Day 9, 18/5/2016, Wednesday, Billabourie to Cobar, Overcast

It is a frosty morning, but we have power and thus heating and lattes. Yeah, I know, it’s a tough life.

The farmer Lindsay drops by and apologises for not greeting us earlier, but he spent yesterday in Griffith hospital.

We press onward up the long straight Kidman Way, by God this is a good road. We are kept alert by kangaroos, emus (of which a flock try their best to do VeeWee in), goats and adventurous sheep, those ones that prefer the grass on the outside of the fence.

We stop to stretch our legs at Gilgunnia Rest Area and read the history boards. This was once a gold mining town of 1000 people and now it is little more than a piece of gold mining equipment and a dunny in a concrete tank. An old ute with a fuel tank on the back pulls up and we wonder what he is doing then a little red postie bike arrives and fills up followed by another and another. It turns out that they are 30 in total and on a 3000 km ride to raise money for cystic fibrosis.

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15kms shy of Cobar the air smells of goat. Why isn’t the goat meat industry larger?

Cobar is surrounded by mullock heaps and poppet heads. The town is bright and friendly and the men wear mining fluoro. The footpaths are wide and paved with pink polished stone. We drive to the top of the Fort Bourke Lookout and look down into the New Cobar Gold Mine, layers and layers of pink stone and the quartz gold seam plainly visible.

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We camp the night on the other side of town at the Newey Reservoir Reserve. There is a large sealed parking bay overlooking the reservoir. It is reedy, moody and filled with the chatter of a million birds. This is a wondrous free camp. Walking around the lake shore and on the lawns is a treat and campers sit watching the sky turn pink over the lake at sundown.

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2021 Note: The Newey Reservoir free camp has been closed. On our next visit we were permitted to overnight beside the skate park in town it was convenient but didn’t quite have the same ambience.

Towing Kms: 229Kms