Well last night was quiet, the reunion people left early evening. We were up early again for a sunrise, this is getting to be a bad habit, one I must break, after all I don’t do mornings, I have a reputation to up hold. We went back to the hotel but the troopy was still there so we did what we could. The lightening was excellent. We had hooked up the van the night before so we had an early departure from Silverton.
We headed into BH, looked around for water to fill the tanks, they keep their water under lock and key. We eventually found a park that had a tap but no handle; luckily we had the universal tap that our good friends had bought us, so we managed to get some. We then went up to the Line of Lode which is a miner’s memorial. Which was closed until 10am, which is 10.30 our time, there is a seat that was made especially for the giant miner, so we had fun sitting up in that swinging your legs made you feel like a little kid. I sat up there while Chris put the camera on a tripod on a timer, then he would run like mad jump onto some bricks that were there to help you get onto the seat and then jump onto the seat and sit next to me just in time for the camera to take the shot.
After we finished playing little kids we had a look around the outside before deciding we would go check out the Sculptures at the Living desert which is approx 10km out of BH. You can get a key from the Info centre to drive up to the sculptures otherwise it’s a 40min walk, also this gives you access when the main area is closed so you can get sunset and sunrises shots. Entry into the Living Desert is $10 so we thought we may as well get the key in a few days and camp out that way for the night, there are plenty of places to pull over and we saw a motor home doing just that.
We went back to the Line of Lode which still wasn’t open so we had morning tea before going in. We were the first ones in and headed straight to the memorial through the gift shop, we didn’t realise until we came out that they want you to pay for that as well $2.50 each. The memorial lists all the miners who have died since around 1885 up until present, not many present of course. It listed the year they died, name and what they died from.
BH would not be on the list of CMCA RV friendly towns. We then headed to Menindee which is 110km from BH. The road is on the verge of desert, again we saw some emus. We took what appears to be the main road into the free camping areas along the Darling River about 8kms out of Menindee, 12km of dirt road that had a few sections of severe corrugations that had the teeth chattering on their own.
We are camped on the Burke and Wills camp ground up on a bank overlooking the Darling River, very nice and finally some decent size gum trees. We have just checked the area out today.
We chatted to some local people from BH or the Hill as the locals call it. Found out that they are going to put a wind farm on the Mundi Mundi plains at Silverton, 500 windmills.Lake Pamamaroo is totally dry; apparently it had water in it 5 months ago. It is a big lake but is very shallow. Lake Wetherill has water in it and is the main storage for water for the Hill. You can take a sunset boat ride which we may do one day; the lake has lots of gnarly dead looking trees that would make great sunrise and sunset pics. Lake Pamamaroo also has the gnarly trees so we are going to get some sunset pics there tonight. Lake Menindee has been dried up for well over 15 years. There is another dirt road into Menindee that is 25kms but the road sounds much better. We will take a run into Menindee tomorrow and check the place out and see if it’s a better route out with the van.
