Broken Hill to Dubbo

 Saturday 19 September

We had planned to leave very early and managed to get away before 7.30am. It’s a long drive to Dubbo. However it was just as well. The rain had really come in overnight and when we left it was showery. We hoped to keep ahead of the worst of it as we knew from the forecast that substantial rain was coming in from the west.

Substantial does not describe it. The centre of the city was flooded with just over 30mm falling in 15 minutes. That amounts to a little over half of the rain which fell in the whole of last year! We would have been stranded.

We travelled this street every day during our stay


As it was, it was a rainy day’s drive. We stopped briefly in Wilcannia to see some of the lovely sandstone buildings of this almost ghost town. We also wanted to see how the Darling River was faring as it often has almost non-existent flow here. A few months ago it was flowing so high it was just under the bridge by a metre!

To me this is the Parramatta of the Far West. Such a shame. The photo of the cafe says it all really.

It is so sad to see a town once a bustling hub for trade along the river, now almost deserted. The river has always had variable flow. When it was in flood, paddle steamers used to come upstream from South Australia with goods to service the area. Wool and wheat were the main products to be transported for distribution to the SE of Australia.

Standing on the old road bridge across the Darling River

Looking upstream on the Darling. Six months ago the river was flowing 1 metre under the bridge
Hospital


Council Chambers

Post Office
Police Station


Court House

The only cafe in town - closed and up for sale

On to Cobar. The landscape is forever changing. For a while we travel through flat barren land, then a few hills. Later, the land is flat but well vegetated with dense, low scrub. The earth looks like there's been a light dusting of snow as it is covered with white wild flowers. No time to stop for photos.

I can only assume, as we learned years ago when travelling in the Northern Territory, that the changes in the vegetation are due to the change in soil type. Further along towards Cobar, there were lots of trees, the first we had seen since we left Wentworth, aside from around Menindee and the river.

Cobar was our lunch stop and the rain ceased for a short time so we could picnic in a park. When we arrived in Dubbo, the weather was quite clear. We found somewhere for dinner and booked dinner for the following night at a popular Indian restaurant. Being a weekend, many places were already booked out, with COVID restrictions in place.

A rather impressive town sign!
We crossed the Bogan River in Nyngan.
Another of the rivers in this massive river system.


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