The Kinchega Sojourn

Here we are, just after dawn in a rest area across the border into South Australia on the Barrier Highway.  It's sun-up and I'm sitting up in bed looking out across a wide expanse of plains with emus, kangaroos and the occasional patch of sheep, competing for the fresh pick after the rain that has been through lately.  Well, at least we saw all that activity yesterday after leaving one of the best camps we've experienced, Kinchega National Park on the Darling River, near the Menindee Lakes and then travelling back through Broken Hill for supplies and whatever.

Below is a view of our campsite on the Darling, at the junction with Menindee Creek running into it.

We stayed at Broken Hill for 4 days, waiting for the national park to re-open after some heavy rain the week before. The dirt roads in the park become impassable after heavy rain.

That's our camp.

And this is after another night of rain, the second night after we got there. You can see I've brought the X-Trail in closer to the van door awning and inserted a ridge-pole under the Darchie awning to give it some run-off.  I had the canvas floor down over what was dirt and became mud (I had to dig a small moat round it!)

We've dried out and got into the fishing and yabbies.  That's our campfire in the concrete fire-pit provided and M with the poetry pad.  You can see in the background a vehicle belonging to a local, named "Tex" - that's all he gave us by way of a name, but he gave us lots of good information about the fishing there.

And later in the night a taste of yabs cooked over the campfire:

That's our view down the Darling:

The work never lets up, though. That's me chopping the firewood

 and on the right working on the fishing gear (that river is full of snags!)

With that extra rain, it turned out that the park was closed again - with us penned in.  Not a problem, though.  We were happy fishing and enjoying the place, no-one around, just the birds, those old River Redgums and the Darling River flowing by. I did exert myself a bit and got out the paintbox.

When the roads became passable again, we visited the old historical woolshed further around in the park:

The photo of the old steam whatever-it-was is for John M.  Congratulations, John on the success of the train conference over Easter.

Back to the fishing - mainly M's exploits:

M's first yellow-belly, then, her third (that tackle box is 450mm wide)

"...which way to the river??"

M:   I'd hoped to get away from politics on our travels, but it creeps up on you.  On our drive along the Darling through Menindee I noticed all the derelict grape vines.  Most had their trunks sawn off.  There were still a few producing along the river but those away from the river were long gone and unproductive.  It finally dawned on me that these were the Menindee Seedless grapes that we rarely see in shops now.  Once they heralded summer and my family loved them. I'm not sure why we don't see them much now but a series of large white crosses along the road to Menindee Lakes lookout told a story.  On the crosses were the letters "R I P" with the MDBA Murray Darling Basin Authority being the cause. It seems the flora, fauna and grapes have suffered because of political decisions that gave water to the upper Darling leaving little left for the lower Darling producers.  The locals are very upset about their lake and water supply and the river now.  We thought the river was beautiful although the banks were very high.  In full capacity it must have been spectacular........Don't want to sadden the blog.  Our travelling is fantastic, but this is also the reality for other  Aussies trying to make a living in this area.

Just loved Kinchega Nat Park and the Darling and camping alongside it.  Was a dream come true for me - the old trees with lots of hollows for birds....the enormous Whistling Kite nest that we could see and the sound of the pair calling to each other as they swooped down over the river.Majestic and breath-taking!  Ron makes a great camp, so organised, neat and practical for our every need.  He didn't do so well in the fishing because he was mostly rerigging our lines.  There were lots of snags.  We will go again for a longer time next year.  Fantastic painting spot.  The light and colour were inspiring.

Finally the eight very special days came to an end and we had to press on.  The photo below shows our campsite up on the high river bank, overlooking this lovely spot.