Monday, we woke to wonder where our sun had gone. It was still warm but quite overcast and cloudy. But, as was ‘de rigueur’ of our days, we were up, fed, showered, car packed and on the road by 8.30 am (a bit of a sleep-in today). Today, we travelled from Broken Hill to Menindee and had a van booked at the Menindee Lakes Caravan Park. Menindee is 112kms from Broken Hill so that it would be an easy run. We filled the tank before we headed out (driveway service, too! I haven’t seen that since 1920!)

Road Kill abounds

The road from Broken Hill to Menindee was excellent, with a single lane each way and little traffic. What little we did see was kept to 110 km; there was not a slow caravan in sight. We were seeing so much Road Kill that we started counting it. If you’re planning a trip from Broken Hill to Menindee – it is a 16 RK (RoadKill) trip 🙂

We saw lots of dead roos. Seriously, it’s not a busy road. Can’t they wait 2 mins till the car passes. or look left? I came around one corner and across a dead wild mama big and piglet, two roo’s and a lizard – talk about dead man bend. I hope it wasn’t just one car that collected them! Loads of floodplain signs along the road and depth markers for the water, but nary a drop of water is in sight. And passed quite a few dry creek beds.

Menindee

We arrived around 10 am and called in at the general store for bread… “that’s delivered at 11 am. Do you want me to save you a loaf?” umm ok, then over to the supermarket. “do you have any fresh meat”? “no, that’s delivered tomorrow” Sheesh, save me from tiny towns! We found our caravan park with directions from the general store with no bread. We unpacked and looked around. 5mins that was done. So we made lunch with the last of our bread and sliced meat. We decided to check out the Kichega National Park.

Kichenga National Park

I had heard lots of good things about Kichega. However, It is definitely a 4WD place only. Dirt roads are everywhere, even though they said it’s 2WD, and they are BAD dirt roads. I thought we were going to shake the car apart. We did stop off at the Kichega Woolshed, which was great, except for the very friendly swarming flies. That drove us back to the car pretty quickly and smartly. I would have hated it out there in the 1800s

Kichega Woolshed

Remarkable for its size and design, the Kichega woolshed was constructed in 1875. It illustrates the vast scope of pastoral holdings in the arid areas of inland Australia. Kinchega lies amongst the beautiful Menindee Lakes, fed by the Darling River amid forests of river red gum, coolabah and black box trees.

I had been driving that morning – letting my sister take it easy as she still wasn’t 100%. But she took over as we left as she wanted to get out of there and felt I needed a break while we drove around in circles for a while (no signs) along shuddering, bone-jarring dirt roads. We had visions of our whitened bones being found years from now. Eventually, we found the exit and returned to the general store to claim our bread. Last loaf, lucky she saved it, and bless her, she also had roast chickens to take care of dinner. We returned to the cabin and chilled out reading for a while, which turned into nana naps for all of us.  

Sunset on the lake

Towards sundown, with more directions on the best spot to photograph the lakes, we headed up the road. “go up the bitumen, cross over the channel, and turn left at the first dirt road. There’s no sign. Drive to the end. You can’t miss it. Sure. They don’t know us! We missed it, turned left at the dirt road after the creek (thinking that was the channel) and took the first dirt road to the end. Parked the car, walked across the railway line and to the water… fab spot! I could see where we were meant to be, but this one was good!

The light was amazing. Almost naturally monochromatic. It had been such a dusty day that the sky was full of dust, creating total haze across the sun. On the side of the channel we were on, the other side was a weir with water spilling through the channel into the lakes. Lined up at the weir was a back row of pelicans. And a front row of Seagulls, all waiting for the channel to spit out dinner. A little silvery fish would come through and down the spillway every few minutes, and they would dive on it. It went on for ages and was hilarious to watch 🙂 Gradually, the light changed as it got darker, and bearing in mind all the roadkill we had seen thus far, we packed up and headed back to the cabin before it got totally dark.

The cabin beds were comfy, and the shower was ‘ok’ (rain tank, no water pressure), but we were fed, showered and comfy, and in bed again, lights out by 9.30. tomorrow was back to Mildura.