Allthegobro

As planned we left our Sculptures in the Scrub campsite early the next morning. Although still cloudy and sunny at times cloud was starting to build and one sensed rain was inevitable. You could get stuck here for a while if it turned out to be heavy.

A small coaster bus had set off before us and up along the road we came across the nomads stuck in some deep loose sand. They had slid into it going around a steep curve, half way up their rear wheels. We helped dig them out and clear sand away so they could escape on those plastic traction ramp thingos. Invaluable escape tool!

We eventually made it out to the Newell Highway. There was one remaining spot in the Pilliga that is well worth looking at on the way to Narrabri. Just a short track off the Highway to the Sandstone Caves site and a 1.6 km loop walk.

The walk takes one around a large outcrop of sandstone. Pilliga sandstone is very soft and the cliff face of the outcrop has been eroded and hollowed out by water and wind creating a series of caves and overhangs looking out over the Pilliga Forest.

The area is a place of great cultural significance for the indigenous peoples, going back thousands of years. The caves would have provided extensive areas of shelter. There are several boulders showing grinding marks and also etchings of emu and kangaroo feet.

Back into the truck we headed for Narrabri for the night. Made it and set up just before the rains started. Had fish n chips for dinner at the nearby RSL. Their dining area is set up as an outback bar and grill, a rustic set up harking back to the 1800s with a back drop of a big mural of the town. Very different set up to the usual RSL dining areas! Can recommend it, fish n chips not bad either.

Morning came along with the rain and we headed for home. Rained all the way from Narrabri through Moree and Goondiwindi. Called it a day at the small village of Yelarbon, 300km from Brisbane, and set up for the night in their community campground. Yelarbon is noted for its silo mural.

We are now home in Brisbane, an uneventful and largely rain free drive from Yelarbon. Plenty of water around, rivers and creeks flowing strongly.

We awoke to a nice clear sunny sky and Allthego felt the urgent need to head off on a walk. After breakfast of course!
As my readers will know this blog is a bit disjointed because it is generally written a few days after the events it describes. This is a necessity here in the Pilliga because there is no internet, it is social media ‘non existant’, as some might say. Sometimes, Allthego also gets the tenses wrong pretending to be still somewhere when we are 100km further on.

The point of this ramble is that we were aware that the weather might close in today with the threat of rain the next day. Rain in the Pilliga is not a great option if wanting to get out in a vehicle towing a van. So we have decided to cut short our stop and hopefully beat the rain out the next day.

So we need to do the Sculptures in the Scrub walk sooner than later, 3.6km loop return. The walk is in two parts, the first takes us along the ridge line looking down into Dandry Gorge and the second is a stroll through the gorge beside the creek before ascending back to where we started.

We did not find it a difficult walk. Along the ridge line section there are a number of sculpture installations connecting indigenous people with their ancestors.
First Lesson , a father with child on his shoulders is looking out over the gorge ‘showing him the world’. It is particularly evocative. A bit later, in the walk through the gorge we look up at this statue on the ridge line. Quite impressive.

There are five installations all up connecting us with the indigenous past, and present for that matter.

Two axe heads provide a contrast between the present and the past. The traditional stone axe head, at right in the photo above, stands beside a ‘modern’ late 19th century axe head. One links the past with the present, illustrating the indigenous experience with the traditional axe and the subsequent experience with the European axe as woodcutters.

There are other installations, the ever present Rainbow Serpent among them weaving its creative powers over the environment.

There are also 5 mosaic tiled figures, illustrating the indigenous connection with flora and fauna. Perhaps, showing the stages of life of a plant rising from the earth, opening like a flower and dying off. The wildflowers make an impressive garden for the statue.

The walk slowly descends into the Dandry Gorge, and then follows the creek for a while. Very cool environment down in the gorge. After a while the track disappears into the creek. Homealone and Allthego need to remove shoes and wade through the creek, not as cold as we thought it might be!

On the other side of the creek the track heads slowly up hill to the campground, more wildflowers and an echidna rooting around under a plant for something tasty.

Back at camp we have the afternoon in the dappled sunlight and a pizza for dinner beside the fire. Not an easy decision to move out in the morning and head for Narrabri!

We have made it into more or less the centre of the southern section of the Scrub, as the locals call it. The Pilliga is the largest forest in NSW west of the Great Dividing Range, 500,000ha. More than half of it is NP or conservation zones. It is a great place for birds of all types and wildflowers in Spring. Most of the rest is managed by Forestry NSW for selective timber production. Coal seam gas and fracking is a controversial issue among the locals and drop in greenies from the big smokes.

We have based ourselves at a place called Sculptures in the Scrub, but more of that later. No plug in power or water here so we are relying on renewables, the sun does look like shining for us.
The campsite is about 20km into the Forest off the Newell Hwy, in the east, and a similar distance in from Baradine, a small town on the western edge of the Forest. Baradine had its hey day in the timber cutting days of the late 19th century first half of the twentieth. The Forest was a big producer of sleepers for the railways.

There are tracks all through the Forest and we chose one that takes us to the fire lookout tower, about 20 km to the north, a good gravel road but cut up a bit by the recent rains. A few creek beds with dribbles of water to go across along the way. Wildflowers out in profusion.

Homealone lingered in the car while Allthego made the climb aloft.

The view from the top of the tower is particularly spectacular, the Forest stretching away in all directions. The Warrumbungles could be seen on the horizon.
We made our way back to the campsite for dinner and bed.

After leaving the Bungles we headed to Coonabarabran for a couple of nights to recover from the walking and before more walking in the remote Pilliga Forest.

We had booked an evening at one of the small private observatories, a short distance out of town. We were blessed with a clear cloudless night. Very cold though. Coonabarabran is a ‘night sky park’ and has all sorts of rules to stop light pollution. You can’t have sky lights in your house because of light escape. Anyway the stars were sparkling but the show was a bit disappointing, only two scopes and 24 people including a couple of screaming kids. We saw 6 objects (in an hour and a half) up there including some nebula, Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter is very close now and it’s bands could be seen clearly, Saturn’s rings also clear. Good experience.

Back in town the Information Centre is a must see. They have the bones, including the skull, of a local Diprotodon. Very impressive display and information boards. Homealone has a stuffed Diprotodon back home, we got it out at Eromanga in western Queensland. Hers is much smaller than this Coonabarabran one and is only a bit bigger than a rabbit, we use it as a doorstop.

Obviously, different species.
It is now off for three nights to the Pilliga Forest or scrub as the locals call it.

We are half way through our stop in the Bungles. It is time for a day of rest, Allthego is feeling a tad stiff after the Breadknife walk. So it is into the car for a drive around the sights. Weather remains ok, cloudy and sunny no rain.

First port of call was the Siding Springs Observatory. The facility seemed deserted, we only saw one other couple having a look around. Big telescope here that looks out into space and all the stars. Good views too over the Bungles.

The visitors centre is rarely open but there is a small exhibition area on the 4th level of the dome where you can look in at the big telescope. There are other displays of distant star stuff that only Captain Kirk and his mob will have actually seen before the Star Wars people destroyed it all. A TV screen plays a short video of scenes of the night sky. Quite impressive.

Back in the Park we had a look at a couple of the other camping grounds below the impressive Split Rock, an old volcanic vent through which very sticky lava flowed and piled up to form a small mountain.

Some fellow campers joined us by the fire that evening after dinner to tell stories of vanning adventures. These tall tales and true were helped along by a couple of glasses of red, there was no doubt embellishment of achievements by some. It went on past 10 pm and Allthego used more wood and red than he would have liked. But it was an enjoyable chat, vanners always like a chat!

The new day brought more nice weather and Allthego had loosened up enough to tackle the Fans Horizon walk (named after an earlier pioneer who liked the lookout at the top).

Now this is a relatively short walk, only 3.6 km return, but it is all uphill. The sign says ‘over a thousands steps’, now Allthego hoped this meant 500 steps up and the same 500 back down. But no, it soon became apparent that it was 1000 up and then 1000 down. A thousand steps in 1.8 km is a fair gradient and the heart certainly got beating on the way up.

As with the High Tops walk the effort was rewarded with a great view of a different Bungles vista. The wildflowers were also out in all their splendour.

Back at camp Homealone was contending with a mini cyclone riping through the campground. It knocked our van awning down, no damage thankfully. Nearby campers had their standalone shade tent blown over and top taken out, their general site set up was a little worse for the wind as well. They had gone out for the day and returned after dark to have to deal with the mess. Seemed to cope ok.

There was to be no fire on our last evening, preserving some wood and red for another time. We took precautions to pack up outside as heavy rain was predicted for the morning and we wanted to make a dry get away. We had light on and off showers through the night, around 6am it started to bucket down for about an hour.
Allthego watched these two guys put on their morning Punch and Judy show after we had waited out the rain. A video,hope it works.

Next stop is Coonabarabran for a couple of nights.

We are now at the Warrumbungles National Park for four nights. The weather is clearing up for us and is promising three days of no rain, but cloudy skies with sunshine from time to time.

Leaving Coonamble we had to back track a little, on sealed roads, through Baradine, then Coonabarabran and finally the Bungles. We still had water over the road on this route, nothing dramatic, half wheel height at most and not flowing. Our original route was to take us to the Bungles on some gravel. However, the wet weather has closed all the gravel roads in the shire.
The National Park has also been closed, but opened in time for our arrival. It seems the water over the small causeway into the park had to drop before opening up. Timing is everything it seems.

Had some snags on the BBQ for dinner, watched on by a cunning Currawong.

We have not been to the Bungles before, apart from driving through them a year or so after the big fire of 2013. The park has recovered significantly since then. Many species have made a come back and indeed some new ones, previously not identified, have appeared. Unlike the fire, this sort of news doesn’t make the 6 O’clock news.

Allthego has a bucket list objective in the Bungles and that is to complete the Grand High Tops walk. Unfortunately, the complete circuit of 14.5 km is closed for maintenance of part of the track.

The 6km section that takes one to ‘the top’ with views of the Breadknife and other features is open, just have to go back the same way. It took Allthego just on 7 hours, Homealone remained at home.

Allthego returned somewhat stiff and foot sore, but some amazing scenery compensated. Wildflowers were out in abundance, particularly the wattle. Unfortunately, there are some goats in the park that are difficult to eliminate.

The cloudy day made photos a bit moody, sun and blue sky can make things a bit chocolate boxy. Unable to use a drone here as well without permission and then only in one place, a little disappointing for drone people. Apparently, a reason is that eagles attack them and quite a number have been lost as a consequence. National Park bureaucracy perhaps another, drones probably frighten wildlife , except eagles of course.

The track follows a creek for a couple of kilometres before starting to rise, there is a long section of brick pavers making the onwards and ever upwards easier. Then the steel steps start. Ten or twelve flights of them, upwards of twenty steps a flight, Allthego lost count. Seemingly, near the top there are more steps but only 600 metres to go. In parts this was a bit of a scramble, but the top was eventually reached.

Like being on top of the world, gazing out over the remnants of the great old shield volcano that was active 13-18 million years ago. Awe inspiring!

The walk back down was a little easier on the heart rate, more pressure on the knees though! The sun came out with some patches of blue sky, gave a different perspective to the vegetation and landforms.

Upon return to camp it was straight into a hot shower to sooth the muscles and sore feet. An earlier than usual night too!