We left GolGol and travelled along the Murray River to the old town of Wentworth and on to Buronga and the start of the Silver City Highway to Broken Hill.
As soon as we left Buronga the landscape changed dramatically, there was no rural area it was immediately barren scrub land.
The word 'drought' was hardly enough to describe the desolation. Running alongside the Highway there was the still under construction (due to be completed April 2019) water pipeline from Wentworth to Broken Hill.
This work has added to the amount of dust in the area although there is evidence of the company's efforts at lessening erosion. (wood chips and spray grass)
It was a hot, hot day and very windy, we had the a/c running on maximum and the windshield and side windows were hot to touch. After we passed the Coombah roadhouse the view through the windscreen resembled old newsreel footage of the terrible conditions in Kansas and Oklahoma in 1930s. Hot winds blowing fine, white dry dust (soil) across the road. It was almost like a snowy
European landscape. How can any pastoralist, grazier, station owner possibly cope with these conditions?
We saw goats grazing - on what?!?
Then we saw the hills of the Broken Hill mines and were soon into the city.
We went directly to the caravan park - Broken Hill Tourist Park and checked in for 2 nights. While I was waiting in reception Michael had a walk around the park and came in to say that we'd like site number 39. He'd had a look and that was the only one with any shade so site 39 it was.
After setting up and a light snack I was off to the pool. Unlike some pools this one had a shade sail and was deliciously cool and shady - bliss.
The caravan park was possibly once a council owned park - there is obvious civic pride in the ablution block.
(These tiles are scattered along the walls of the facilities, one in each wc).
We slept with the a/c running all night but were delighted to find the meteorologists were right and a cool change had arrived.
We took ourselves off into Broken Hill after breakfast, walking into town and along the old main street - Argent Street. The city has a fine history and no matter what you think about unions in this day and age the work they did years ago here in Broken Hill forged the path for better work conditions for every worker.
The mine still dominates the skyline and although some houses appeared rundown and the school playing field didn't have one blade of grass, the overall feel of the centre of the city is of a rich, thriving city.
We grabbed a light lunch in a small shopping mall and then spent the afternoon relaxing with the luxury of the windows and door open enjoying a light cool breeze.
The next morning, we took the Barrier Highway directly west out of Broken Hill, and in a short while crossed the border into South Australia.
The landscape was nowhere near as desolate as the Silver City Highway scape had been, this was the Australian Outback that we were more used to - red dirt and scrub land.
The amount of roadkill was appalling, but after passing through Olary this suddenly stopped. We put it down to the fact that the scrub was very much drier and therefore less animals in the area; maybe there were more fences but most of the roadkill had been kangaroos and wallabies and they don't abide by fences.
We passed through the quarantine post easily, no fruit and veg on board. As we'd been in and out of the fruit fly exclusion zone and across state borders I hadn't been buying more than one or two days fruit and veg, just enough for that evening's meal. Now, once we got to a town in South Australia I could stock up on onions, potatoes and garlic.
We paused for lunch in Yunta. 'A taste of the Outback Town'. We have a bumper sticker on the back of our motorhome saying - 'Where the hell is Yunta'. We had been here before and bought the sticker, now we've been back so we definitely know where Yunta is!!
Then we turned off the Barrier Highway, which continues down through Burra to Adelaide, and went into Peterborough.
This is one of our favourite little South Australian towns, it just feels nice.
The big attraction in the town is Steamtown, with it's great railway display and evening light show but we had 'been there, done that; a couple of times so this time we just went to the supermarket - for those vegies, and then on to the caravan park.
We were able to select our own site and found one with lots of shade, we were soon set up, sitting out in the shade relaxing.
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