Left Dubbo early this morning around 7.30am – to give ourselves lots of time for the long drive today.
Stopped at Nyngan on the Bogan River. Never knew this was where the term bogan came from 🙂 Learning so much on this trip!!
Took the obligatory photo of the boys with the Big Bogan sculpture.
Next stop after Nyngan is Cobar – 131kms
And you won’t miss the Cobar town sign – it is quite impressive!!!
Turn left at this Cobar sign and follow the signs to Fort Bourke look out. This lookout is 300m above a working open cut mine. Is very spectacular!!! Look for the tunnel at the bottom of the mine :).
Also check out Cobar Miners Heritage Park for the interesting history and memorial to all the miners killed in the local mines.
We had lunch at Gumnut Gifts and Homewares shop in Cobar main street. Smuggled in our pre-made sandwiches and had a lovely lunch in the courtyard 🙂 Great coffee and cake.
Cobar to Emmdale Roadhouse – 160kms
Don’t blink or you will miss this roadhouse. There are NO SIGNS for it. The old guy who owns this roadhouse said he had been trying to sell it for a long time and in Kev’s words….. “he was a grumpy old man – may be related to the baker from Bilpin”. He was over the tourists, music festival ‘hooligans’ and the isolation. He deliberately has not signposted his roadhouse as he wasn’t fond of customers. Sad!!! There was not much to see here or buy. We wished him well and bought some cold drinks to support him.
Emmdale Roadhouse to Wilcannia – 102kms
We were keen at this point in the trip to keep going so we could reach Broken Hill before dusk.
We had a quick look at Wilcannia and admired the beautiful old buildings from the car.
Wilcannia to Outback Resort, Broken Hill – 181kms
This pic was taken from a rest area on the hwy. Pit toilets are always fun (NOT!) but no choices out here 🙂 At least it was a fairly newish building.
The only other comments about this drive overall…. having some flying rations (bag of lollies) really helps and 70s music playing :). The boys played guess that tune or singer/s while Jen and I just sang along to the music!!
We expected to see loads of roos on the road and roadside….but didn’t see any!!!! What we did see A LOT of was goats. Mega thousands of them. Interesting that I had not heard of wild goat plagues in the outback….but we certainly observed them.
Arrived at the Outback Resort, Broken Hill at dusk.
It is situated 15kms before you get into Broken Hill – on the Dubbo road. We stayed here 2 nights in a cabin. Make sure you have food to cook in the camp kitchen ( a 30km round trip to Broken Hill supermarket is not very appealing when you arrive) OR you can eat in the Outback resort restaurant. The food is good! We all enjoyed a schnitzel meal which was very welcome after a long day of driving.
Views from the cabin verandah were impressive. Would definitely recommend this resort.