You see some strange things when you drive in the country. Yesterday on our drive from Parkes to Coonamble, we passed a dirt turn out area by the side of the highway – you know, the type of place where trucks stop and pull over for a break.
Except there wasn’t a truck parked in it. There was a car and caravan.
Not so unusual either, as it turns out … except that standing at the back of the van was a couple – a man and a woman – with a music stand in front of them holding some sheet music, and they were both playing trumpets.
You look as you drive past, then you look again, then … you shrug your shoulders and keep driving.
That was weird.
We also passed a turnoff to a place called Come By Chance NSW.
Sounds like the type of place that you end up in after you took a wrong turn somewhere, and I imagine that you should prepare yourself for disappointment once you get there.
We stayed at Nakadoo last night, a farm just outside Coonamble where the owners allow travellers like us to pull up for the night at no cost – just a donation.
We got away early this morning. I think we we were on the road by 8.15am and heading towards Lightning Ridge. Another picture perfect morning with blue skies, sun shining, and crisp clean air.
Very little to see on the road – just lots and lots of nothing as far as the eye can see. And flat. Sometimes there are some fields that are plowed, and sometimes it is just grass. Sometimes trees.
Very occasionally you will see a few cows wandering around. But that’s about it.
In fact at some places, there is nothing noteworthy to see in any direction.
I have no idea how much we are paying Brandon for giving us directions, but he is not really earning it at the moment.
Today we only went through one township – Walgett – between leaving Coonamble and arriving at Lightning Ridge, and we only got two peeps out of Brandon all day.
He first piped up as we were approaching Walgett to say ”in 300 metres, go through the roundabout”, and then he went back to sleep. Next we heard from him was as we entered Lightning Ridge and he says ”you have arrived at your destination.”
I’m not sure if that is indicative of how flat and straight and featureless the roads are in country NSW, or if he is just lazy.
We followed the Castlereagh Hwy from Coonamble all the way to Walgett. We were initially lulled into a false sense of security, because the first few kilometres from Coonamble were wide and flat and smooth, but then it degraded again to the rough, bumpy, lumpy NSW country roads that we have had for much of the trip since leaving Nowra, quite some time ago.
The problem is that Elsie is constantly lurching and shuddering and bumping across the surface of the road, but then – a few microseconds later – Percy lurches and shudders through the same bad patch. So you are getting tossed around a second time through the chassis of the car.
It was a somewhere between riding a bucking bronco at a rodeo, and being in the space shuttle as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. Almost a sense of “so long as I can just hang on a little longer, we should be OK.”
We got into Walgett around 9.45am and stopped to look at some incredible silo art …
… before doing a couple of laps of the town centre trying to find somewhere to park legally. It seems that Walgett is not a particularly RV Friendly town with no designated RV parking, meaning that we needed to park in a “45 degree only, rear to the kerb” zone, right outside the courthouse and next to the Police Station, as it turned out.
Maybe not the wisest of choices, but our options were limited.
We slipped into our Akubras in an attempt to blend in like locals, and went in search of coffee.
Sadly there are so many shops and businesses closed in Walgett – just like in so many other small towns – no doubt from COVID and drought and floods and all of the other catastrophes that impact small communities all over the country.
We injected $15 into the local economy and got ourselves caffeinated in the process, so I call that a win-win situation.
The road from Walgett to Lightning Ridge got progressively worse.
I mean, it is all sealed and called a “highway”, but at 90km/h (with a speed limit of 110km/h) you are being thrown around so badly that it starts to feel like your internal plumbing is sustaining permanent damage, your organs are being rearranged, your brain starts to turn to custard, your kidneys feel like they are being beaten with a baseball bat, and it places enormous pressure on your bladder … which is never an ideal situation.
I’ve had a sore neck and shoulders for the last week, and I suspect that having my head bouncing around on these roads has likely been the cause.
Interestingly, I’ve heard MBW muttering about a “pain in the neck” quite a bit lately, so I don’t know what that’s about … ?
With a looming “Code Yellow”, we found perhaps the cutest rest stop we have ever seen with really handy dandy instructions for providing light to assist your endeavours if you are using the facilities at night.
What will they think of next? Maybe electricity, or solar powered batteries?
Onwards to Lightning Ridge and we pulled into the Opal Caravan Park around 11.30am, which must be a new world record for an early arrival at tonight’s accommodation.
The caravan park has this post-apocalyptic feeling to it with not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere. It feels just like the Charleville caravan park that we stayed in a couple of years ago.
Despite all of that, it is dead flat and so no jiggery pokery required to get set up. Which means that we have postponed the risk of divorce for another day, and likely eliminated the risk of divorce in NSW entirely!!
Lunch, out of jeans and into shorts as the weather had reached a giddying 27 degrees, and we were off exploring.
Actually that’s not entirely accurate. We spent a bit of time poking and cursing at the fridge that had decided to display a “gas lockout” error regardless of whether it was given its choice of power supply – gas, 240V or 12V – which are all of the possible options available.
We also resigned ourselves to the fact that the washing machine no longer serves its primary purpose – to wash clothes. Dirty clothes go in, nothing productive happens, and dirty clothes come out again 🙁
Now all we need is for the airconditioner or the microwave to stop working and we can claim a win on the trifecta.
Lightning Ridge is a quirky little place.
Very dry, very barren, with that post-apocalyptic theme going through the whole township. It has very much a temporary feel to it, like nobody is staying for a long time so they have no plans to ever fully establish themselves, yet it is very tourist orientated.
The caravan park where we are staying told us that it is “normally $30/night, but because we are busy it’s now $49.35/night”. That’s everything you need to know about supply and demand right there.
The caravan park must have something like 100 sites or cabins, and surprisingly it is mostly full.
One of the things that Lightning Ridge does very well is to give tourists various options for self-guided tours around town. They have 4 possible tours, called the Red Door, the Blue Door, the Yellow Door and the Green Door tour.
Each one has a starting point that is identified with an old car door painted in the colour of the tour, and then as you follow the tour, you look for similarly coloured car doors that have a location number painted on them that align to the instructions you have.
Even dumb Queenslanders like us can figure that out without getting lost.
We did the Blue Door and Red Door tours this afternoon, and saw some interesting and unusual things.
There is also an incredible amount of truely amazing artwork around town, and it appears that most of it was created by a local artist, John Murray.
Our penultimate stop for the day was the artesian bore which is a free facility, just down the road from where we are staying.
The water comes out of the ground at around 40 degrees and is very soothing and relieves those aching muscles, although I also found that it simply drained me of all energy and left me feeling light headed – and that was after only a few minutes in the water.
Home for a nap, and then we headed off for our final adventure for the day – the Green Door tour which is a drive to view the sunset from the highest point in Lightning Ridge … which isn’t particularly high. But still the sunset was magnificent and – as always – the phone camera does nothing to represent or capture how beautiful it was.
So far Lightning Ridge holds the record for the most expensive diesel ($2.13/litre), but fortunately I don’t need any more until we get to St George.
I’ve also been surprised at the lack of roadkill on the roads., On a previous trip to Winton, we were literally swerving to avoid dead kangaroos, but this time we might only see three or four dead animals in 100km … and most of those appear to be foxes.
Tomorrow we head back into Queensland, with the expectation that we will stay in or near St George. Even though there is very little to see in Lightning Ridge and we have likely seen it all already, it has that warm, relaxing feeling about it and it would have been nice to stay for a few days and do nothing but bask in the sun.
Just over 200km today, Certainly no awards for the most distance travelled towing a caravan, but it was a nice relaxing – albeit bumpy – drive. I’m sure that once we cross the border into Queensland, the roads will be paved with gold …
If anyone is speaking with Zach or Maddie, please tell them that now would be a good time to mow the lawn and turn on the dishwasher.
Ciao
#RoadTripNSW2022
#HeadingHomeNow
That little town you mentioned, “Come By Chance”, or “Cumby” as the locals call it, just happens to be where my lovely wife grew up. She really is a Westy!