We enjoyed a relaxed start this morning as we headed south along the Pacific Highway. We kept a comfortable speed of 100 km/h for most of the journey before stopping briefly in Johns River for a light lunch and coffee. More vans were heading north than in our direction, which makes sense since they are all escaping the cooler weather. After Hexam, we joined John Renshaw Drive and then took the Hunter Expressway to Jerry's Plains Recreation Reserve. It's one of our favourite stopovers whenever we drive along the Golden Highway, and we were surprised to find only three vans there for the evening.
Thank goodness for our diesel heater, as it kept us warm before retiring for the evening and again the following morning, with the internal temperature showing just seven degrees.
Our second night was spent at Bob Christensen Reserve, just outside Warren, and once again, it's one of our favourites. It's a vast area with no facilities at all. We stopped briefly in town to top up one of our tanks before heading towards Nyngan, where we refuelled at $2.249 per litre.
Our second night was spent at Bob Christensen Reserve, just outside Warren, and once again, it's one of our favourites. It's a vast area with no facilities at all. We stopped briefly in town to top up one of our tanks before heading towards Nyngan, where we refuelled at $2.249 per litre.
We joined the Barrier Highway heading west towards Cobar, where we stopped for lunch and topped up our AdBlue. Our camp tonight was at Bulla Park rest area, 119 km from Cobar. It's a large area, and we could camp about 200 metres from the road. Although the trucks stopped quite early, we enjoyed a peaceful evening.
We had a late start, with just 140 km to Wilcannia, where we refuelled again at 224.9 cpl. We checked the road conditions and found that the western side of the Darling River was open to traffic, with just one water hazard across the road to contend with. The eastern side of the Darling was closed from Bourke to Menindee.
Our next three nights were spent camping right on the Darling River at Nelia Gaari Station, 90 km south of Wilcannia. Your $20 per couple per night gets you hot showers, toilets, and absolute river frontage.
It was wonderful to see the river so full and flowing, unlike our previous visits along the Darling River, where there were just pools of water here and there. Our next three nights were spent camping beside Lake Pamamaroo, just outside Menindee. Again, it was lovely to see that the lakes surrounding Menindee are all full once more, after many years of being bone dry.
The sunsets here are always truly spectacular, and it's wonderful to observe just how incredible nature truly is.
