Day 225 Wilcannia, NSW

 As testament to how much rain there has been in this area, the road between Broken Hill and Wilcannia is full of new potholes and it took some pretty smart driving on Philips part to avoid those gaping holes in the road. We think that there will probably be road damage right through to the Queensland Border and perhaps beyond.

We are now at the Warrawong Caravan Park at Wilcannia and I have to give this place a big shout out because it is up there with the best we have stayed in.  All the sites are lushly grassed with heaps of room between sites.  Our site backs on to a billabong that is very full at the moment.  The owners (originally from Karumba!) told us that they had another 100mm of rain just this week. Will this rain ever stop?  All the creeks we crossed today are full and even the smallest amount of rain will see roads, once again, being cut.

The distance between Broken Hill and Wilcannia is just over 200km and the country we pass through is mostly saltbush flats.  There are both goats and sheep grazing in the paddocks that stretch out over vast areas.  The country is very flat and covered in lush green grass from the recent rain.  

The highway is relatively busy, mostly trucks, but we were overtaken by this little old Hillman Hunter (yes we drive slow) and we laughed our heads off at the driver having to wear head phones to block out the engine noise. These cars date back to the 1960's......

Arriving into Wilcannia, population 745, we can see that it is a typical small outback town.  But looking deeper we find that the streets are lined with some beautiful old sandstone buildings - all dating back to the late 1800's.  We cross over the Darling River and it is apparent just how high the water is rising.  The peak is expected by the end of November.  There is a council run caravan park that sits high above the river normally, but it is completely submerged.  All we can see, across the river, are the tops of the power poles

Once we park the van and have a salad sandwich for lunch we drive back into Wilcannia.  We are about 4km from the town.  We leave the car parked and we go for a walk around the town streets to have a closer look at these wonderful old buildings.  The sandstone from this area is well renowned and indeed the sculptures at Broken Hill were carved from Willcania sandstone .  We walked down the short path along the waters edge and were in awe at the height of the river that is yet to peak.

Wilcannia, in the mid 1800's, was a thriving port that supported the Paddle Steamers that made there way along the Darling River carrying bales of wool.  In fact it was the second biggest port along the Darling with only Echuca being bigger.  They called the Darling River the River of Gold.  Wool was worth a pound for a pound, so it was a very valuable and lucrative cargo for the Paddle Steamers.

Tomorrow we head to Cobar that is around 260km from Wilcannia.  We do expect the journey to be slow again with the pot-holed roads, but we will just take our time.  I haven't researched what there is to see and do in Cobar as yet.  That will be tonights reading.