Bourke & Beyond - Day 5
Oct. 6th, 2020 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanBourke to Broken Hill
A short conversation this morning with the Motel owner’s dog, then a shorter one with the owner himself, who actually lives in Sydney, about 15 km from us, on the Northern Beaches (Now that's one hell of a commute to work!!). We were impressed by the pre-fab cabins he'd installed for the accommodation & picked his brains a little for a possible future project... Then we went to try & find somewhere in town for breakfast, which is a bit of a tall order in Bourke on a Sunday morning apparently, as everything other than the Newsagent was not only closed, but mostly shuttered as well. Given Bourke’s reputation as the most mad, bad & dangerous place to be in New South Wales (I thought that would have been Wilcannia...) I suppose it’s not surprising, but it did leave us with a coffee-shaped hole in our morning, which was only sort of filled by 2 cans of cold-press coffee Julia had brought for just such an emergency. This at least got us going on the road to Cobar. It wasn't only the cafés that were closed in Bourke, even the Pubs looked to have given up...
All bitumen, all the way to Cobar, so no new mud for us... Laura is starting to look like we just left the car dealership. From the front, anyway
That was until we hit our 2nd bird for the trip, about 30 minutes outside Cobar. It was bound to happen, as flocks of birds were so frequently taking off from the roadside, then flying over & around us, that it felt like a remake of ‘The Birds’- or some kind of sequel, where Laura takes revenge
The town of Cobar hadn’t changed much since we were last there in 2014, except that the Visitors Centre had temporarily relocated, while its building was being ‘refurbished’ by the State Government - so it could be in its new digs for a while. Outside the proper building, we met 2 chatty women who were on their way to Broken Hill, one of whom was from Bankstown in Sydney. When Julia mentioned the good Vietnamese food available there, she just completely shut down the conversation with a half-hearted comment about good food stalls, of which there are none in Bankstown - either Vietnamese or any other cuisine. obviously two of those Australians who have not only failed to embrace multiculturalism as a sensible & compassionate way forward for our Country, but also haven't developed their palate beyond pies, sausage rolls, fish'n'chips & a beer... Time to go then
So off to the new 'temporary' Visitors Centre, to check on the state of the roads to & around the top Corner. The lady behind the counter was highly amused when I asked her to tell me something different to what the Centres in Lightning Ridge, Brewarrina & Bourke had all said... & no - the roads are all still closed, so it looks like the Corner is definitely off for this trip & priority #1 for the next one... whenever that is. While we were receiving this news, who should turn up at the Centre but the women who obviously don’t eat in Bankstown because of all the foreign food. Time to go then
We drove past the cafe we ate at the last time we were here... & it was closed. Don’t tell me Cobar has gone all Bourke on us? No... we found a small bakery cafe that had either pies or fried chicken & coffee!. Now all we needed was for our Bankstown stalkers to turn up. This fare was right up their alimentary canals... Just as we finished eating, guess who?? Time to go then
But first, some fuel... then out onto the Barrier Highway, bound for Broken Hill. Once you leave Cobar, the landscape becomes a lot redder, the vegetation shorter & gradually sparser & you feel a lot closer to the desert
Except when you drive through large pools of rainwater across the road at 110 km/h, which is definitely not a desert feature... there was obviously a LOT of water in that storm we saw last night, as there was also lots of water on the side of the road as we headed west. There were also a lot of herds of wild goats, who at least had the road sense to not run towards Laura as we passed by, unlike what kangaroos, lizards & yes, birds, tend to do
As mentioned previously, I thought Wilcannia has the perpetual award for maddest, baddest & most dangerous place to be in New South Wales & that’s what I’ve known for at least 25 years. I’ve passed through the town twice before & never stopped there - having always made sure I had enough fuel & whatever to just keep going. Julia had done the same when she’d passed through on a solo road trip back in the day & we saw no reason to change 2 lifetime’s habits, so we slowed down to 50km/h as we drove in... avoided running over the 3 delinquents walking down the middle of the road, then accelerated to 110km/h as we hit the town limits less than 90 seconds later
As we got closer to Broken Hill, the amount of water over the landscape began to look like the beginnings of an inland sea in places. We would have thought that after years of serious drought, such a parched landscape would have just soaked up the water like a sponge, but either that’s not the way the geography works, or there’d been a LOT of water in that storm!!
We got into town at around 4.30pm local time & found our Motel on the same road we’d driven in on, which was both good & bad, as there are a lot of trucks that drive in the same way. Here’s hoping for double glazing? But before that, here’s hoping we could get into our room, as Reception was closed up & it took 2 phone calls to get hold of the Owner, who gave us the code to a safe box next to the office, which contained an envelope with my name on it, inside which was a receipt & a keyring. Not until I’d hung up & we’d walked over to our room did we discover that the keyring had no key on it... So another call to the Owner, who was on the other side of town at her other Motel, but would be with us in about 5 minutes... Not that we weren’t in need of a bathroom or anything, after a few hours on the road & the coffee had kicked in, or anything. Oh no... not at all
Once the key situation was sorted & ablutions performed, we decided to head west of town, out to the Living Desert Sculpture Park for sunset. Here, arranged on a hilltop, there are large, rough-hewn sculpted pieces of red rock, done by local indigenous & international artists in a variety of styles & when the evening sun hits the rock, the artworks light up quite beautifully, as we’d found when we were last out there in 2014
Here also, this time, was a carpark full of SUVs & people getting out deck chairs... those who hadn’t already gone to the top of the hill & were staking out their sunset viewpoints - most of them amongst, or in some cases, right next to the sculptures. I don’t get it - why would you do that?!? The whole point of the place is to see how the light changes the artworks' characteristics & appearance - hence the whole ‘Living Sculpture’ thing. Exactly how is that improved or enhanced by you parking your backside on a foldout chair right next to, or in front of the pieces, where not only can you not see that interplay of light, but you completely ruin anyone’s chances of capturing that effect on camera, or even just the general experience of it, by squatting there without a thought, or care in the world for anyone else. Why certainly... we’ve just driven hundreds of kilometres today & come up here specifically so we can take a family portrait of you & your wife/husband/2.5 children all squinting into the sunlight
Anyway, it forced us to get creative with angles & framing, but it was still hard to not smack a few people across the head when they heedlessly walk into your shot & stand there, take out their phone, take their snapshot, then conduct some epic text exchange, while behind them, a piece of a photographer’s soul is dying...
Once the sun dipped below the horizon & there weren’t enough clouds to get a good afterglow effect, we headed back to the carpark to get the jump on the masses & drove back to town, with dinner in mind. Having had the traditional pub meal last night, something simpler & easier was needed, so Subway it is... with a quick stop at a bottle shop for a couple of cans of Guinness. Then back to our Hotel where we’ve eaten, caught up with the TV news, as well as a couple episodes of Border Security. As I’ve been writing this, Men In Black 2 has been on TV & even though we own it on DVD, there was no move to turn it off, so this entry has probably taken much longer to write than it should have...
Kilometres travelled: 641
A short conversation this morning with the Motel owner’s dog, then a shorter one with the owner himself, who actually lives in Sydney, about 15 km from us, on the Northern Beaches (Now that's one hell of a commute to work!!). We were impressed by the pre-fab cabins he'd installed for the accommodation & picked his brains a little for a possible future project... Then we went to try & find somewhere in town for breakfast, which is a bit of a tall order in Bourke on a Sunday morning apparently, as everything other than the Newsagent was not only closed, but mostly shuttered as well. Given Bourke’s reputation as the most mad, bad & dangerous place to be in New South Wales (I thought that would have been Wilcannia...) I suppose it’s not surprising, but it did leave us with a coffee-shaped hole in our morning, which was only sort of filled by 2 cans of cold-press coffee Julia had brought for just such an emergency. This at least got us going on the road to Cobar. It wasn't only the cafés that were closed in Bourke, even the Pubs looked to have given up...
All bitumen, all the way to Cobar, so no new mud for us... Laura is starting to look like we just left the car dealership. From the front, anyway
That was until we hit our 2nd bird for the trip, about 30 minutes outside Cobar. It was bound to happen, as flocks of birds were so frequently taking off from the roadside, then flying over & around us, that it felt like a remake of ‘The Birds’- or some kind of sequel, where Laura takes revenge
The town of Cobar hadn’t changed much since we were last there in 2014, except that the Visitors Centre had temporarily relocated, while its building was being ‘refurbished’ by the State Government - so it could be in its new digs for a while. Outside the proper building, we met 2 chatty women who were on their way to Broken Hill, one of whom was from Bankstown in Sydney. When Julia mentioned the good Vietnamese food available there, she just completely shut down the conversation with a half-hearted comment about good food stalls, of which there are none in Bankstown - either Vietnamese or any other cuisine. obviously two of those Australians who have not only failed to embrace multiculturalism as a sensible & compassionate way forward for our Country, but also haven't developed their palate beyond pies, sausage rolls, fish'n'chips & a beer... Time to go then
So off to the new 'temporary' Visitors Centre, to check on the state of the roads to & around the top Corner. The lady behind the counter was highly amused when I asked her to tell me something different to what the Centres in Lightning Ridge, Brewarrina & Bourke had all said... & no - the roads are all still closed, so it looks like the Corner is definitely off for this trip & priority #1 for the next one... whenever that is. While we were receiving this news, who should turn up at the Centre but the women who obviously don’t eat in Bankstown because of all the foreign food. Time to go then
We drove past the cafe we ate at the last time we were here... & it was closed. Don’t tell me Cobar has gone all Bourke on us? No... we found a small bakery cafe that had either pies or fried chicken & coffee!. Now all we needed was for our Bankstown stalkers to turn up. This fare was right up their alimentary canals... Just as we finished eating, guess who?? Time to go then
But first, some fuel... then out onto the Barrier Highway, bound for Broken Hill. Once you leave Cobar, the landscape becomes a lot redder, the vegetation shorter & gradually sparser & you feel a lot closer to the desert
Except when you drive through large pools of rainwater across the road at 110 km/h, which is definitely not a desert feature... there was obviously a LOT of water in that storm we saw last night, as there was also lots of water on the side of the road as we headed west. There were also a lot of herds of wild goats, who at least had the road sense to not run towards Laura as we passed by, unlike what kangaroos, lizards & yes, birds, tend to do
As mentioned previously, I thought Wilcannia has the perpetual award for maddest, baddest & most dangerous place to be in New South Wales & that’s what I’ve known for at least 25 years. I’ve passed through the town twice before & never stopped there - having always made sure I had enough fuel & whatever to just keep going. Julia had done the same when she’d passed through on a solo road trip back in the day & we saw no reason to change 2 lifetime’s habits, so we slowed down to 50km/h as we drove in... avoided running over the 3 delinquents walking down the middle of the road, then accelerated to 110km/h as we hit the town limits less than 90 seconds later
As we got closer to Broken Hill, the amount of water over the landscape began to look like the beginnings of an inland sea in places. We would have thought that after years of serious drought, such a parched landscape would have just soaked up the water like a sponge, but either that’s not the way the geography works, or there’d been a LOT of water in that storm!!
We got into town at around 4.30pm local time & found our Motel on the same road we’d driven in on, which was both good & bad, as there are a lot of trucks that drive in the same way. Here’s hoping for double glazing? But before that, here’s hoping we could get into our room, as Reception was closed up & it took 2 phone calls to get hold of the Owner, who gave us the code to a safe box next to the office, which contained an envelope with my name on it, inside which was a receipt & a keyring. Not until I’d hung up & we’d walked over to our room did we discover that the keyring had no key on it... So another call to the Owner, who was on the other side of town at her other Motel, but would be with us in about 5 minutes... Not that we weren’t in need of a bathroom or anything, after a few hours on the road & the coffee had kicked in, or anything. Oh no... not at all
Once the key situation was sorted & ablutions performed, we decided to head west of town, out to the Living Desert Sculpture Park for sunset. Here, arranged on a hilltop, there are large, rough-hewn sculpted pieces of red rock, done by local indigenous & international artists in a variety of styles & when the evening sun hits the rock, the artworks light up quite beautifully, as we’d found when we were last out there in 2014
Here also, this time, was a carpark full of SUVs & people getting out deck chairs... those who hadn’t already gone to the top of the hill & were staking out their sunset viewpoints - most of them amongst, or in some cases, right next to the sculptures. I don’t get it - why would you do that?!? The whole point of the place is to see how the light changes the artworks' characteristics & appearance - hence the whole ‘Living Sculpture’ thing. Exactly how is that improved or enhanced by you parking your backside on a foldout chair right next to, or in front of the pieces, where not only can you not see that interplay of light, but you completely ruin anyone’s chances of capturing that effect on camera, or even just the general experience of it, by squatting there without a thought, or care in the world for anyone else. Why certainly... we’ve just driven hundreds of kilometres today & come up here specifically so we can take a family portrait of you & your wife/husband/2.5 children all squinting into the sunlight
Anyway, it forced us to get creative with angles & framing, but it was still hard to not smack a few people across the head when they heedlessly walk into your shot & stand there, take out their phone, take their snapshot, then conduct some epic text exchange, while behind them, a piece of a photographer’s soul is dying...
Once the sun dipped below the horizon & there weren’t enough clouds to get a good afterglow effect, we headed back to the carpark to get the jump on the masses & drove back to town, with dinner in mind. Having had the traditional pub meal last night, something simpler & easier was needed, so Subway it is... with a quick stop at a bottle shop for a couple of cans of Guinness. Then back to our Hotel where we’ve eaten, caught up with the TV news, as well as a couple episodes of Border Security. As I’ve been writing this, Men In Black 2 has been on TV & even though we own it on DVD, there was no move to turn it off, so this entry has probably taken much longer to write than it should have...
Kilometres travelled: 641
