Milparinka & Tibooburra – Great Places To Explore

Spent the first half of the day out at Milparinka about 50ks from Tibooburra. Milparinka is basically a ghost town with a couple of buildings still standing and a pub.

Went across the road to the general store and got a few supplies. Bought a spare Anderson Plug as I fitted my spare this morning and would have had no backup otherwise. There must be a better connector available that never comes apart?

Spent the first half of the day out at Milparinka about 50ks from Tibooburra. Cool old place, it’s basically a ghost town with a couple of buildings still standing and a pub. While out there we visited Sturt’s Cairn, Depot Glen and Poole’s Grave. Sturts expedition got stuck at Depot Glen for six months while they waited for a drought to end. Poole was his second in command and died during this period and is buried there. Had a nice lunch and a couple of beers at the Milparinka Pub. On the way back to camp we ducked up a dry riverbed to collect some wood for a fire tonight.

Tibooburra Caravan Park Supreme Getaway

Went in to town and had a look around. Visited the Family Hotel and had a few beers. Amanda bought a litre bottle of Canadian Club from behind the bar. It wasn’t too badly priced to be honest. The Family Hotel is become famous as the outback pub with murals on the walls. During the 1960s Australian artists Clifton Pugh, Russell Drysdale and others spent several weeks painting in the outback. Using the Family Hotel as a base they added their own style of art to walls within the hotel. Over the years, other artists have contributed their works, making the walls a “living” art gallery.

Murals Inside The Family Hotel Tibooburra Clifton Pugh

We also went to the local park and had a look at a replica whaleboat that Sturt dragged all the way to Tibooburra from Adelaide on his quest to find the inland sea amongst other things. The bloke was convinced there was going to be an inland sea and he was going to get his mates to row the boat out on to it and have a look around. The thing is absolutely massive!

Pioneer Park Tibooburra Replica Sturt Whaleboat

We finished off the day with a nice camp fire. Was a great day today. Today was what I was hoping this trip would be all about.

Graciee Enjoying Fire At Tibooburra Caravan Park

Silver City Highway Menindee to Tibooburra

We left Menindee Lakes and headed to Tibooburra. We would have liked to stay another night or two at Menindee, we liked it a lot. Had to pull over before hitting the bitumen to put air in the tyres. First stop was in Broken Hill to get fuel then off along the Silver City Highway to Tibooburra.

The Silver City Highway

The Silver City Highway is a good bitumen road with a pretty desolate view of rocky plains and in some places sand hills all the way to Packsaddle Roadhouse. It took us a couple of hours or so to get to the Packsaddle Roadhouse and then the road changed to dirt. We pulled over to lower tyre pressures and a nice old bloke pulled over to check that we were ok and warned us off the upcoming road conditions. He mentioned corrugations and lots of bulldust holes and sandy stretches. Was nice of him to stop and give us an update. To be honest though the road wasn’t too bad. There were some stretches of absolute garbage but for the most it was ok.

There were also quite a few stretches that had been sealed fairly recently. I am guessing the sealed bits were where they were having troubles maintaining the dirt to a decent standard. Later on as we got closer to Tibooburra roos and emus by the side of the road kept us on the lookout, there was a LOT of roadkill lying about.

Packsaddle Roadhouse

Tibooburra Caravan Park

We checked in to the Tibooburra van park for a few nights. More of a bush camp than a proper van park but the showers were nice and clean and after roughing it in the outside shower tent with minimal water a nice hot shower was very welcome plus we needed to catch up on a few loads of washing. While unhooking the van I noticed that we had lost or Anderson plug from the van on the road. It had fallen out and been dragging. I had a spare so it was no big problem. We’d been having a few problems keeping the fridge cool so I had run the van with the fridge switched to DC and it must have cut over to the battery after the plug fell out so the battery was down to 12v. We spent the evening around the fire talking to some people from Newcastle.

Tibooburra Caravan Park Supreme Getaway

The Long Paddock – Carrathool to Menindee

An early start took us through Hay, refueling before heading north on the Cobb Highway, along the famous “long paddock.” We packed up early and headed off towards Hay. We stopped in at Hay for fuel then headed north on the Cobb Highway towards Ivanhoe.

The Long Paddock

The road north is part of the “long paddock” where drovers would walk their cattle in search of feed alongside the road or when on their way to market. Must have been bloody hard travelling in those days with all your food for the journey strapped to your horse inside saddle bags. Every so often there is a tank for watering of stock. We stopped in at the One Tree Hotel for a look around and also at the Jumping Sandhills. Everywhere you look while travelling this road you see reminders of our early pioneers, some of it from not that long ago.

One Tree Hotel On The Cobb Higway Long Paddock

Ivanhoe Menindee Road

After reaching Ivanhoe we stopped in to fuel up for the trip to Menindee. Ivanhoe is a quiet old bush town with a pub, caravan park and a few small general shops with fuel bowsers out front. Then after airing down the ute and van tyres we hit the Ivanhoe Menindee Road. Now that’s a rough old dirt road! Corrugations, washaways, bulldust holes and heaps of roos, emus and wandering stock. Was a hell of a fun ride. Amanda got out of the ute at one point to pluck a few feathers from a recently splattered emu, she’s wanted some emu feathers for a while now! At various points along the road we saw impromptu get togethers with what we assumed were farmers where they just stop on the side of the road and have a chat. Be cool to know what they were talking about. Probably laughing at the morons driving past down their road for “fun”.

The Ivanhoe Menindee Road

Anyway we eventually got to Menindee Lakes and set up camp at the Burke and Wills campsite at Lake Pamammaroo for the night. We were treated to an absolutely spectacular sunset over the lake.

Burke And wills Campsite Sunset At Menindee