The early start do not happen as it was nearly 9.45 before we pulled out of Nyngan. I dropped the vacuum flask and broke the lip which required a chase at the local hardware store. That combined with a few more minor purchases and a load of fuel saw to it that we were away at the later time with Fay leading the way.

Fay drove 175km today, quite a record. The road from Nyngan is so straight that most of the way you can see straight road in front and behind as far as the eye can see. Once again very few trucks. Good road, well marked and no potholes. Leaving Nyngan, we still had broad acres of cotton. After about 30 km the vegetation changed. Much more heavily wooded then we expected. Also for 160km it was  the ‘long paddock’. Lots of long grass and fairly green coming into Bourke. About 20km out of Bourke, the landscape became devoid of trees and was wide open spaces with evidence of cotton again. Coming into Bourke there is a special drive lines with trees to honour Fred Hollows. Also a miniature wetlands with lots of birds flying around. We weren’t sure if this was naturally occurring or something to do with irrigation and irrigation channels. We went to visit Fred Hollows grave in Bourke. Behind the cemetery there were lots of bales of cotton. The grave is sign-posted from the town. Around the grave there are rocks shaped like an eye. He was actually born in New Zealand but we claim him. He had a long involvement with the people of Bourke. We also saw another emu today and signs that indicated camels but we didn’t see any.  We thought we missed a spot we wanted to see along the way, but we found out later that the place we thought we would like to see was actually on a different road. We found our caravan park and booked in for lunch and a cuppa before we investigated the town. The cuppa was great because we hadn’t had time to boil water for the new vacuum flask so this was the first cuppa for the day – quite a stretch.

We have seen the red dust of the outback and are gathering lots in the van to bring home. The road today was very built up in parts with red dirt beside us.

The town has a few old buildings and we saw a Crossley  engine a stationary engine used for power generation and heavy demand power. I note this for the engineers among you. It didn’t actually drive anything - just interesting apparently.

The town is set out on a grid. What struck me was the number of closed –up shops and those that were open had few windows and a lot of wrought iron over the outside walls.

The Darling River runs thru Bourke and we saw the Wharf which is very high we assume to cater for floods. The banks of the river are very steep.

On the Way to Bourke

We went to the “Back ‘O Burke” centre and we were there for quite a while. It was quite a good historic display and our old friend Henry Lawson got another mention as he lived here for 18 months – we can’t get away from him. Bourke has had a long and varied history and many times of boom and bust. I was allergic to the centre as my face and eyes started streaming. I went outside so Adrian could keep looking.

We cruised through town and tried to find the historic weir and locks but after driving a few km down a rutted dirt track we gave up. This town has a habit of putting signs to places of interest in the main street and when you turn off the main drag there are no more signs!

I also managed to catch the belt loop on my shorts on the fire extinguisher on the way put of the van and pulled the extinguisher off the wall, pulling out the screws and the fittings. It may have to wait till we get home to be fixed as a need a drill for the repairs. We hope to do a river cruise tomorrow and then set off for Cunnamulla.

Fay Driving the 145km