To the Corner...............Part 1

As it is almost 2 months since our last trip, and there's another one planned for soon, it must be time to update newsfromjude. It was a Friday morning in September that we departed with the caravan on behind.............

We were heading for The Corner...........namely Cameron's Corner, where the 3 states of New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland meet.

The Corner Country of outback New South Wales is the area north of Broken Hill that is bound by the state borders of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

There is uniqueness about the region which, in this second decade of the 21st Century, many travellers are only just discovering. Visitors are drawn to the spaciousness: the wide blue skies largely uninterrupted by built structures, the night-time free from light pollution, and the rich hues of the earth. The red colouration of sand and gibbers particularly, strike a chord with many.

We headed north up the Ngarkat Highway towards Pinnaroo, and then turned east into Victoria. The countryside is very dry for this time of the year (spring), and the crops are barely 6" high, and the pasture paddocks have very little feed and are hardly green. We had a quick stop at Walpeup to take a photo of this silo.............

..

.....through the mallee areas of Victoria and then turned at Ouyen and travelled north to Mildura, where we were to stay for a few nights. (See the map below, and note the light blue line, as that is the way we travelled on the return journey.)

 We had not booked anywhere, and found that Mildura was very busy with a music festival on. So we went over the bridge at Mildura and 4km into New South Wales and found a site at Gol Gol caravan park............

.............which is right on the river's edge...........

and was flooded during the recent high river a couple of years ago. This tree marks the flood level, and it's so hard to imagine the amount of water in the river to reach this height!!

It just so happened that the friends we had visited at Moruya earlier in the year were also travelling the country and we had a 15 minute catchup with them at the caravan park...... it was great to catchup with Kerryn and Mike again.

We stayed at the Gol Gol park for 3 nights and spent time driving around the town. As we had previously visited the Locks further down the river we went in search of Lock 11. 

We crossed over the lock and walked further along to find the weir...........

..............another tree with a flood level marker......so much water to cover this area!!!

                                                   

We found the weir and the sound and power of the water coming over was rather awesome!!

Another reason to stay in Mildura was to visit our friend Tony, who was in the hospital. After our visit that evening we enjoyed a lovely meal out with his wife Jo.

This sign was at Wentworth, just north of Mildura and is where the Murray and the Darling rivers meet. We had visited this town last year, so did not stop this time.

While we usually have a plan of where we want to go, we usually don't book ahead which means we can be flexible. We had thought to stay a night in Broken Hill on the way north, but as we were on a time frame of 2 weeks this time, we decided to keep going north  for now and stop in Broken Hill on the way south. We stopped long enough for the photo and kept going.

We saw plenty of these animals along the way, and sorry the pic is a bit blurry  but it was hard to snap while travelling. (They are goats).

The countryside was ever changing, and mostly fairly barren. We did see a few sheep and many emus. We saw a LOT of kangaroos that did not make it across the road.

We stopped for the night at Packsaddle (see map above). There is a roadhouse, a small motel and a few caravan sites at Packsaddle, full stop.

                             

                             

The roadhouse is decorated with hats and of course saddles, hanging from the ceiling, and country music is playing in the background. ...................

                                       

                                               We enjoyed an evening meal in the dining area, ..................

                                          

      ..........................while viewing this beautiful sunset. It was a very cold and windy night and we                                                      needed the heater on in the van.

                 

Sturt’s Steps Touring Route Map

The Sturt’s Steps Touring Route approximates the route taken by Charles Sturt’s when his Inland Expedition came into the Corner Country in 1845. It connects about 1100 kilometre of sealed and unsealed roads from Broken Hill to Milparinka, Tibooburra and Cameron Corner to create a circular touring loop and adventure experience for all visitors.

Packsaddle

A yarning circle of large granite slabs has been placed near the Packsaddle Roadhouse. Created by Ian Marr, the slabs have been inscribed with various historical facts; the names of the men in Sturt’s expedition, the shanty towns along the coach routes and more.

Our destination for the next 2 nights was to be at Tibooburra, see the map above. We would leave the van here and drive out to the Corner. The road is unsealed and we are not keen to take the van off the sealed roads.

Tibooburra means 'heaps of rocks' in the local Aboriginal language, and you can't miss the rocks - ancient granite tors that surround Tibooburra and line the road on the way to the park.

Located at the main road entrances of Tibooburra are silhouette representations of the history of Tibooburra and surrounding areas, exploration, pastoralism and mining.

Also part of Sturt’s Steps project is a wire sculpture of a cameleer and camel, located outside the new Tibooburra museum space. This has been constructed by Ivan Lovett.

The Tibooburra hotel.................

We drove a bit north of the town for a look and see, and noticed a sign saying that the road to the Queensland border is now sealed. This means that there is a sealed road, non stop from Melbourne to Queensland now. I had been aiming to set foot in Queensland when we went to The Corner, but now thought I could stand in Qld a day early, so we decided to drive to the border on this new road..........

................but when we arrived at the border we found this gate!!............

...and this sign??? Please phone before entering..... and a phone number to use......but there was no phone reception out here............ so looks like I wasn't going to stand in Queensland after all!!

This is the road the other side of the gate where the bitumen ends. (This is the Warri gate).

We have been told since that the gate is not locked and we should have just opened it and driven through?? Queensland would have to wait until the next day.

So the next morning we packed our lunches and drinks and headed off in the car to The Corner. The unsealed road of about 130km wasn't too bad, although a bit rough in a few patches. The scenery was ever changing......from stony to sandy, barren or some trees.... there were lots of floodways to cross which meant that the road was impassable when it was wet. We came across some cattle that ambled across the roads..................

....................and a dry lake that we crossed............

until we finally got to The Corner........and another closed gate!! We opened this one, as the sign said............

and thus crossed from New South Wales into South Australia.............

.............and then into the next state, and I was able to stand in Queensland!!!

This is the marker where the 3 states meet, and Barry is putting a finger into each state at the same time!!

Note the high fences, which follow the border of each state.

This is the Corner Store, where we sat for awhile, chatted to the locals, and gave the "Aussie" salute to shoo the flies away!!

Inside the store there are many caps left by tourists.

...and here is the 3 hole golf course where you can play in 3 states!!

On the way back to Tibooburra we drove through the Sturt National Park...........

..............and snapped a pic of this Bandicoot which is now extinct. (Not too sure if they were that size??)

We saw a lot of emus with babies and I have now been educated into the fact that it is the Daddy emu that looks after the nest and then the babies that hatch, while Mummy goes off to look for another male!!??

That is the end of Part 1 of our trip to The Corner. I will be back with Part 2, and our trip back again. 

Blessings, From Jude