Saturday 11th & 12th February Cobar to White Cliff

11th February 2012

We had rain again overnight but woke to nice blue skies... packed up and were on the road by 9.30am heading to Cobar...It was a 300 km drive and we stopped a couple of times, the first being to take photos of an Emu family.. (John lives to see wild emus.. he got his wish )

The roads  out here are soooooooooo straight we could see for kms up the road...

 It was a very easy drive today.. John put the truck in cruise control and he just relaxed as we cruised along taking in the sights...

Stopping for coffee ...we noticed the bins were infested by ants... we parked well away from them yuk !

We headed to Nyngan first, and at one stage was going to camp here for the night but decided to move on to Cobar.

Nyngan is located on the Mitchell Highway between Narromine and Bourke.

The district was originally inhabited by the Ngiyambaa Aborigines. Thomas Mitchell explored the Bogan River in 1835, camping on the future townsite of Nyngan.

Nyngan is a country town of some 2500 people, situated by the Bogan River on the eastern edge of the Great Outback.

The Barrier Highway also starts at Nyngan, heading west to Cobar. Wool, wheat and cattle are the primary local produce in what is a very productive pastoral and agricultural shire.

We arrived in Cobar late in the afternoon and stayed at the Cobar Caravan Park..very friendly...

Mining has long been the lifeblood of Cobar, and the wealth that followed its discovery influenced the many fine buildings still in existence. Among the many reminders of its past glory is the Great Cobar Open Cut, originally an open-cut 150 metre deep mine but now it's a local swimming hole.

12th February 2012

The weather is just glorious at the moment... but everyone in Sydney and surrounding areas are in our thoughts going through a rough time with rain and hail and storms and flooding...

We set off around 9am to what turned out to be a very interesting day... and a sad one too :( We travelled the Barrier Highway, for some 200kms and once again the roads were very straight you could see so far ahead of yourself...

We stopped for a coffee break at a rest area...not many people around...

We carried on to Wilcannia, very relaxed and listening to The Eagles on the I-pod and I was reading my book..well all of a sudden ... two emus came out from the bush right in front of us..they were huge !!! we had no time to slow down... a car was coming in the opposite direction and the emus panicked... one managed to turn around and head back where he came from, but the other was confused and turned around to run off the road but it was too late and we hit it !!!! It bounced off John's driver door damaging it...I felt the thud and thought we had gone right over it ... but when we pulled up to check if it was ok.... it was no where to be seen.... thank goodness it wasn't spread all over the road it would have been heart breaking...we searched the bush for it but could not find it...it must obviously be injured after being hit by the truck but was not lying in the bush anywhere..we were very upset about the whole ordeal..

Further on were signs to be aware of black cows on the road so we were really being observant now.. we didn't want to hit anything else,

After stopping at Wilcannia for lunch we headed the final 93kms to White Cliffs.

The drive to White Cliffs is through harsh, dry and barren country... you can see for miles of flat treeless countryside... must be our day for animals on the road today this time it's sheep... hundreds of them being mustered....

Arrived around 3pm...to the White Cliffs Opal Pioneer Caravan Park... sounds impressive but it's not lol... no one was here...so we had the pick of the sites...

After setting up John wanted to go check out the town... not a very big one at that only 100 people live here, we headed to the local Information office which is also a take-a-way shop...post office...and restaurant ( tongue in cheek) the lady was very chatty and told us all the local stuff.... John wanted a nice cold beer but the pub didnt open till 4pm and the owner /bar lady was 83 years old and still pulling beer hahahaha

We drove around and found the Underground Motel... what an amazing place...not much to look at from the outside

The inside was another thing..

After our tour around  ( they let us go on our own ) we stopped at the Underground Bar for a cool beer !

And of course being in the Outback you would expect great sunsets.. and we were not disappointed...check this out !!!