Cycling the Darling River

Sunday, December 13, 2009

I departed Pooncarie about 9:30am excited about reaching my destination, and enjoyed the sealed road. However, a mighty headwind was also straining my legs. I got hot and nauseous with about 40 kilometres to go, and after lying down for an hour under a shady tree, rose to find my rear tyre was flat. With no brand new tubes left, I checked the flat tube for a hole but could not find one or hear one in the obstinate, hurtling wind. I simply pumped up the tube and it stayed firm. I rode on for another 10 kilometres until the tube suddenly went flat again.

Sick and hot, I sat down on the side of the road and pulled out an old spare tube to inspect it. I thought this old tube had gone flat because of valve failure, so I darkly thought I would need a lift. Luckily, I found a tiny hole, only because it was right near the valve and was blowing on my face as I pumped up the tube! I patched this hole up and was away again at dusk.

I rode into Wentworth singing some of my favourite 80's songs of triumph such as 'Gold' by Spandau Ballet and 'Final Countdown'. I also thought about the cross-eyed gorillas in the bar of the Mulga Creek Hotel who muttered I was 'F'n Mad!' with pure contempt.

As I rolled into the caravan park in Wentworth, a feeling of final exhaustion quietly phased into a teeming elation and later a serene resolve, invincible against anything.

Bindara Station is a really peaceful place to camp, distant from civilisation and independent from the power grid through electricity generating windmills and solar panels. About 11,000 acres now, the station was once a million acres, the caretaker told me. I camped in the backyard of the old main farmhouse, surrounded by the bank of the river and the orchard and vegetable patch. Very nice place.

The road to Pooncarie was in a better condition, though rocky and sandy in parts. It is also slightly menacing as the road splinters without signs, so I had to choose the widest road with the slimmest angle. There is no Pooncarie sign until 28 km to go. The country, however, is very pretty with a fine pink sand covering the road sometimes.

In Pooncarie, I had a fantastic burger at a cafe near the river and camped on a table in an overnight camping area just north of the town.

The route along the Western side of the Darling River is spectacular but 60 kilometres more than the Eastern. The first part of the route is through Kinchega National Park where I took the longer 'River Drive' along which you can peer into the canyon of gray dirt while stomping the pedals through the silty road beneath some casual and spacious river gums.

After the River Drive I reached a former sheep station that lies on the edge of a dried lake, a now murky plain of gray shrubs and salt and pepper coloured sand. Drinking water and showers and accommodation were available at the old shearer's quarters near the lake and the old shearing shed.

After the old station, however, the road carries on through the South-western corner of the National Park that is desolate, sandy land with shrubbery only a foot high. I had trouble riding the sandy parts of the road, and the rocky parts hammered the bike.

Left Broken Hill on Monday evening for some riding after a day in the high thirties Centigrade. Rode about 20 km before camping at the site of a demolished building on the remaining flat concrete flooring.

Woke up after a great night sleep with no ants or mossies (the flies stopped after nightfall) to a strong tailwind, very unusual for this time of year. I had very easy riding for most of the day, until the last 15 km when a brutal galeforce headwind took over. This last 15 km took well over an hour. The flying dust from the windswept flat country was also abrading my face and eyes.

Trying to work out a new wave technique for the passing motorists, most of whom wave to me on my bike. The standard lift and shake from side to side is getting tedious. This happened last tour as well. I've thought about a Mork style 'Nanu nanu', splitting the fingers between the second and third fingers and opening and closing. My touring friend Maike also had a great idea of the Vulcan salute from Star Trek.

Menindee is a nice little town with a takeaway joint, a supermarket, and a rural transaction centre with inexpensive internet. Stayed on the Darling River at a run-down Caravan Park that was somehow charmingly simple and relaxing as if the neglect homogenized the Park with the surrounding nature. Perfect place, but nobody else was staying there.

Rode out 26km to Silverton Friday only to find the camping ground closed. This was great as I could camp outside the deserted park for free.

Toured the old buildings that feature in a lot of movies. The best was the Silverton gaol, a museum both with the friendliest staff and some amazing artefacts of daily life in the early 1900's. I noticed in the old photographs how well people dressed and I wondered how this great age of progress of ours has led us all to be wearing paper-thin rags that guarantee a skin cancer or two on your back.

Perhaps the impact of the gaol caused me to interpret the typically strange noises of the bush at night strangely. A ghost of a prisoner heaving his ball and chain in the darkness outside my tent was really just a stray dog dragging a broken chain along and having a sniff of my bags for food.

Cycling or walking sets the modern city of Broken Hill in a bamboozling contrast with the surrounding semi-arid wasteland. Instead of the Burb to Burb via tree-lined highway of the East coast, Broken Hill feeds from nowhere but its own mineralised soil. It is astounding. Everything is available in this busy oasis. Very friendly people. Love the place.

The houses are either stylish corrugated iron mining shacks that are aging into classic homes or nice art deco rendered smallish houses. Both make you ask what has gone so wrong with modern architecture.