The Road To Inverell - 28 June 2008

After having so much fun in Lightning Ridge, for me, it was hard to repack the Kia & head off to other destinations. Jude however was keen to move on, I guess being in dust all the time does wear you down after a while. Anyway, the decision was made for us, our accomodation had been booked out for the weekend, so out we must go!

We were heading over to Murwillumbah, so I decided to head down to Collarenebri then Moree & then work over to the coast. The road from the Ridge to Colly is around 100klm of dirt, but it is fairly good road & I thought the Kia would handle it ok, so off we went. The road was great until around 60klm out from Colly when we were stopped by, of all things, flood water!!! Haven't they heard there is a drought on! This caused a huge reassessment of our day, if we turned around & headed back to the Ridge, then used the black top around to Moree, we would nearly lose a whole day. I then remembered seeing a sign for Mungindi 10klms back along the track, so I said to Jude 'lets go for it!', the worst thing that can happen is we will end up back at the Ridge again. So off we went, 100klms of extra dirt along the black soil plains to Mungindi.

Finally got to Mungindi at lunchtime & after a short break near the river, where I got some wonderful shots, it was back into the car & over to Moree. If I had've used my brains, we should've went to Goondiwindi & across to Murwillumbah, oh well!

Also, here is an important outback driving tip, if you do intend to drive along deserted country roads, the most important thing is to have your camera ready to go at all times, you never know what photographic opportunities you'll see along the way. Oh, I suppose it would also be handy to have fuel, water & food ... but remember, have the camera ready first!

After Moree it was onto Inverell, which was our destination that day. Although we were back in 'civilisation' again, we still came across some amazing sights, like cattle being grazed along the the main road .... only in Australia! After we left Moree it was strange to see hills again, the first time since we left Dubbo, a sign that we were now heading back towards the coast!