Saturday 12th May - Cobar to Broken Hill

A long drive to Broken Hill.

The long straight road

Up and away from camp by 8:10am today because this was the BIG drive and John did it all. 
Cobar to Broken Hill is 450kms of nothing.  As soon as we were west of Cobar the vegetation become very stunted and sparse though there are a lot of grasses due to the unusually high rainfall in the last couple of years. 
Even though this area has experienced recent floods, the creek beds are now all dry and there was little surface water to be seen.  The cattle and sheep stations in this region are huge as the land is too poor to support much livestock.

The only settlement on route is Wilcannia at a little over halfway and this is a sad shadow of it's former self when the population was many thousands.


Being overtaken by a road-train doing 110km/hr - Scary

Despite the monotony of the drive it wasn't too bad.  Every bend or rise in the road looks interesting after kilometres of flat and straight.  Saw many more emus today and unfortunately a great deal of road kill. 
You can tell there is a dead kangaroo or other animal on the road from some distance away due to the large flock of black birds feeding on the carrion. For fuel economy and best handling of the rig we have been travelling at around 90kms/hr. 
John had his first experience of being overtaken by a road train - there is little hard shoulder so you just hope the driver is skilled, and they are.  The van gets sucked towards the overtaking trailers as they pass.

In one of the rest areas we came across a very experienced travelling  couple who had broken down.  They had a satellite phone and managed to call out the NRMA who reckoned they would be there in 1.5 hours [from White Cliffs].  Good service. 
Later on we pulled into a roadhouse, which was so ancient and dilapidated it felt likebeing in a time warp.  There we saw a truck hauling a trailer loaded with a car and caravan.  Sobering reminder of what happens if you break down so far from anywhere.

Arrived in Broken Hill mid afternoon so made good time.  The town is much closer to SA than to the east coast of NSW so runs on Central standard time, therefore we gained 30 mins along the way.  It is also in the SA fruit fly exclusion zone so we had to dump some fruit and vegies at the checkpoint.  Quite amusing to see everyone eating up their fruit at the rest stops before they get there.

First thing we did after arriving was to go to Woolies to stock up on groceries and yes, replace the fruit and vegies [they must do a roaring trade].  It is easy to spot the travellers amongst the locals in these places and it wasn't long before John got chatting to a couple we had seen in the Cobar caravan park the previous evening.  They invited us for a drink so we spent the evening in their enormous bus which tows a car.  Our caravan would fit inside it!  Turns out they have sold up their home in Perth and had flown to Sydney to pick up the rig and were driving it back before setting off for several years in the bus.  No definite plans.