24 June 2026 – 87 kms – Broken Hill to Hazel Vale Station
Wiljakali, Malyangapa, Wanyuparlku and Pantjikali Country
The road curves and climbs and weaves. It runs between the waves of ranges through the broad valleys of red sand and rocks. We make our way through the ramparts of the Barrier Range, so-called because they presented a barrier to explorer Charles Sturt’s progress on his way north to find a mythical inland sea in 1844. (There was an inland sea once, he was just about 810 million years too late).
We wind our way through the ranges for the first 23 kms. The Barrier Ranges are a triangular block of metamorphic and deformed sedimentary rocks forming a series of northeast and northwest trending ridges rising up to 300 metres above the surrounding plains. Faults up to 60 km long form prominent scarps between hill country and plains. Hard rocks outcrop as strike ridges standing above long shallow slopes, with thin soils developed on the softer rocks. These rock cut slopes pass to wide footslopes and alluvial plains. We’re riding around in the Broken Hill Complex Bioregion for the next few days after entering it on our way from Menindee.
The Barrier Highway is a main highway connecting Adelaide with Sydney. Consequently, there’s no early riding with no traffic. However, the early riding has LESS traffic, and I appreciate that. There’s no road shoulder most of the time after we get out of the Barrier Ranges and down on the plains – or there is a small shoulder, but it has been overtaken by vegetation that is now encroaching on the traffic lane itself.
I just can’t get myself in the right position relative to high or low pressure systems. It doesn’t matter which direction I want to ride, it seems I’m always riding into a headwind. We rode into that southwesterly on our way to Broken Hill. And now that we are heading east-northeast, the wind is a quartering headwind from the southeast. It keeps our speed down and makes us work harder for the kays.
I watch the vegetation slowly change from the blue bush and salt bush interspersed with red, sandy patches of open soil to a grassy and green cover. The change is slow but seems to occur somewhere around 50 kms out from Broken Hill.
Somewhere around 30 kms, I pick up a thorn. I don’t know this at the time, but it’s after that that I start to get that slow, sluggish feel to the ride. I stop, in the middle of the road, because I know not to get off the chipseal, and feel the tyre pressure. Yeah, that’s not what it was when I started the day, but the leak is slow. I continue on.
Back in the record flooding in March, this main road was closed for some time in these alluvial outwash plains. You can still see where the heavy machinery has left gouges in the chipseal when they scooped up all the mud and debris. You can also see freshly sealed sections where the road was lifted completely. Read more and see photos here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-06/barrier-highway-closed-wilcannia-floodwaters-ses-rescues-nsw/106423522 and here: https://www.centraldarling.nsw.gov.au/News-articles/Barrier-Highway-closed-between-Wilcannia-and-Broken-Hill/Road-flooding-photos-March-2026
The traffic picks up, but everyone is very good and I have no scary squeezes. Caravans outnumber commercial vehicles at least six to one. If this is a tourism drought, I’d hate to see a normal year.
I kinda like all those big vehicles giving me a suck along and breaking the headwind for awhile. The only ones that I’m not so keen on are the ones that are three trailers long. You start getting the suck somewhere in the second trailer… which not only cuts the wind but also pulls you toward that third trailer. It’s a little bit too much Bernoulli and not exactly for the faint-hearted. Double trailers = good. Triple trailers = a little scary.
On we go. Slowly into the wind with a very slowly deflating tyre. At one bridge over a dry creek, there is a large open area where I contemplate fixing the puncture. I can see where the thorn is – it’s still connected to a furry and rounded bit from the plant that looks like a single cell organism in a biology textbook. I decide not to – thinking I’ll just keep pumping the tyre up whenever we come across a driveway. I would rather fix that puncture at the sheep station where I’m staying tonight if at all possible. Besides, I might get another puncture, and maybe I could just do a 2-for-1 fix then and only have to remove the tyre once.
So on we go. The chipseal along the highway is a super-size diameter, so even without the puncture, the road would ride really slow. With the big chips, the headwind and the tyre, it makes for a slightly torturous day.
The Scopes Range comes into view and provides some topographic contrast in the distance as we ride, so that is nice at least. That range is composed of an Ordovician quartz sandstone and is faulted against a gravel Tertiary apron on its east side.
I pump up the tyre again at the turnoff to Langidoon-Metford conservation area – another couple old sheep stations added to the national parks estate. I crawl on to Little Topar – a former roadhouse that has a toilet and a couple picnic tables. You can camp here for free – but it’s all scraggly veg, sand and open areas next to the highway.
It’s just 4 kms on to Hazel Vale. The retired couple welcome campers on their sheep station with a few powered sites, unlimited unpowered sites, some covered picnic tables and a very large shed that houses the amenities (which are very clean and nice). The couple are away at the moment, but they have a work crew staying there for awhile, and I can just give my $20 to the crew leader. He’ll show me where I can get rainwater. Julie, the owner, has already given me the gate padlock number over the phone.
I get the gate unlocked and carefully ride the double track, trying not to pick up more thorns. I saw some loose ones while I was unlocking the gate. There is a graveyard of Datsuns out the front of the homestead, some old play equipment and then an open area that has some caravans clustered around two power poles. Those must be the workers. I look for a non-thorny area and then go fix the puncture on the rear tyre. It takes me 40 minutes to get that tyre off again!
The lead of the work crew shows up while I’m still fixing the tyre. He says a guy on a bike stayed about a week ago, but he was pulling a trailer and had no specific destination. He takes my money and then says that Julie left me a 2-litre bottle of water. He goes to get that for me.
The rest of the work crew has already headed home for their rostered days off. He’ll leave promptly at 6am tomorrow. They have spent three months out here erecting phone towers – they’ve got another two months to go. He is from Wangaratta – and he is quite happy that I know where that is – because most people don’t. He then excuses himself – he’s definitely trying to get out of there without being asked to help with the tyre or have to offer food or conversation, etc!
And of course, that is just fine with me. The steak he cooks on a little outdoor grill does smell good, though, haha! I don’t even bother with rice and lentils – just peanut butter on crackers with some fruit leather strips. By the time I get the tyre fixed, back on the bike and get cleaned up, it’s dark and I just couldn’t be bothered. It was a slog of a day!
I’m usually very punctual. One of the things I hate in life is when I arrive late to an event–even if it’s just a few minutes late. If I arrived 810 million years late, I’d probably conk myself on the head with a hammer and shout, “DOH!”
I’m very punctual also, I see it as a sign of respect. I think there was an inland sea that reached this area about 20 million years ago, also, but the older one sounded more dramatic. Regardless, his search was out by millions.