Thargomindah to Broken Hill

7 Sept – For many years I’ve read about Burke and Wills and their ill-fated expedition to conquer Australia from south to north. We came across their tale previously in Cloncurry, Qld in 2013 with the ‘water bottle’ story. The Dig Tree at Depot Camp (Camp No 65) is for me an iconic destination and has been on my bucket list for some time.  At this site, 154 years ago, Burke and Wills support team stayed a month and one week longer than directed and, finally succumbing to scurvy, left to travel south at 10am on 21 April 1861. On that very same day just nine hours later, arriving under moonlit skies, Burke entered the recently deserted camp - just nine hours was literally the difference between their life and death.

Depot Camp and the Dig Tree were our destination today at a distance of around 310klm due west from Thargomindah. The region's remoteness and our desire to camp overnight at the Dig Tree required us to fill the car and two jerry cans to the brim with diesel, fill the van’s drinking water and wash water tanks to the brim and check food levels and safety/recovery equipment before leaving. The road is sealed single lane most of the way. The verge either side of the road is dust and gibber stones. There are no settlements on the way and the landscape is mostly flat, dry and barren.

Road to the Dig Tree

Grey Range morning tea stop

We set off from Thargomindah around 9:15am. The skies were clear and the day was forecast to reach around 26-28 degrees with light winds – a good day for traveling.  Grey Range at 209 metres provided the only elevated break in our journey: it was here we stopped for morning tea with amazing views of the desert plains below. The rest of the trip was through flat mulga and gidgee scrub plains slowly giving way to harsh gibber desert the further we travelled west. 

Lunch on Cooper Creek flood plain

Innumerable dry floodways were crossed. The Jackson Oil Field came and went as did numerous other small oil and gas fields. The road traversed the 14 klm wide Cooper Creek flood plain where, just on the western side, we stopped for lunch.

Landscape on the way to Dig Tree

Dig Tree campground

Around 3pm we arrived at the Dig Tree turnoff and travelled the rough 14 klm corrugated dirt road in which led to the banks of Cooper Creek and the dusty campground where the Dig Tree resides. With only 5 other campers here and a campground over 1klm long we picked a lovely site overlooking Cooper Creek and set up for the night. 

Our campsite at the Dig Tree

The afternoon was spent reading the informative signboards explaining the Burke and Wills journey, the history surrounding the Dig Tree and its carvings and visiting this historically significant location.

Carving in tree of  Burke

A couple camped nearby were on their maiden voyage in their brand new Jayco Outback semi-off-road caravan. They were in desperate need of a drill and drill bits to repair their dislodging solar panel on the roof so we loaned them our drill. Having travelled only 1600 klm from Ballarat the van was falling apart around them. Their glass shower screen door broke off while travelling on bitumen and speared through a cupboard door, their security door didn’t lock at all, the solar panel on the roof had broken off its roof brackets and was held on only by the power cables going through the roof and on and on the problems went. The poor couple were so disillusioned but, to their credit, they were persevering heading today to Birdsville dreading what they would find each time they opened the van door.

Dig Tree

8 September – We spent the next morning at the Dig Tree camp watching the sun come up through the trees on the far banks of Cooper Creek. Clear skies and temperate weather made for a lovely morning.  After morning tea we broke camp and set off further west towards Innamincka in South Australia.

Sunrise over Cooper Creek

Road from the Dig Tree

We left the dusty campground and travelled the 14 klm along the dusty corrugated access road to hit Mr McAdam’s most marvellous of inventions – the bitumen road This lasted for about 20klm to the South Australian border where the news of Mr McAdam’s invention is yet to arrive. Given the total lack of Telstra coverage, or even wireless signal, it is completely understandable. 

Road in to Cullyamurra Waterhole

The wide corrugated dirt road soon had a grader on it so the conditions improved somewhat.  I pulled over and stopped the grader and spent a bit of time with the driver explaining Mr McAdam’s road invention. He told me to bugger off saying that if South Australia heard of such a thing and adopted it then he would be out of a job.

Our camp at Cullyamurra Waterhole

After about 50klm we came to the turnoff to Cullyamurra Waterhole the site where the remaining Burke and Wills expedition set up a new depot on Cooper Creek 25klm downstream from the Dig Tree on their way back home.  It is here Burke actually died leaning against a coolabah tree. A cairn marks the location of his death. 

A good bush camp on the banks of Cooper Creek has been setup some 10klm upstream from Burke’s grave. We set up under a giant coolabah tree with great views over the Cooper. There are only a few campers stretched over a couple of kilometres of river bank so the place is very quiet, isolated but activated just enough not to be eerily quiet. It is quite easy to get a sense of what it was like for Burke and Wills.

Setting a yabbie trap - no success

Although much maligned as a flawed explorer, Burke must have had incredible courage and fortitude. To die from exhaustion and malnutrition in the arms of the expedition’s only survivor, King, after travelling so far and enduring so much is such a waste. Burke asked that he be left upon his death sitting under the tree. Months later a retrieval party found his body still under the tree and still with a loaded rusted pistol in his hand. His body and that of Wills, who died in a different location, were returned to Melbourne where they were honoured with Australia’s first state funeral.

We visited the place where Burke died under a coolibah tree besides Cooper Creek. Today a cairn marks the spot. The tree is still growing and is likely to be around 200-250 years old. It was quite moving to see where Burke had died, alone, starving and literally in the middle of nowhere.

Coolabah tree where Robert O'Hara Burke died

 The following are some images from camp on our night at Cullyamurra Waterhole:

9 September – After breakfast (see details below) we said farewell to Cooper Creek and Burke and Wills (for a while at least), packed up and headed to Innamincka about 20 klm further west. It was here we filled the car up as well as a Jerry Can at $1.85 per litre for the trip to Tibooburra and also paid our camp fees for our one night stand in the Innamincka Regional Reserve. The cost $29 - that's right, you heard me - $29. It was made up of a parks access fee, a car access fee and a camp site fee. No wonder Burke starved to death - the National Parks charges would have left him little or nothing for food.

Innamincka

The Quartermaster (and cook) has asked me to have a turn to write about what great meals we are having in the middle of nowhere – and we are.  No scurvy or malnutrition for us. 

Over to you Quartermaster: 

Breakfasts are fresh fruit (half an orange, apple, banana & sometimes kiwi fruit each) with a raw nut mix.  Lunches are multi-grain wraps with tomatoes, cheese, gherkins & mayo or crispbread with avocado.   Dinner tonight was rocket, blue vein cheese, toasted walnuts and pear with a homemade strawberry chilli vinaigrette.  Last night was hot smoked salmon, caper & lemon juice with wholemeal pasta.   Tomorrow night is mushroom fried rice.  We haven’t opened a can in 9 days (I have Julie).  Our freezer is full of nuts and homemade, rather healthy, biscuits – no meat. 

Life on the road – wonderful! 

Thank you Julie for that informative narration. 

All this is often washed down with the fermented juice of shiraz grapes, or freshly picked hops and barley mixed with filtered water to make a nice all natural afternoon beverage. Ahh now that is life on the road.

Heading south from Innamincka we followed the Old Strzelecki Track. Literally all the other cars and trucks were following the (New) Strzelecki Track which is a little further west.

Traffic on (New) Strzelecki Track

Traffic on (New) Strzelecki Track

Traffic on Old Strzelecki Track

The very first sign we passed read "4WD Only - Unmaintained Track". My palms started to sweat a little more. The track was pretty good, a bit rutted in places, very dusty and corrugated in others and single lane sometimes as well. 

Morning tea along the Old Strzelecki Track

All in all it was the type of track we like to follow - it is the type you get to the other end in one piece. Speaking of the other end - someone spent a lot of time collecting and constructing a giant skeleton and hanging it on a pole beside the road at the end of the track.

It was here we turned east for the first time in a while and travelled the Merty Merty to Cameron Corner track to, that's right, Cameron Corner the intersection of the State borders of South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. As we arrived at this special place we spied the Corner up on a rise - a little white post protected by little white chains located in a big red desert. We visited the little white post and walked around three Australian States in three seconds and stood back, looked at each other and said "OK - so what's next?"

Say hello to Cameron Corner

We paid the $10 camping fee and drove beside the still maintained Dog Fence over the hill to a paddock literally the size of Queensland and set up all by ourselves - just us and all the dingoes queued up at the only post for 100's of miles and then again waiting to get into New South Wales.  Everyone else was set up in the campground adjoining the hotel.

Our Cameron Corner Campsite

The Moet

It was here we popped the cork of a bottle of Moet brought all this way for this special occasion. We toasted the little white post and my favourite sister's birthday and watched the sun go down and stars come out. All I could think of was tomorrow's breakfast.

Julie in Queensland

Julie in New South Wales

Julie in South Australia

The Dog Fence

10 September - saying goodbye to the little white post in the middle of nowhere we turned east again and travelled 135 klm over very rough corrugated dusty roads to Tibooburra in NSW.

The gate through the Dog Fence 

Anyone following us would not have had any dust as we sucked it all up into our van and took it with us.

Dust in the van

Morning tea was held literally in the middle of nowhere in an enormous dry clay pan. 

Morning tea in a claypan

The landscape in places along the road had absolutely no trees, shrubs or grass.

Told you there was were no trees, no shrubs, no grass

Julie did spy a daddy emu with 14 chicks near the road. More surprising as I stopped the car Julie jumped out and got a photo of them - the really surprising bit is that she didn't notice the big black bull near her as she took off through the scrub for another photo.

After the 'bull incident' the rest of the trip was all about collecting as much dust as possible so that all those that followed us enjoyed their dust free travels and could concentrate  on the horrendous corrugations without any dust distractions.

The road to Tibooburra - no trees, no shrubs .....

We arrived in Tibooburra around 1pm and checked into the great little van park. The rest of the day was spent extracting the dust from the van and top dressing Tibooburra and the nearby Sturt National Park. Washing was next and that produced another 2cm of badly needed topsoil for the region. Late in the afternoon we had some more juice from shiraz grapes as well as some hops and barley by-products. We both slept well tonight.

11 September - a visit to the local National Parks and Wildlife Service office in town provided us with a NSW Parks Pass for the next 12 months and some valuable information regarding some drives around the area. With all this information we headed home and had a coffee and some homemade bikkies while we worked out what we would do. We had another bikkie, as tension mounts - and rides away. We have a choice - the Jump Up Loop or the Gorge Loop. Both are around 110 klm, each has their strong points - another biscuit - Jump Up or Gorge, Gorge or Jump Up. Tension mounts again - pulls a hammy and falls over. Oh the pressure. 

Out of bikkies we have nothing left, we just have to make a decision - we do - we'll stay another day and do both. Jump Up first and tomorrow the Gorge Loop. So those of you taking notes, that is how we deal with the pressure of being on the road - running out of bikkies forces the decision, don't compromise, do everything! Use it in your own life - you can't go wrong.

Tibooburra Drive-in

We checked out the drive-in theatre in the centre of town first. 

Julie spied the rare flightless, headless Emu

The Jump Up Loop was just fantastic. The drive through Sturt NP took us along a 4WD track where we saw numerous emus with chicks, kangaroos, dry creek beds, jumpups (mesas), deserted homesteads and shearers' sheds.  We walked the Jump Up track from Olive Downs campground.

Jeff's standard flightless Emu

Mt King Station - note forest on the hill

Mt King homestead site

Typical scene on the drive

Lunch stop in the Jump-ups

Take me to your leader!

Next day we did the Granite Walk from Dead Horse Gully campground then the Gorge Loop drive. The usual emus with chicks, kangaroos and deserted homesteads and shearing sheds were enhanced by the sighting of an elusive Australian Bustard - lucky Bustard - as well as a wedge-tailed eagle.   Lovely day.  We have been very impressed by what the National Parks and Wildlife Service has done in this area of Sturt National Park as they maintain the tracks (vehicular and walking), campgrounds, and various historical displays all of which are well worth a visit.

A Whim (reproduction built to original measurements)

Coat of Arms

We were lucky to see this Australian Bustard

The Beatles and Abbey Road comes to mind

This region is so remote, so dry, so dusty but well top dressed and just so interesting.

13 September - we headed south to Broken Hill with a short stop at the historic, almost abandoned, town of Milparinka - although there is a pub and an information centre.

Slow and uncomfortable travelling

Talk about exaggeration

Milparinka Cairn to Sturt's Cairn pulled down for housing

Main street of Milparinka

Long Load

Thanks for the lift

News of Mr McAdam's invention has reached NSW only in part because only parts of the road were bitumen. Morning tea was held down a 4WD track beside a salt lake under a lonely tree.

Milparinka

Morning tea beside salt lake on the way to Broken Hill, NSW

Lonely lunch spot in rest area off Silver City Highway

An hour and a half later lunch was held with a flock of goats. At 3pm we were checked in at Broken Hill.

14 September - We plan to stay in Broken Hill to do a few running repairs and to stock up on food and beverages. We noticed a strong smell of LPG at Cameron Corner so we have had the gas off the whole time. A hinge on the door broke as well as one on the tri fold table. The van has a number of redundancies and in the case of having to turn the gas off we can operate fully on electric power for hot water and cooking. 

As luck would have it we woke up this morning and the power had gone off to half the van part - our half. So with no gas and no electricity we used the Coleman Duel Fuel stove, which runs on unleaded petrol, for all our cooking purposes. I could have run the generator if needed but the power came on around midday after being out since 3:30am. The fridge runs solely on 12v powered by the solar panels when we have no 240v so it was unaffected.

A local plumber discovered the gas problem - a gas pipe on the side of the stove had split in two places from the heavy corrugations and rough roads. All fixed. The two hinges have been replaced by myself - all good. Everything is up and running like new.

So this seems like a good time to end this post doesn't it? Well I am anyway.

We are both going great and enjoying our travels immensely. 

Bye for now

JeffnJulie

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