16 – 17TH MARCH 2013 - KINCHEGA NATIONAL PARK, NSW

 



The Old Kinchega Sheep Station

Lake Meninde

Time to depart Broken Hill & head for this National Park beside the Menindee Lakes. It’s only 120km from Broken Hill, no traffic to speak of. We have been told there are camping spots along the Darling River which flows through the Park. En route there are again lots of roos been hit by vehicles & of course the ravens & crows have a field day along with many hawks/eagles? At one stage two emus crossed in front of us like two old ladies who think they own the road. Surprisingly we’ve never witnessed any of those dead roadside. There are large groups of them in this area – they really are scruffy looking birds. Lots of dry creek beds as we travel along & a few cattle but goodness knows what they eat & drink. There is a very large pipeline from the Darling River which supplies Broken Hill with it’s town water. The small township called Menindee just before we reach our destination has certainly seen better times, but it was the first established on the Darling River. The Darling flows from Bourke further north to Wentworth where it meets the Murray River. It was also part of the series ‘Where the Rivers Run’ filmed & shown on TV some years ago, depicting the days of the paddle steamers which plied this route. It’s easy to imagine it when looking at the river & it’s surrounds. The road into the Park is quite rough & winds with the river, with 32 individual campsites to choose from. We find a nice level one with part shade, part sunshine, keeping away from overhanging branches of the lovely red river gums. They have a tendency to drop especially in high winds & that’s something we can do without. Once settled we relax reading & I try to catch up with the belated blog, which is proving difficult with lack of internet connections. Stu has now had the bright idea of doing it as an email to myself offline & then when we have signal we can just copy it over to the blog. If it doesn’t work it will mean a lot of retyping!!! As it is I had just finished typing a whole page one evening & accidentally deleted it. NOT happy! Liked our old laptop much better than this one but am stuck with it. Newer is not necessarily better it seems.
 



Corellas



Kangaroo drinking at camping site

The weather has been quite windy these past few days, cold mornings (13) – the sun doesn’t rise till 8am, though fine & sunny through the day. There seems to be a distinct absence of birds here apart from a few white egrets on the river now & again. In the afternoon we drive further through the park to one of the small weirs which have been built to control the flow (& therefore floods I assume). There were a few kangaroos around & we also sighted a fox which of course is not a welcome visitor in a National Park. At the old Kinchega Homestead site there are small remains of the old home beside a billabong & a wonderful old woolshed which has been restored. The camping fees in this N.P are only $3 p.p. per night and no daily car fee as we are pensioners.

Next day we explore some of the lakes of which there are several. I call them the ‘dead’ lakes as they have black skeletons of trees still standing all over the lakes. It’s quite picturesque & interesting. I think all these lakes are really floodplains but I could be wrong. There are other camping sites here too, actually nicer than where we are in some respects. One is named after the Australian explorers Burke & Wills who obviously discovered this area. The main weir is also in this area & there is certainly a lot of water passing through it at present. Another small lake we found was called Copi Hollow & we decided it was a getaway for Broken Hill residents with waterskiiing, a caravan park & quite a few weekend cottages. It’s so outbackish other than that it seems quite incongruous.

Next day we have to backtrack to Broken Hill in order to head towards Wentworth. There is a shorter route via a dirt road & though we have been told by some people it’s OK for caravans if one takes it carefully, we decide not to chance it as we don’t want any damage done to the van before we sell it. So we will drive about 240kms today & stay in a free rest area just before Wentworth. The morning is lovely with clouds like feathers in the sky but is quite cold & we don our ‘ugg’ boots & for the first day do not turn the aircon on.

I am thrilled to see a Major Mitchell cockatoo fly over in front of us. These are not the common sulphurcrested cockatoo but have a pink breast & pink crest & rather lovely. Would have like a photo. A few sheep cross the road this morning too & a group of emus appeared to be having a race with one group running along - one side of the fence & the rest on the other – really looked amusing. It’s a really boring day scenery-wise with little change, so we are glad to reach our overnight parking space about 80km north of Wentworth right beside a small river & only joined by one other van later in the afternoon. The flies are really bad here but we pour insect repellant over ourselves & manage to stay outdoors in the sun We are joined by a friendly goanna who wandered around our van & up the trees nearby for a couple of hours quite oblivious to our presence it seemed. Certainly didn’t disturb our reading & crossword time & he was definitely welcome to the flies. Also present were some native swamp hens, brown with a very upturned tail & smaller than our Pukekos, however they do have purple swamp hens which are quite similar to the Pukekos but a bit smaller.