Nyngan to Menindee NSW

Monday 21st June 2021
Well David was in fine form this morning. His first words to me were “Well that was the worst night sleep ever”. Oops! It must have been a bad one. I thought it wasn’t too bad. I only woke at 12.30, 2.30, 4.30, 5.45 and 7am. Oh well, maybe tonight. I thought I would have slept well last night because I was so tired.

We woke to a very chilly morning. About 6°C in the tent and 3.9°C outside. So it took us a little while to get up. My aim was to get away by 8am but the tent was a little wet inside from condensation, so we let it dry out a bit and got away at 9am. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast by the river, which has a lot more water in it this year. The river was populated with so many pelicans this morning and the reflections in the water were beautiful.

So our aim today is to make it to Menindee Lake via Cobar along the Barrier Highway. We saw lots of wildlife today – sheep, one emu, kangaroos, cows and many, many goats. We lost phone coverage as soon as we left Nyngan, had it for a short while in Cobar and then have been without cover all day. A bit hard to check on mum without it, so I just hoped she was okay. I drove about 180km today, it was easy straight flat driving, we passed many road trains and caravans that were heading east but no overtaking required by me. Phew!

We turned off before we got to Wilcannia, on the first dirt road to Menindee and followed this west along the Darling River for 150km. The dirt colour and vegetation changed colours frequently and sometimes it was just flood plains. Along the way we saw some red tailed black cockatoos with the most vibrant red tails I have ever seen, it was a lovely drive. We arrived at Menindee at about 3.20pm and drove down to the lake near the weir. Last time we were going past this area on the Barrier Hwy, the caravan park owner told us that there was no water in the lake so it probably wasn’t worth the 150km detour. This time though it is full and is very beautiful with an abundance of birdlife and pelicans. It was amazing how many trees were under the water. We decided not to stay at the Menindee Caravan Park ($35 per night)  as the sun was going to set in the wrong direction, so we drove to Copi Hollow Caravan Park which was on Lake Copi Hollow ($25pn), a much smaller lake. This was very beautiful with lovely green grass, we went for a walk to the park but it looked quite crowded, so onwards we go to Lake Pamamaroo which was a little bigger than Copi Hollow but smaller than Lake Menindee. As we drove around the Lake we were heading towards the furthest camp called Burke and Wills Camp ($0pn) which had a toilet. The lake was very beautiful and there were people camped all along the lake edge for the 12-15km as we travelled to the end. We decided on a lake edge spot ourselves about 500m from the toilet camp. The lake was so smooth, the weather was so calm and I sat down to enjoy the serenity with a cuppa and cheeses and biccies as the sunset. What a beautiful late afternoon/evening. After the sun set we had a lovely dinner then went for a walk in the dark along the lake edge road about 3km as we haven’t done any exercise since Friday. Not quite an exercise as we wore our uggies but it was a lovely night and the walk helped keep us warm.

We managed to contact Kristen via text to check on Mum and then mum returned our called. FYI Mum, it is better for us to call you as it will probably have cost you a bit. Sorry. Mum is okay even though more was done than was initially intended. It was difficult to be out of range today but at least with the Sat Phone we were able to make contact. This is the first time the Aldi/Belong phones haven’t worked in a Telstra coverage area.

Anyway we have had a lovely day and really enjoyed the drive and the Menindee Lake area. We will explore here before we leave tomorrow as who knows if there will be water in the lake next time we go past.