Mildura - Trilby Station, Louth

We're happy to report yet another comfortable night's rest. Mildura treated us to 3 degrees, quite nippy. We headed off to the great Murray River and checked out their Rowing Club, paddlesteamer, and riverside parkland. Absolutely beautiful.

As we headed off on our journey home, we crossed the river straight into Buronga NSW through to Dareton, where we refuelled before tackling the Pooncarie Road. Just after leaving the town, we came across the sparkling blue Lake Fletcher, a salt water lake (only after significant rainfall), a couple of kilometres wide and long, but only centimetres deep, otherwise it's just a white salt plain.

After this, it was just miles of vast, flat, treeless farmland to Pooncarie. Here we found a jewel of a cafe, the Old Wharf Cafe, right on the bank of the Darling River. Homemade scones, cream, and jam, coffee, and homemade sausage roll for morning tea. The Cafe was a display and sales point for predominantly local arts and crafts. The hosts were old school warm, and polite.

We headed north from here to Menindee. we called into the Info Centre. Here, we learned more about the Burke & Wills Dig Tree. This is where one of his party left a good store of provisions, which he buried under a tree near the Diamantina (it was obviously prearranged that he would do so before leaving). When Burke & Wills collected it, they re-buried the box with a note informing indicatingvwhere they were heading to. Unfortunately, when the support party returned to the tree, they presumed that the earth was untouched, therefore assuming Burke & Wills perished. At this point, they hadn't yet perished, but it wasn't that long after. This whole story came about from the only survivor of the party that got to the Gulf of Carpentaria. He survived with the help of Aboriginals.

We then set off to tour the lakes, which were full and stuffed with birdlife. First, the Pammamaroo Lake, home to the Broken Hill Speed Boat Club and a van park for private owned holiday, permanent and travellers for camping overnight or short term. There are a stack of boat storage sheds as well.

Moving on to the main Menindee Lake, we accessed via a village called The Sunset Strip. This was a bit more up market with residential houses, some looked like holiday accommodation, some were lived in, it was quite huge, complete with a golf course and clubhouse-come-pub. This is the main lake, and it's huge.

From here, we took the West Wilcannia Road to Wilcannia. The East Wilcannia Road was closed due to recent rain. The west road was fairly good. We saw an abundance of wildlife, kangaroos, goats, pigs, Eagles etc etc. This road followed the Darling River, and there was not much more on it than us and the wildlife, all the way to Wilcannia, where we stopped for afternoon tea. It was the 2nd time we'd been here, the last time was over 6 yrs ago, but nobody remembered us. What a disappointment. From here, we looked ahead and planned our overnight stop and organised it by telephone. Easy instructions, "about 70 km out of Tilpa, you'll see a white letterbox with red roof, that's Trilby Station. The driveway is 3 km long, and we'll leave a light on at the bunkhouse. Have a safe journey."...click!

Confidently, we trudged off toward Tilpa. The road was getting rougher, the wildlife more prevalent. 120 km, light starting to fade, lots of roadkill and the 'roos getting braver and braver, we pushed on. Through Tilpa, we set the trip meter and began counting down the k's. Darker and darker, high beam eventually required, this attracted the 'roos, and now feral cats, to the roadway, we dodged, baulked and raced past so many animals who had a death wish, but all were avoided. Finally, at kilometre 70, the white letterbox with a red roof is seen on the right. A lone track off to the left we counted down the 3 k's. Through closed gates and falling a road in much better condition than the main road, we got to 8 k's and turned around, and went back to the main road. About 1 km further up the road from the letterbox, we found an identical one. We followed this track in, and you guessed it, right on 3 k's, we came across a bunkhouse with a light on yay!

Sandra, our host on this riverside (Darling River) bank, farmstead showed us around the rural resort, and we settled in quickly. Tomorrow in daylight, we'll check out the self-guided tour of the 'resort'..Leggi altro