Travelling through inland Australia: Day 3 Dubbo to Bourke

OK. For those of you who were anxious about yesterday's fuel situation, the pump at the servo where we filled up this morning, told me that I had almost 10 litres left. This means that the trip computer was right, in fact it erred slightly on the conservative side. Nevertheless, I will not try to pull the 'van more than 450 kms without factoring in a fuel stop.

Well, today's trip was an absolute dream. We travelled 375 kms in 5 hours plus time for coffee and photos. We just trundled along at 95 kph and used fuel at an average rate of 11.5 litres per 100 kms. We kept ourselves entertained by listening to the truckies chatting over the UHF radio but even that dried up after a while and so we just enjoyed the silence.

The countryside from Dubbo towards Narromine on the Mitchell Highway was similar to the landscape around Cowra and Forbes, rather undulating and well wooded around the edges of the paddocks with red gums. However, between Narromine and Nyngan, it was real big sky country. It is as flat as a tack with the paddocks stretching out into the distance on both sides of the road. The road itself was a straight as a die and ended at the horizon. Out here the horizon is 5 -6 kms away. I know, I measured it. Well, you have to do something to while away the time. After Nyngan, I expected more of the same. Well the road was certainly straight, except for a very sinuous double S bend about 70 kms SE of Bourke, which was probably put there to wake up bored drivers! However, the countryside climbed steadily through a series of long, gentle rises. The vegetation along the road was a mix of acacia scrub and large eucalypts with the scrub becoming more predominant as we got closer to Bourke.

The driving was very easy. The road was in very good condition. There was hardly any traffic. The Mitchell Highway is classified as suitable for road trains which gave us pause for thought. However, we only saw four or five two trailer rigs (baby road trains). They did not cause us any difficulties either passing us or overtaking us.

The weather was fine and still no wind. How long are we going to be this lucky!

We got to Bourke in the early afternoon and decided to do some shopping. Bourke is a small place with main street not much bigger than Nyngan's. We had a quick look at the Darling from the jetty and then headed off to our stop for the next 2 nights, Kidman's Camp caravan park. The is a very pleasant, well treed park with large sites and wide paved roads. At this time of the year it is really popular and by 6.00 pm this evening was looking quite full. There is just one problem with this park. You can't book ahead and they don't allocate you a site when you check in. It is up to you to select your own. So, if you want a prime drive through site, make sure you are here by mid-afternoon.

We are going into Bourke tomorrow to have a proper look around, so will post some Bourke photos tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some of today's travels.

By the way, we are now officially in Outback New South Wales. We know this because we saw a sign just before we got to Nyngan that told us so.