Back to Bourke

 Back to Bourke by Bus

Out of bed at 5:40 am so I could be ready to catch the NSW Link bus to Nyngan via Cobar at 6:15 am. There were only 4 passengers on the bus that had commenced it's journey in Broken Hill. 3 hours down the road we stopped at Cobar where there was a break that allowed me to get some breakfast.

After the break it was a further 2 hours to Nyngan where I hopped off to await the bus coming from Dubbo.

There was a 4 hour gap between buses so I visited the library to use their free wifi and then visited the museum in the old railway station. The museum was mainly focused on the post colonial history of the down and had lots of nostaglic ephemera. It was a very enjoyable excursion.

Museum item 1

Museum item 2

Although there was a display of some local indigenous artifacts it demonstrated the huge imbalance in coverage when 60000 years for precolonial history is represented in 1 cabinet and the 200 years of European settler history fills 5 rooms. I appreciate it is difficult when there is no documented history prior to settlement but surely we could do better than that.

The bus to Bourke finally arrived around 4:20 pm - from there it was another 180 minutes until I reached Bourke. I had booked into a room at Sunshine Gardens Motel that was very nice although the hotel next door was very noisy. After checking in I showered and then went for dinner in the hotel.

The next morning I checked out and walked 8 km to Kidman's Camp in North Bourke to collect my car and drove back to Wilcannia. The caravan park office was still closed when I arrived so I had to wait 45 minutes before I could collect my car keys. I did the short walk to the spot where I launched the kayak 18 days ago and was surprised to see how far the water had dropped.

Launch point Day 17

Launch point Day 1

 

The drive back took 5 hours as I had to go via Cobar again as the unsealed roads that parallel the river were still closed.