Desert \sculptures and a Post Apocolyptic campsite

It's amazing what a good nights sleep and a change in the weather can do for ones morale. After the previous days hellish trip through rain and mud we woke up to what is apparently a typical Broken Hill day i.e. sun, warmth and an unbroken blue sky. Also staying in the Old Willyama Motel were friends from Sydney, Liz and Len. Liz was working there for a few days whilst Len had come along for the trip, to see the sights and to play a bit of golf (he got rained off at the 7^th) We were all waiting for Johann and Stretch to arrive then we would spend a few days camping before Liz and Len drove back to Sydney and the rest of us headed west.

We had a busy morning trying to clean up Johann's car before she arrived – throughout our trip of yesterday, as the car became ever more clarted with sticky grey mud, Sandra kept muttering “She'll kill us! She'll kill us”. We also went in search of a new tarpaulin to hopefully keep the kit on top of the car a bit drier should we run into any more rain.

Johann arrived and got settled into an extremely crowded caravan park then in the evening all six of us did one of the “must do” Broken Hill touristy things – we went to watch the sun setting at the Desert Sculpture Park. Several kilometres out of town is a hill upon which are about a dozen sandstone sculptures created by an international team of artists from countries as diverse as Georgia, Mexico, Syria and of course Australia. Viewed as the sun sets the sculptures are amazing as they continually change colour depending on the angle they are viewed from and of course the suns rays. We had opted to climb to the top rather than drive and the best part for me was the walk back down. I walked alone and the peace, solitude and dusk views over the desert were well worth the trip. Dinner in a local hotel then off to bed for a second, and last night in clean sheets before hitting the road again the next day.

Desert Sculpture

The following day we set off south over the road Sandra and I had struggled with two days earlier as we headed for a national park near the town of Menindee. What a difference two days of no rain and sunshine make although there was still evidence of the flooded tarred road which we stopped to take an “after” photograph to go with the “before” in my last posting. However all was not back to normal and we found that the National Park was closed as were several other roads. We eventually found a brilliant campsite beside a lake – but not without further incident.

The main road 48 hours later

We were now a convoy - our Honda CRV, Stretch and Johann in a Toyota Landcruiser towing an Ultimate Off Road trailer and Liz and Len in their little Mazda 3 and in this latter lay the problem. Whilst I am sue the Mazda is an admirable wee car it is probably best kept on city streets and well off wet dirt roads. After a few k's into looking for somewhere to camp the inevitable happened. The Landcruiser was leading with Len following in the Mazda with its two wheel drive, low clearance and low profile tyres and I was bringing up the rear – therefore with a grandstand view of events unfolding. The road was wettish but probably OK if one kept to the crown and away from the glutinous red mud which occasionally appeared at the edges. Without the traction of the Landcruiser the Mazda was not able to hold the road and a slightly misjudged route ended a slow, slippery slide into the mud – totally bogged down.

Stretch pulling Len out of the mire

Things then descended into typical gender stereotyping – the women, deciding it was time for lunch, set to making sandwiches and tea – whilst Stretch and I were left to get Len out of the mud. Luckily my tow rope was accessible so Stretch unhooked the trailer and we eventually hauled the Mazda backwards out of the mire. Len was rescued without even getting his feet muddy! We decided to move on at this point as a mob of camels appeared over the horizon and started making their way towards us with unknown intent.

Our "post apocalyptic" view from the campsite

The campsite was on a lake shore with a quite surreal view. The dead trunks and branches of hundreds of trees stood out of the water looking like some sort of “post apocalyptic” (thanks Jon) nightmare – well the “Mad Max” films were shot not too far away. We have been lazing about here for a few days with the only fly in the ointment, so to speak, being the flies which are being particularly annoying and everyone is competing for the limited supply of fly nets.

The crew about to embark

The highlight of the stay so far (for me at least) was Sandra and Johann canoeing on the lake and stripping off as nature intended for a frolic and cavort. As they were about 100 metres off shore they thought they were relatively safe as they posed for long distance photographs – unfortunately they didn't seem to realise that my camera, with its 120 x zoom was quite capable of extreme close ups – even at 100 metres! Probably not for the blog though!