Day 6: A pub with no beer
While the campsite at Broken Hill was good for having warm water from a tap and the ability to have a shower it did not have much else going for it. Named 'Lakeside', I am assuming the dry scrubby area in front of the park is the lake. It should be more appropriately called 'Highway Side' due to the noise all night from the b-double trucks. While the park may have been a disappointment the magic sunrise again did not disappoint.
Today's trip was to head along the Barrier Highway and then take the dirt road from Yunta to my next camp. This highway is flat with more low scrub for as far as the eye can see. The road is generally dominated by travelling grey nomads in their caravans and trucks that travel between Adelaide and Sydney or further afield. There are only three small 'towns' on this stretch and most people speed by without stoping. But if you do manage to stop and venture down the side street you will discover an amazing series of ramshackle buildings made from corrugated tin sheets held together in a tapestry, ancient stone chimneys, all manner of rusty machinery and graveyards for steel drums and old tyres. These were often essential stops on the long journey west but with modern mother vehicles they are now a relic of the past. And we are all the worse off for it.
A quick top up of fuel at Yunta and it was of to a pub called Waukaringa. I also knew I was finally getting in to more remote country with the obligatory warning some that you are about to enter a remote country and that you will DIE unless you follow the long lost of instructions.
Despite the dire warnings from the sign, I made my way to the hotel. Unfortunately I am over a hundred years late as they stoped selling beer here in 1855 and all that remains is a series of stone ruins.
As I was now heading in to the more remote centre and the next major stop will be Alice, I met up with Chris and Jay (my Auntie and Uncle) for the next leg of my journey.
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