We're up reasonably early, well, we're out the door just gone nine and loop the "city" looking for the post office which turns out to be the most obvious building in town. It's 9:25 and the place is supposed to be open at 9. Hmm. Then it strikes us, Broken Hill is still on South Australia time, NSW (Eastern) time starts 50km down the road.
We top up with fuel and a little more water and hit the road for the 750km to Dubbo mostly along the Barrier Highway. This is a much maligned road for the tourist and with good reason. Its long straight roads which roll over a few "ranges" before crossing immense flat plains of red dirt and sparse scrub. Motorists wave at each other to acknowledge the existence of another driver, though I note that most of them have a six foot UHF radio aerial on the front bumper as, surprisngly, mobile coverage is quite poor. We glimpse a few more dust devils but mostly it's dessicated roo, a dry reminder that they haven't even had the annual 8 inches of rain this year of the last. It's a serious drought in these parts and raging bush fires in the south east.
We roll into Wilcania looking for a top up and a coffee. No obvious cafe and the petrol costs an extra 15% out here. We top up and carry on towards Cober a big looking town. On the way we see signs for the Emmdale Roadhouse. We pull in for a quite reasonable lunch given it's run by a wizened old man and his enormous wife. He's failing to follow the wise counsel of the SAAF (petrol) company accountant, nodding in agreement with glazed eyes. I have some sympathy, what with Lunanbay Limited still in limbo as my accountants have failed to pass all the pertinient information on for its dissolution. Accountancy seems to uniquely take a straightforward subject (add up all the money people have given you, subtract all the money you've spent, if the resultant number is positive then you've made a profit) and develop an unintelligible numeric labyrinth from it. There aren't even rules about it, you can literally invent accountancy rules [to fit your prupose] and get the nod from the Inland Revenue. Hence fiasco's like Enron.
In the meanwhile it's hot. Very hot. And the flies are a bit pesky. The car heats up fantastically quickly even in the semi-shade and you have to run the air con at full blast for half an hour to feel an effect. The windows become hot to the touch even with cold air running onto them.
Something unexpected is that a lot of this second 200km run is through forest. Not the dense forest of, well, anywhere else, but trees all around, a few yards apart. I guess the difference is that there's no undergrowth, just the trees sticking out of the red dirt.
We top up again in Cobar and buy an ice cream. I must report that Caramel Magnums are a bit sickly. Onto the Mitchell Highway which takes us via some more straight roads to Dubbo and our home for the night. It's hot and there's no air con. Our door lock is broken and stupidly, rather than switch room, we wait for the blokey to fix it. Just sat still in this room you sweat [profusely]. Ugh. We walk into town which looks close and our destination is only a km away but all you do is feel the heat.
Dubbo YHA S32.24232 E148.60455 Elev. 262m (246m?)
There are a couple of mozzies buzzing in the room so we have to apply mozzie spray. That's not a good thing whilst writing journals as the spray that gets on your fingers starts melting the plastic of the biros. Speaking of the journal, this marks the last page of my second book including the (incomplete!) backpack contents overleaf, that's [more] 240 pages of scribble.
PS. Helen's phone reports 36C which we can adjust to 33C, at 11:15pm.
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.