Chapter 2 - Kidman Way

From 4 June 2011
To     9 June 2011

Day one saw a 460 km drive to Griffiths - which was the first serious town on the "Kidman Way". Not far out of Griffiths are cotton crops with a lot of cotton balls on the side of the road. So we stopped and got a handful – because we could.

We caught with friends (who left before us) and then went to the local Leagues club to eat, drink and gamble. Shirley tried “calamari schnitzel” which was a big slab of crumbed calamari. She said it was excellent. Then our three investors turned $1 into $30, $2 into $60 and $1 into $8. A happy result for all. And of course I turned $12 into three glasses of red - an excellent local Merlot called “Poker Face” – a good name in a pokies venue.

We spent 2 days (3 nights) in Griffith which is a nice place, and would have been much better were it not for the plentiful rain and the very cold weather. The highlight would have to be the end result of a drive down an extremely muddy 4WD road to visit a “fruit salad” farm where we tried pecan nuts, carob beans (pseudo chocolate), about six different mustards, some jams, olives, persimmon, three different red wines and some prunes. Geez. The owner was a short chubby guy of Sicilian heritage who loves a chat and loves what he does.

Night # 4 was spent at Cobar, 360 km on from Griffith. Cobar is sort of in the middle of nowhere, being over 150 km from any town above three people and a dog – not counting wild goats – which are plentiful. The main claim to fame around here is sort of “on and off” mining of copper – depending on market prices. We left the park early to take a photo of the magnificent “Cobar” sign at the entry to Cobar – which is on the old working of a closed copper mine. When we got there we found some goose in a 45 foot (or so it seemed) caravan had parked his van overnight in front of the sign. The trip north took us into the “real” outback.

The towns so far have been pleasant - being clean and attractive in a country sort of way. From memory the 360 km from Griffith to Cobar had three bends.

Nights # 5 & 6 were spent at Bourke, and of course I had to have my photo taken “back o’ Bourke” – but not before we scored a paddle steamer trip down the Darling – which in flood is no darling. Apparently many decades ago when the river flooded the paddle steamers would go cross country to pick up wool etc. Some did not get back to the Darling before the river dropped and were stranded for one to five years. There were no GPS aids in those days. However the grog that was stored in the ballast tanks would have come in handy. We visited the grave site of Fred Hollows and his location is covered by a large and magnificent hunk of granite. The evening of night # 6 was spent around a campfire having a camp-supplied BBQ with pikelets, jam and cream for dessert – plus billy tea. 

The entertainment came from a local bush poet and the shire CEO who gave us a few facts and figures about the local area. For example, when the Darling is in flood the water that flows passed Bourke daily is in excess of the water in Sydney Harbour. Another example, pregnant women in Bourke need to go to (at least) Dubbo (340 km) for the birth.

Our last morning in Bourke was accompanied by ice on the windscreen and a temperature around or just above zero.

Our 7^th day took us over the border into Queensland and from the Kidman Way into Matilda country. Hopefully you can work out why it is called Matilda country. More on that in the next edition. We had covered 1267 km by the time we crossed the border. 

So far, on the side of the road we have seen cattle, sheep, horses, wild goats, wild cats, rabbits, a dead hare, a dead pig, a dead wombat, heaps of emus, lots of kangaroos, foxes and a huge range of birds. Needless to say some of these were feeding off deceased versions of other listed animals. The roads so far have been fairly good, very straight and very flat. If you take away the caravans and the semi-trailers the roads would be very quiet.

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