Well, I never thought I’d think of Cunnamulla as a big town but after some of the places we’ve visited, it was a surprise. Two supermarkets! Well, not very well stocked and quite small… Cunnamulla allowed us to catch up on some housekeeping before heading off to Charlotte Plains. Charlotte Plains is a station about 60K east of Cunnamulla and renowned for its artesian baths. We booked the private bathing experience which was a shed about 10K from the campground with two baths overlooking the plains. It was very nice but the open baths closer to the campground were warmer (and free).

I was planning on doing some more astrophotography but my tracker wasn’t working in the slightly cooler temperatures. After some investigation, it looks like they can’t be used with rechargeable batteries which have a slightly lower voltage. 

From Charlotte Plains we had a quick stop back in Cunnamulla to top up with fuel and bread before heading off to Bourke.

We were amazed as we got closer to Bourke at the number of feral goats. They were everywhere!

We stayed at Kidmans Camp just outside of Bourke. We have stayed here before and met some lovely people from just up the road in Wollongong. We swapped contact details and will catch up later in the year.

Bourke itself was a bit depressing. Many of the shops that had been open the last time we were there are closed. Seems to be fairly common in a lot of outback towns. They all appear to be slowly dying, which is sad.

We had a drive out to Gundabooka National Park and walked to the Yapa (Mulgowan) rock art site. One of the paintings there depicts the fish traps at Brewarrina which are about 100 km away.

Our next stop was Coonamble. We had planned on visiting the Macquarie Marshes but were a bit concerned with the road conditions – there had been some rain that way and there were reports of people getting bogged. The road between Walgett and Coonamble was terrible! One of the worst roads we’ve travelled on this trip.

From Coonamble, we headed into the Warrumbungle NP. We’ve been there twice before but still love the place! Spent one day visiting the Siding Springs observatory. Interesting that most of the observing is now done remotely. Travel restrictions during the Covid lockdowns stopped a lot of astronomers from visiting and now they find it easier to do.

Our big walk was to Spirey Tower lookout and then back via Goulds loop. Goulds loop took in two of the Tors and by the time we got back to the car, we knew we’d been on a big walk!

Our plan after leaving the Warrumbungles was to head for Gloucester and then start heading home but I noticed that there was some coolant leaking from the car’s water pump. So after a few calls to Isuzu, we are now in Scone waiting for it to be replaced. Oh, what fun!

Some more photos. Click on an image for full size.