20120407 NSW Wilcannia to Tottenham

07-04-2012  Leaving Broken Hill to our next destination Nyngan 573ks another very long trip with nothing but wide open space, I thought the Greenies recon were running out of land, bull shit. 

Spotted this group of Emus gathered at the fence, usually scatted here and there.

Des stopped for a photo along this deserlet terrain, so I set up my try pod and ran for the photo.

Every one we spoke to told us to drive straight through Wilcannia so we were more determined to stop and check it out plus it was lunch time. We parked up in a,not so nice park made lunch before our town walk.  The pub's windows were all welded shut, the parks were full of rubbish, and the only descent building was the Post Office, I'll give you one guess who lives in Wilcannia. 

 The General store and Wine Cellar was burnt down by the locals.

 The building on the end is or was a Butchers I'm not sure if it's not operational.

This is only part of what the parks look like.

The only nice building in town,
Post Office built in 1880, contains a courthouse, Police station and it’s attached residence, the Athenaeum Library from  1883 were all built of locally quarried sandstone.

Old Wilcannia Centre Left Bridge erected in 1884 is significant for it's association with the early period of development of Wilcannia.

This was the area of concern that was under floods the Darling River, now receded by the time we went through.  I was talking to a guy taken photos on the bridge who once live here, said he has never seen the water this high.

Below is what it usually looks like, I got the photo from the net in case you were wondering.

Drove into Cobar, yes another mining town but very neat and clean. Des won't ed to wash the van, I recon he's has the cleanest van on the road, he washes it at just about every stop.

 Erected 1910 this old building caught my eye

Not a bad size tinnie measures 5 m x   2.5 m and holds 79,398 middies erected  in June 1990.

The Old Town Hall Cinema housed many a town bands, be they brass, orchestral or bagpipe were an important feature of social life in industrial communities in the late 1880s.

A miners drilling tool, wouldn't that shack the shitter out of ya.

After the information centre we drove to this mine still operational.  This ones for you Hal, I'm sure this will bring back some great memories of going deep, deep down into the mines, stuff that.

Copper was discovered in 1869, extraction commenced and the first load of ore was dispatched in 1871. The mine has produced major amounts of Copper,Lead,Zinc, Silver and Gold.

Pissed off, they have wire around the viewing ramp, they could at least leave a small cut out for us photo maniacs.  This  massive hole created by years of underground mining, I would loved to have gone to the bottom and taken a photo looking up instrad of taken in through bloody wire.

We drove onto a lake and were going to stay the night only the whole town was there with there kids on motor bikes stirring up the red dust, and Des just washed his van, we ain't staying here.  I googled Nyngan on the Bogan river, that sounds nice Des, so Nyngan it was.  We drove around and around trying to find a camp on the river when we stopped and asked, the weir is good, got direction and off we went.  I reversed up a narrow dirt track and settled for the night, Des went to bed early while I sat up blogging as usual, then it all went to shit.  Down the lane there were the young ones playing there Beep Bo op music and Des couldn't sleep.  Around 1.30pm he has had enough, so we packed up and parked in a no camping zone once again, and as usual,next to a caravan park, stuff them.

08-04-2012  We took our time leaving, Des was trying to decide where to go when he found in the Wonders book a pub in Albert called The Rabbit Trap Hotel, sounds good to me.  Going through Tottenham we stopped to build up our food supplies and while Des shopped I roamed the town taken photos.

The little town of Tottenham, where the next day the town was to hold a race day and country folk from all around dress up for the big occasion.  It would have been great to stay but we drove onto Albert.

The first mining lease at Tottenham was granted to Harry Fishpool on October 1903.  His grandson Geoffrey Fishpool and great,great, great granddaughter Naomi Fishpool planted this tree to celebrate this centenary.  The man in this photo was in the park when I was wandering around and told me the story behind the plark.  As it turned out he was Geoffery Fishpool, so I asked for a photo which he was moor then willing to oblige.

A sign post pointing to most of the locations we have already been.