a small town where there was only one pub, one main street and such gorgeous picturesque views. It reminded me of Aberdeen in the Karoo where my Grandparents are from, but not quite as dry as Aberdeen though but just as beautiful.

   Our Campsite

 

 The Sunset on night 2