North-West New South Wales

At Armidale, we joined the New England Highway as we headed south towards Tamworth.

 

Leaving Tamworth, we joined the Oxley Highway as we steered west. Our campsite tonight is just off the highway, 12 km east of Gunnedah. It's known as the Redbank camping area and is beside the Namoi River. It's quite a large area with flushing toilets. 

We backed in as far as we could to try and reduce the amount of truck noise during the evening, but Ros, unlike me, is a light sleeper, so she was awake on and off during the night. Once we had both had several hot coffees and breakfast, we left just after 08:30. Passing through Gunnedah just ten minutes later, we were now on our way to Coonabarabran. There are currently severe water restrictions here, with showers limited to two minutes and no watering of gardens, so you can imagine how everything looks.

 

We wanted to photograph the water tower in the small town of Gulargambone, with the most direct route taking us through Warrumbungle National Park. The load limit on the bridge just beyond the national park boundary is far lower than our vehicle's weight, so we took a detour via Gilgandra to get our photo.

We prefer to take minor roads rather than highways, so we travelled cross-country for the next 86 km until we reached Warren.  Here, we joined the Mitchell Highway at Nevertire before reaching Nyngan.
 
It was very sad to witness the impact of the drought on the countryside we have been passing through. The irrigation channels around Warren were dry, and where crops usually grew in the fields, there is now nothing. The strong winds we have been experiencing over the past two days are blowing away what little topsoil remains. 
 
It was still quite early, so we headed north towards Bourke. We found a spot to camp 44 km further north, in the small town of Girilambone. It's listed on Wikicamps, and a gold coin donation is requested for stopping at the local CWA park. They have one flushing toilet and shower.

Even though we didn't use these facilities, we were more than happy to leave $5.00 at the pub to help with maintenance. Over a few beers, the publican told us that the town was nearly out of water. Unfortunately, the town's bore water contains far too much salinity, and the council will now arrange to install tanks at each house and have water trucked in. Of course, there will be a daily usage limit.
 
The camping area, as you can imagine, after many years of drought, has the occasional patch of dead grass. The whole area was covered in prickles, so thongs just weren't suitable.

In the morning, we shared the area with some kangaroos. I'm not sure how they are surviving.

We encountered a B Double on a minor road, and I was forced to move over and hit a large hole on the side of the road. Our chine bar on the near side of our van has cracked.

We had planned to continue to Bourke and complete the upper part of the Darling River Run as far as Wilcannia. However, after seeing the impact of the drought and needing to have our chin bar welded, we turned back to Nyngan and continued west towards Cobar. We are now sheltering in the caravan park with the outside temperature currently at 40 degrees and still rising. Our van's air conditioning is now down to 28 degrees and dropping.