Moree to Brewarrina

 

Tuesday 16 August 2022

Day 2
Moree to Brewarrina

The start of our trip is not very exciting, because either Kevin or I or both of us have been to the various towns that we passing through.  Others we may not know that well, but we want to keep further exploring of the east coast for later. At the moment we are going to concentrate on Western Australia. We’ll try and save time by quickly getting to the start of the Nullarbor.

Last night we stayed at Boolooroo Rest Area, just north of Moree. From there we travelled south-west to Collarenebri where we had our morning tea. 

I have many memories of these towns and not all good ones…  Years ago, we blew a valve of the radiator in our Datsun.  That lead to the loss of the engine and big repairs with all sorts of complications in Goondiwindi.  I could write a book about that trip (one to Melbourne), but I will stick only to some facts to do with the towns we now visit.

After the repairs we made it to Moree, where a taxi smashed into the side of the Datsun at a roundabout.  For the rest of that trip, we could only use the door on the driver’s side!

Well, this time we made it past those two towns.  From Collarenebri I remember making the round trip of 140km from Walgett and back to watch a movie in an open-air theatre.  This was when Stephen and Tori lived in Walgett in the ‘90s. The correct aboriginal name for Collarenebri is Galariinbaraay, which means ‘place of flowers or eucalyptus blossoms’.

From there it was on to Walgett.  As I had taken photos of Stephen and Tori’s old house on an earlier trip, we only stopped for fuel at a very muddy service station with a great mural on its wall.

Next a brief stop on the side of the road for lunch and then on to Brewarrina where we stopped for afternoon tea, also on the side of the road, next to some wall art.

Bourke would have been a great place for more exploration, but we may do that some other time.  Kevin showed me an old, restored Crossley Engine, which usually is started and shown between noon and 1pm.  We missed out of course! 😉

After a short walk to the rive for some photos we started the last leg of today’s trip which led us to Kinchela Rest Area on the side of Kidman Way. (#1033 - 30 27 27 S 145 56 07 E)

So far, we have seen the change in vegetation, which is interesting as always.  Cotton has been harvested and the cotton gin was working.  We’ve seen the beautiful golden canola fields, but also fields that were bare after all the rain and floods the country has suffered.  Most rivers were full.  For us an unusual sight.  After Moree we have started to see emus, mostly in groups of 6 or 7, but always too far away from the road to take photos of.  After Brewarrina we started to see the wild goats.  No doubt we will see plenty more before we reach South Australia.