This was an Idlers 4WD Club organised trip celebrating the "Year of the Outback".

This trip is covered by a pamphlet available from the National Parks office in Tibooburra. It is a 100 kilometre trip that heads east from Tibooburra then turns north through the old Mt Wood station which dates back to 1886, 41 years after Charles Sturt passed through searching for that inland sea. At the start of the trip through Mt Wood station there is an Outdoor Pastoral Museum that has the remains of an old wool scour and related equipment. There is a campground nearby and a swing bridge crossing a very deep bone-dry creek to the shearing shed. The drive takes you through some very dry looking gibber plains, which noticeably were covered with some very dry looking vegetation, to the Mt Wood Gorge. Though small by many standards, the gorge somewhat takes you by surprise. The dry creek beds are lined with River Red Gums and Gidgee trees, quite a contrast to the surrounding countryside. Further along you pass, Mt Wood, a number of Bores and travel parallel to the tree lined Twelve-Mile creek before coming back to the Silver City Highway and back to Tibooburra.

An interesting drive of contrasts and takes about 2-3hours depending on how much you look around.

Two kilometres south of town we turned westward onto the main outback road that leads to Fort Grey and Camerons Corner. The drive through the arid gibber plains/stony downs was uneventful and somewhat boring though sections through the Waka Clay Pan and the dry Frome Swamp provided a welcome change of scenery. Overall the road was in good condition and the group, despite the ever-present dust a convoy makes, made good time to the Fort Grey campground for the morning tea stopover.

It was then onward to complete the remaining 30 kilometres to Camerons Corner. Pleasingly it was now different countryside with red sandhills all the way to the border. Like all tourists we wandered around doing the usual things of photographing the State Border signs, the Dingo Fence, the "Corner marker", and of course had lunch and refreshments at the Corner Store.

The decision was made at Camerons Corner not to completely retrace our tracks but to take the western section of the Middle Road back. So approximately 28 kilometres from the Corner we turned east off the main road on what turned out to be, in the main, a very smooth road through sandridge country. Although only about 20 kilometres north of the main Tibooburra-Camerons Corner road, the vegetation and road surface was completely different.

After about 40 kilometres we turned south at the T intersection with the Toona Gate road at Binerah Downs. A further 30 odd kilometres through the gibber plains we reached the main Tibooburra-Camerons Corner road where we continued eastward back to Tibooburra. Eventually after 294 kilometres and nearly 7 hours we were back at camp.

We learnt of this trip from the owners of the Tibooburra Corner Store, who gained permission from Gum Vale Station for us to travel on their property.

Starting at Tibooburra we travelled 13 kilometres along the Tibooburra-Camerons Corner road until we came to the road sign pointing to Gum Vale Station. Turning south we proceeded along the road into the property covering some 12 kilometres before pulling into the riverbed for our morning tea stop at the start of the delightful Gum Vale Gorge.

A couple of kilometres down the road, where a sign directs you to the Gum Vale Homestead to the right, we veered left onto riverbed. Driving now was taken slowly as to travel at speed would have completely spoilt the wonderful scenes along the riverbed. We stopped a number of times just to take in these scenes, as they were just so different to anything else around Tibooburra. At a couple of spots you come up out of the river up onto the river flats. On one large flat (Jefferys Flat) there are the remains of the gold mines, numerous mullock heaps and a number of one hundred-foot shafts, shored up with timber, absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Quite incredible!

Further along we were back in the river and came across the remains of the old Mill. Another delightful setting which was an ideal spot for lunch, and some exploration. The whole area was littered with smashed bottles and old crockery, plus many bits of well rusted machinery. Continuing on down the river we came across the remains of what must have been the centre of the gold mining industry in this area. There was the Battery, a Boiler, and a heap of other assorted bits and pieces of machinery. A wonderful place to wander about and just imagine what went on here way back in the 1880’s. The broken down windmill and cement rendered water tank on site suggested that this area might have still been in use in more modern times, though probably only to provide water for the stock.

The rest of the trip continued on down the river until just a couple of kilometres from the Silver City Highway where the track leaves the river, just before the windmill at the Warratta bore. The track now crosses over farmland to join the highway at a spot approximately 15 kilometres north of Milparinka that gives the most magnificent views of Mt Stuart and the surrounding Jump Ups.

The trip from the Gum Vale Station turn off on the Tibooburra-Camerons Corner road to the Silver City Highway is approximately 32 kilometres in length of which around 20 kilometres is either in the riverbed or beside it on the river flats. For the whole trip that you are actually in the riverbed you are weaving in and out of the most magnificent River Red Gums. Our average speed for the trip was less than 20 kilometres per hour, not because of any difficulties, but just to enjoy this area. Not 4WD, but a wonderful drive.

At the Silver City Highway junction the trip officially ended with a left turn taking you back to Tibooburra. Having not seen Milparinka (read had a drink at the Milparinka pub) we drove down to Milparinka and explored the remains of what was once a bustling town. Overall the trip, including the Milparinka visit, was 112 Kilometres and took 5 hours.

This trip is also covered by a pamphlet available from the National Parks office in Tibooburra. It is a round trip from Tibooburra north up the Silver City Highway some 18 kilometres to the Jump Up Loop Road, which turns off to the west opposite the end of the Mt Wood/Gorge Loop road. You pass through stony rolling downs, tree lined creek beds, and pass many Tanks (large Dams). The Tanks were not a pleasant sight as not only was there little water, there were many remains of Kangaroos and Emus that had become stuck in the mud and perished.

Further along, the road climbs up the Jump Up to a large area that provides splendid views of the Jump Ups and the surrounding plains. Continuing on you come across the Olive Downs Station shearing quarters, and a further kilometre along the Homestead. The Homestead itself is still in good condition but the tennis courts and the in-ground swimming pool have seen better days. It must have been a good life on this property in its heyday. The large Tank nearby still had a fair amount of water compared to the others we had seen.

Instead of following the pamphlet tour, which turned directly eastward to the Silver City Highway, we continued north towards the Queensland Border on the eastern section of the Middle road. Stopping for lunch in a creek bed where it was quite noticeable how the clay gibber soils have given way to sandhill country. The road veers West at the Dingo fence and after a short distance heads Southwest. Approximately 25 kilometres later, after driving through more boring Gibber plains, you come to the Toona Gate road at Binerah Well some 14 kilometres south of the Middle Road (western section) that leads to Fort Grey. We then turned south and retraced our track from the Camerons Corner trip back to Tibooburra. Overall the trip was some 147 kilometres spread over 4.5 hours.

We headed south after a slow pack-up and pulled into Lake Cobham, 100 kilometres south of Tibooburra (approximately 11km north of the turn-off to White Cliffs). It was great to see some water, but most of all the lake was teaming with all sorts of water birds. The rest of the day, binoculars and bird book in hand, was spent watching the birds doing their thing. Sunset was a treat as many Emus and Kangaroos came down to drink. One large Red Kangaroo seemed to take exception to our presence and came quite close to camp, raising high on his legs above the grass/reeds to give us the evil eye.

We took the road to White Cliffs, as we had never been to the opal town. The road was excellent, much better than the Broken Hill to Packsaddle road. 150 kilometres in 2.5 hours with a morning tea stop in a dry creek bed about midway. We set up camp in the Caravan Park ($5.50 per night), 240 volts, hot showers ($1.00 for 7.5 minutes), and yes even TV, what luxury!

Our troubles surfaced in White Cliffs. Firstly we discovered that we had lost our water from the campers tank. The stopcock on the tank’s drainage outlet must have got caught in the grass/reeds by Lake Cobham and moved to the open position. The sad part is that at Tibooburra we gave our spare drinking water to friends who were low on water and about to head across the Simpson. However, we obtained some tank water and all was well.

It was a hot still day at White cliffs and we went to bed about 10:00pm only to be awoken by the sound of some strong wind followed by a loud "bang". Outside there was a tremendous wind/dust storm raging and the Electrolux A250 awning was now over the roof of the camper despite it having been "securely" pegged to the ground. Examination showed that the aluminium legs were badly bent and the aluminium cover that housed the awning was twisted. The awnings fabric was torn along the edge of the roller approximately one-third the distance from the right hand edge, plus the lugs that secure the ends of the awning to the camper were broken.

After a second windstorm, attempts to straighten the various components and fold up the awning was totally unsuccessful so it was then decided to remove the awning from the camper. The next day further attempts to straighten the awning and reattach it to the camper were not successful so it was dumped at the White Cliffs tip as we started to do the touristy things around town.

Thoroughly recommend following the tourist trails around White Cliffs. The view from the hills, the lunar landscape of Potch Gully, and the Underground Motel are definitely a must see. We stopped off at a number of the "galleries", but of the ones that were open we thought "Outback Treasures" was about the best. Having met the local identity Ross Jones in the Caravan Park we went to his dugout home for an enjoyable couple of hours where he talked about White Cliffs history and showed us around his home ($3.00 per head). TV and magazines don’t do White Cliffs justice, you have to see it for yourself. Great place, but I don’t think we could live there even though some of the dugout homes are magnificent.

We moved on down to Hay, just about sealed road all the way. 470 kilometres in 6.5 hours with a morning tea stop at Wilcannia and lunch at Ivanhoe. This was about our third stopover at Hay but the first since "Shear Outback", the shearers "Hall of Fame", had opened. "Shear Outback" has only been open a few months and there is much work continuing on the grounds. The building, though eye catching, is nowhere near the same scale as its cousin up at Longreach. The exhibits although good in that they seem to cover everything, are small in number. The shearing demonstration was excellent, educational, and certainly gives an insight to the lifestyle and difficulties of that profession. At $15.00 a head it is debatable as to the value, but if you have done all the other tourist things in Hay, why not!

From Hay it was home to Melbourne, 420 kilometres in 7 hours, with stops at Deniliquin and at one of our favourite bakeries at Heathcote, Victoria. The stop at Deniliquin was compulsory as we noticed, after a brief stop to purchase some roadside mandarins, that the campers electric brake controller was not giving it usual green glow but red. It was also hot, starting to smell, plus the vehicles brake lights were continually on. Pumping the brakes etc did not ease the problem. The Deniliquin Nissan Dealer examined and disconnected the power to the brake controller, which immediately turned off the vehicles brake lights, so we continued homeward without any brakes on the camper.

Just south of the NSW-Victorian border at Echuca the greenness of the farm paddocks really hits home how hard western NSW is doing it in this time of drought. We city slickers take water for granted, not realising what is going on "out there", and what a precious commodity water really is.

18^th July – 2^nd August 2002.