Today was a huge day of driving, but here we are in Broken Hill – the peak of our trip! Grateful to the Wilyakali people who have looked after this vast area in western NSW, and we pay our respects to them and their elders.
There were three fairly big driving stints today – 90 mins, then 2 hours, and finally 2.5 hours.
The first stop after leaving Hay was the Yanga Woolshed, which was about 5 minutes away from Balranald. We’d read about this as being somewhere interesting to stop at along the road between Hay and Broken Hill, and it really was great to visit. The woolshed sits on the former Yanga Station, which is now the Yanga National Park, after the NSW Government purchased the station in 2005. During its working days, it was apparently the biggest woolshed in the district. We were able to walk through the different buildings and read plenty about its history, and also the process that shearers would go through during shearing season – it was used for shearing right up until 2005. The Yanga Woolshed sits right on the Murrumbidgee River, which meant that (in the early 1900s in particular) the wool could be pushed straight out of the woolshed to a waiting paddle steamer which could deliver it to any number of locations up and down the Murrumbidgee, or even the Murray River (given the two rivers join only a short distance west). It was one of those things on our itinerary that we were a bit 50/50 on whether it would be any good – but it was a fantastic stop off, and such a great chance for the kids to get some more understanding about how things work in so many places outside the main cities and the east coast.
From Yanga, it was about two hours along the Sturt Hwy – starting to notice the landscape change from the very flat plains to seeing trees start to become more common alongside the road again. We stopped for lunch at Wentworth, which is town about 15 minutes to the north-west of Mildura. We chose Wentworth as a stopping point partly because it’s still mostly on the highway (which becomes the Silver City Hwy once you pass the Mildura turnoff), but also because it’s the point where the Murray River and the Darling River join. So we headed through town and down to the river bank where there’s a viewing tower to look at the two mighty rivers from a slightly elevated point.
After battling the chilly breeze beside the river making some lunch, we got back on the road for the longest haul of the day. It was a bit over 2.5 hours from Wentworth to Broken Hill as we stopped heading west and started heading north. There was basically nothing between the two towns – maybe the odd driveway and an abandoned roadhouse roughly halfway along, but pretty much nothing else. Even seeing any other vehicles was a rarity! We spotted plenty of wild goats and emus along the side of the road as we went, but thankfully that’s where they stayed rather than anywhere near our car.
Back when I was about 11 years old, our family took a trip around NSW for two weeks. One of my fond memories of that trip was visiting Broken Hill, and seeing the Living Desert Sculptures at sunset – so that was something I really wanted to do on this trip. After arriving into Broken Hill and quickly grabbing a few things from Woolies, we headed the short drive north to the Living Desert State Park where the sculptures are. Unfortunately it wasn’t the picture-perfect clear sky for sunset again tonight – but we still had a bit of clear sky right on the horizon which made for some spectacular viewing. It was also amazing to read about the story of those sculptures, and each artists own sculpture.
It’s great to be back in an Airbnb for a couple of nights – gives us the chance to catch up on some washing, and also have a simple meal here. Tomorrow brings some fun adventures around Broken Hill!
