Week 25 from Broken Hill to home

I’m expecting to write every day as we get closer to home but a fews days slip by and I don’t have the inclination. When we left, the road stretched before us with six months of possibility: everything fresh and exciting. Now it’s winter gloom, darkness and rain, with sodden ground dampening the spirit as we trail behind a third low-pressure system travelling southeast bringing a prolonged spell of cold, wet weather. 

Heading east, we enjoy more changing landscapes. The plains give way to gentle rising hills with the occasional striking red dune but those stunning rock faces have well and truly disappeared, as have the boabs, termite mounds and crazy blue winged kookaburras. We also see more roadkill than in the past few months combined. Having rarely driven at dawn or dusk on this trip we had no trouble avoiding animals. That’s different now.

On RM Williams Way, just beyond Cradock at Native Well Creek freecamp, we pack up the tent in the rain – no tea or coffee on this grey day. I can’t call it miserable though. At the Carrieton Post Office and General Store, the proprietor beams as she tells us just how happy she is to be cold and wet for once. Since July 1, they have had more rain than in the past few years. Deep puddles line the road – it’s remarkable to see so much water here.

Our last South Australian town is Yunta where we stopped on Day 2 when engine oil spewed from the engine. It’s a totally different scene today with so much water around. We stop for a delicious samosa before crossing the border into NSW. Given the weather we book accommodation in our next stop, Broken Hill. This time we each have a bedroom, two couches, a kitchen and a clean bathroom. Luxury!  Trude and Pete happen to be in town on their way home, so we enjoy an afternoon cuppa in the warmth of our cabin.

The next morning we revel in the freedom of shoeless feet and the air conditioning before a visit to Broken Hill City Art Gallery. We wander through The Bald Archy Prize and their permanent collection. Another exhibition I particularly enjoy is Catherine Farry’s work called Survival Kits for Literary Heroines:

If you could give your favorite book character an item to save them from their predicament, what would it be? This exhibition brings stories to life and playfully breaks the fourth wall. Using a variety of mediums while staying true to each fictional world, the artist brings hope to literary heroines and offers them choices, showing compassion and creating an unspoken sisterhood.

It’s fun and thought-provoking. I immediately think of saving Sethe from Toni Morrison’s Beloved, but how can you save a slave woman during the American Civil War? 

We grab coffee at the Silly Goat Cafe before going to Menindee Lakes which are 80% full at the moment. This rain has closed all secondary roads in the region derailing our plans to do  the Darling River Run. 

At Lake Pamamaroo, the rain clears. It’s beautiful – with pelicans and spoonbills, whistling kites soaring high which I expected to say goodbye to in WA but when I research their distribution I learn they’re found across most of the continent. There’s so much I don’t know about this land. 

Our next stop is down toward Mildura where we camp outside Dareton for a night on the Murray River. It gives me the chance to catch up with my university friend Yvette who’s working at Dareton Public School. Jeremy's newly acquired mechanical skills come in handy one last time; the trailer brakes are playing up. Just when you think you’re home and hosed…

Yvette takes me on a tour of Dareton Public School, a beautiful, welcoming place for the 50 or so kids that come here. It’s wonderful to catch up with an old friend on the road and see where she’s been working for the past couple of years, making a difference.

Then it’s on to the Riverina for a few days camping along the Murrumbidgee, first in Yanga National Park then Murrumbidgee Valley National Park. We stop at Hay and Narendra, and enjoy the drive through each town along the way, their wide streets and heritage buildings, and layers of history told in the wrought iron and stone.

I’ll carry this trip with me for a long time. The camping, landscapes and stories. I now see our beautiful, rich country in a new light with its history, complex and fraught. Travel is enriching, challenging and rewarding, and, coming home, it feels as though there’s been a seismic shift in me, even if little else seems to have changed. If this journey has been revelatory and transformative, what will this mean each day?

In the dying moments of the trip, driving up the Hume Highway, I’m wearing the smell of campfire like an old jacket, comfortable and warm. I pull up the photo of Chef  on February 13, standing at the door at 6 am watching us leave. We laugh. How quickly this time has passed. We blinked and six months are gone. And now, we’re almost home.