Tuesday, 28 October 2024
I forgot to record yesterday that St George’s streets are full of colour at the moment with jacaranda trees and the biggest oleander hedges in full bloom that I have ever seen. I have to give Grafton the edge on the jacarandas though!
At dinner last night we talked about how excited we are about finally adopting Eastern daylight Savings Time when we cross into NSW today. This morning, I woke up at 5.40am in Queensland and of course the sun was streaming into our motel room. I read my watch as 6.40am – obviously VERY keen to get onto EDST – so lay in bed for another ten minutes and then decided it was nearly 7.00am I might as well get going. It was quite some time before I realised my mistake and that it was only just after 7.00am when I thought it was 8.00am!
We were packed and ready to go a little earlier than what was agreed last night so the SatNavs were programmed for Hebel and we set out from the motel along Victoria Street and onto the Balonne Highway then across the Jack Taylor Weir. That’s strange I was thinking as I had expected to travel towards Nindigully again before turning off onto the Castlereagh Highway. On the other side of the river, we took another left onto Whyenbah Road and passed a sign warning that it was a Dry Weather Road.
OK, that’s seeming really unexpected, so I squinted at the road atlas trying to read the difficult bit in the spiral binding to work out where Siri was taking us. Right, for some reason she wants to take us on an unsealed back road to Dirranbandi. We pulled over and after a quick roadside consult with Cathy and Steve decided to drive back into town so we could continue on the Great Inland Way by way of the Carnarvon and Castlereagh Highways.
We arrived at the turn off for the Great Inland Way (Castlereagh Highway) that we had seen yesterday so turned right. As we bounced along Bernie surmised that Syri suggested an alternate route because the road surface we were driving on was worse than the unsealed surface if we had kept going the other way?? Admittedly the ‘highway’ was pretty crap!
As we bounced along, we saw fields of cotton, sheep, cattle, baled hay, wheat stockpiles, emus in a field of wheat stubble and … roadworks. We passed a sign saying White Guard Dogs, but saw no sheep or goats or maremmas, just a few more emus in a paddock beside the road and … a snake. Ugh, was it dead or alive? It didn’t seem to be squished so it might have been sun-baking on the side of the road.
After how good the Matilda Way was when we were heading north, we have been underwhelmed by the Great Inland Way. According to our brochure the Great Inland Way is the ultimate Australian road trip. We are supposed to be on a major highway BUT the surface is terrible and there is zero phone coverage!!
Just before Dirranbandi we encountered our second section of roadworks with traffic lights controlling the traffic. We seemed to have a Mexican standoff we were waiting at the northern end, and we could see a road train waiting at the southern end. The only worker seemed to be a surveyor walking back and forwards across the road mid-way between traffic lights taking sightings? Eventually after about three minutes our light turned green. So impatient!
A few minutes later we arrived in Dirranbandi where we stopped to stretch our legs and photograph the Beersheba Memorial in memory of all who fought in the Great War 1914-18 and their horses who could not come home. The Charge of Beersheba took place at dusk on 31 October 1917 and is remembered as the last great cavalry charge. The piece by Ron Marshall is titled ‘The Charge’ and was installed in 2016. The charge was led by Brigadier-General William Grant who purchased property in Dirranbandi after the war and remained in the area until his death. For an artwork wrought from metal it is conveys incredible energy and movement.
We encountered yet more roadwork although this was more a case of a speed restriction because it was a new surface with no lines marked. It would be lovely if more of the highway could be resurfaced to this standard. Perhaps in time this will happen? We passed a sign to warn us of unfenced road and potentially stock on the road but all we (Bernie) saw was a handful of feral goats.
In a recurring theme for the morning, we arrived at a section of road with no surface and the only work going on a was a water tanker spraying water on the surface to keep the dust down … and another two sections of works where we had to wait at traffic signals managing traffic flow through a single lane. This was really starting to slow down our trip to Lightning Ridge today! On a more interesting note, I think we spotted more emus this morning between St George and Hebel than we have seen on the rest of our trip. On the negative side I was really struggling with drowsiness today so it’s a wonder I saw anything at all. It must be that hour of sleep that I missed??!
We arrived in Hebel just after 10.30am. Early on in our holiday we were told that we should go the Hebel General Store if we had the opportunity, so we pulled up to check out the store and the Hebel Hotel. Hebel was originally named Kelly’s Point, and it is rumoured that Dan Kelly and Steve Hart lived here in secret. The hotel is decorated by Lightning Ridge artist John Murray and features furniture made from recycled bush finds. I’m told by the other three members of our traveling party that the general store’s sausage rolls were excellent for morning tea.
We crossed the border into NSW just after 11.00am so technically it was noon, but we didn’t ping a mobile tower to pick up EDST for a couple more kilometres. One bar 4G was enough for Bernie’s phone to flip over to EDST. I had to wake my phone up before it caught up. Yay, we’ll be able to enjoy our extra summer sunlight at the other end of the day now rather than being woken at quarter past five in the morning.
Driving into Lightning Ridge we called into the Visitor Information Centre to pick up a town map and some mud maps for the self-guided car door tours. We also learnt that we CAN still do the tour at the Chambers of the Black Hand. I looked and looked at this tour during the planning phase and I was convinced that the season closed in early October, so I was pleased that this is something still available for us to do.
Lunch next before all the cafés in town shut for the day. We settled on the Opal Street café which made some delicious turkey, cranberry and Brie Turkish bread toasties. It made a nice change from cheese toasties or BLATs. While we were waiting for our sandwiches to be toasted Bernie went online and booked us onto the 9.00am tour tomorrow at Chambers of the Black Hand.
We drove the Red Car Door tour after lunch. After a false start we made it around the circuit that takes in a home made from stones and bottles, Ridge Castle made from stone and flagons, Sim’s Hill (the highest point in the district) and Amigo’s Castle constructed using ironstone. These tours are signposted with car doors from wrecks that have been painted red, blue, yellow and green for each of the coloured drives. A quirky way to signpost the trails.
After exploring a little bit of the town, we drove out to the Opal Holiday Park to check into our cabins. We checked out the pool, but it was in full sun, and we felt it was too hot and too exposed to swim so early in the afternoon. Just after 4.00pm we headed off to the hot artesian bore just 200 metres from the park. The baths are free and open 22/7. They close between 10.00am and noon each day for cleaning. Bernie and I took the waters, but Cathy and Steve decided it wasn’t for them. After our hot dip we walked back to the holiday park for a cool (-ish) dip. The holiday park is HUGE, and the pool seems a little on the stingy side to cater for the number of visitors there must be in peak season.
We headed out for an early dinner at Bruno’s Italian Restaurant and then drove to Nettleton’s First Shaft Lookout for sunset. We were following Cathy and Steve out when Cathy slowed down. Bernie was worried about what she was doing because we had a road train hot on our tails. Would you believe that Cathy had to slow down for two peacocks and a peahen (peachick?) to cross the road. That was a bit random and not what you expect to encounter in Outback NSW! Aargh, for the second time we arrived a bit late to see the sun actually dip below the horizon but the colours after sunset were still spectacular out at the lookout. Shame about the mosquitoes though. The mozzies were probably the worst we have encountered all trip. Should have sprayed!
