26 June 2026 – 11 kms – Mutawintji National Park
Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, Barkindji and Malyangap Country
The site tour at Mutawintji National Park begins in a dark room at the former Visitor’s Centre where a multi-media presentation tells us the creation story of the area and its people. It explains how features in the sky and landscape came to be – it’s a story of drought and abundance, of temptation and punishment, of ranges and ridges, of plants and animals, of water and stars and fantastic beings and tracks and trails.
Following this, our small group of seven follow the ranger on a walk along two different ridges near the old visitor centre to see five different types of rock art, including stencilling, engraving and drawings. To get here, we all met at the current visitor information centre near the park entrance and hopped in our cars to follow the ranger out to the gated and locked site.
Of course, this means I had to ask some strangers for a ride again. I end up getting a lift from a couple from Carlingford in Sydney. They took the train from Sydney to Broken Hill and have hired a car for the week to see the sights. (The train runs each direction once a week – so you train out on a Monday and then train back the following Tuesday). They are wealthy and educated and we have a good conversation.
Pat likes geology, too, and wanted to be a mining engineer, but there were no jobs around for that in the 1970s, so he’s worked in IT for his career. He is a keen photographer, too. His wife (whose name I don’t remember – I only remember ‘Pat’ because it’s part of one my family member’s names) has enduring patience for this – she talks about how many times they had to stop on the way out the park this morning to photograph things (the 2WD road is now open to all vehicles).
It is very, very cold and damp this morning with thick fog. It was very chilly sitting at the visitor centre waiting for the tour to start. Pat now has all his layers on, and I have worn my rainpants over my hiking pants today to keep me a bit warmer. I know better than to get chilled since it takes my body eons to get warm again these days.
The ranger talks about the Blockade in 1983. Prior to this, tourists could drive to the old visitor centre that is now within the locked Historic Site. There was a camping area in a sacred men’s area. Some walking track routing, and people chiselling out engravings as souvenirs, were destroying rock art. There was a lack of traditional custodian recognition.
So around 200 local Aboriginal people formed a blockade at the now Historic Site entrance to demand control over their heritage and respect for their culture. Their demands included closing some sacred sites to the public, moving the campground out of the Nuttabulla area (this area was only ever used as a meeting place and ceremonial ground when conditions were good) to its present location, realigning walking tracks and requiring the public to only visit the area with an Aboriginal guide.
There was years of negotiation, but in 1998, the land was transferred back to the Traditional Custodians who lease it back to the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The park is run by a Board of Management having a majority of Original Aboriginal Owner families. This was the first park in the state to be handed back to Traditional Custodians. Read a bit more here: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/we-don-t-just-want-anybody-walking-in-huge-expansion-for-indigenous-lands-20190903-p52nb9.html
The ranger then takes us up to a series of overhangs that feature different types of rock art. He explains who would have created them and their significance. The Historic Site area was where initiations, rain-making and other ceremonies were held, attracting over 1,000 people from ten Aboriginal language groups from as far away as the Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
We then go across the valley to look at the stone library – an encylopedia of knowledge that tells the stories and sagas of the people that was used to pass on that knowledge to younger generations. There are more than 5,000 engravings on the slanted rock on the hillside.
Once the tour concludes, my new friends give me a ride back to the campground before they head off to do one of the walks that leaves from there (flooding has destroyed the access road to the picnic area). The fog has lifted to an overcast grey, so I hope it is more conducive for photos for Pat than the darker grey we had during the tour.
The tour was advertised as a 4-hour tour visiting two separate sites, but it ended up only being 2 hours visiting one site. The normal tour guide was sick or something, so another person from the park Board, who runs his own tour company for school groups etc, stepped in for a couple weeks to ensure the tours could run. So I’m grateful we got to do a tour at all, since they could have just cancelled them, but disappointed we seem to only have got half of what you’d normally get. However, this does mean we have a full afternoon to go do the Mutawintji Gorge walk that is about 5 kms down another gravel road.
I ride out there and leave the bike at the covered picnic shelter. The track crosses the wide, sandy, dry expanse of Mutawintji Creek and traverses across flat ground in the broad valley between ridges. The valley formed from erosion of soft sedimentary rocks of the Shell Hill Formation. The resistant ridge to the right is the Bengora Formation – it is younger than the Old Coach formation in the gorge.
The rain has spurred on the growth of native plants and weeds, and some of the plants are growing knee-high.
We follow the creek around a small ridge and then up through the outlet of the gorge. It’s an easy walk and easy to follow the track markers.
Once into the gorge, you just follow the creek upstream as the gorge walls narrow. It is all rock-hopping, sand-slogging and navigating around waterholes and slanted sandstone. I am extremely lucky and see an endangered yellow-footed rock wallaby bounding away and up and over the rock walls to safety. This is the only colony of them in NSW (sorry, no photo, I wasn’t quick enough).
It is so much fun to leap from rock to rock and pick the best line among the jumbled boulders and long expanses of water-carved rock. We skinny ourselves between big rocks, walk at a 45 degree angle across sandstone slabs and enjoy looking at the different textures of the sandstone which were laid down at different flow rates or directions.
I love looking at the river red gums here – the same species as back home, but so different in form. They are shorter and stockier here, adapted to the different climate and much lower rainfall. I’m so in my element this afternoon!
The track is an out-and-back, so we return the way we came as the sun finally starts to break through. There were some drips and drops earlier but nothing so heavy as to be a concern.
I return to the visitor centre to connect to the wifi. This morning, while waiting on the tour to start there, I looked up the weather forecast. And it is not good. There is now a lot more rain forecast and over several days. One day of 0-5mm has turned into 5-15mm and 4-20mm on Monday and Wednesday (it is Saturday today).
What I really wanted to do was ride to White Cliffs from here, then ride up to Waanaring via the Paroo River (it is an unregulated river so I thought it would be interesting to contrast its vegetation, etc given the natural flow regime) and across to Bourke and down to Gundabooka National Park. This would get me into a couple more bioregions.
However, that idea was quashed when that 0-5mm came into the forecast. That Paroo River Rd has been closed due to water over the road for much of the time I’ve been on tour and had just finally reopened. It will close again with any rain at all.
So my most recent plan was to ride the Waterbag Road back out to the Barrier Highway, stay at Hazel Vale again, then make a run for Wilcannia on the 130 kms of Barrier Highway. Then I’d suck it up and try to do big kms along the decimated Darling River and still hit Gundabooka.
But that’s not going to work either. The rain now comes Sunday night. I can’t do 210 kms on Sunday and won’t get to Wilcannia before the rain. I’m not excited about riding the Barrier Highway at all, but I really don’t want to ride it when it’s raining heavily. That just would not be safe given all the heavy vehicles. So I get stuck at the sheep station or ride in the rain and get stuck at Wilcannia (which is not a place you want to spend multiple days – it’s a bit like Menindee).
I finally decide I need to ride back to Broken Hill. Sigh…. I never needed to go there again. But, it has more accommodation options so I don’t have to wait out 3 days of shit weather in my tent on the side of the road or in a tiny town with crap water, and I’ll be able to get healthy food. I can then re-ride the bits of the Barrier Highway I’ve already done and then onto Wilcannia if they don’t get too much rain.
As I’m looking up everything, a guy on an adventure bike comes in. He’s from Broken Hill. His wife is a teacher at some tiny school north of here and he had gone to visit her and do some riding out to Tibooburra. We chat bikes and motorbikes and how we enjoy the same things on the road, just at different speeds. He confirms that everything north of here is quite wet. The record-setting rain in March has the soil moisture very, very high. It doesn’t take much rain at all at the moment to close the roads because it just keeps getting wet again with each rain. He’s come from the White Cliffs direction and says there’s lots of water to the side of the road, but it’s passable at the moment. He thinks it’d only take 1-2mm to close it all again. The road closures keep getting longer after each rain event.
Well, crap, what I really wanted to do is definitely out. It confirms I need to go back to Broken Hill and wait this next one out and then rejig our plans there based on how much rain actually falls. Ugh. This trip has been constant rejigging of plans and waiting out rain!
This guy, and Pat this morning, are really questioning whether it’s wise to ride all the way back into Broken Hill on Sunday. It’s 130 kms and they just don’t think the road is good enough for me to do 130 kms in one day with rain coming. I think I can do it, particularly because I should have a northeasterly tailwind on Sunday, but their concerns have me doubting myself. They’ve both been on the road to town and know its current condition, and I always take adventure bike rider opinions seriously, as they understand what it’s like to be on two wheels.
I book accommodation in Broken Hill for four nights to wait out the 3 days of shit weather coming. My budget for the trip is now officially blown to smithereens. My wifi needs finished, I go back to the campsite to cook dinner and contemplate whether I ride partway back to Broken Hill tomorrow afternoon or do it all in one push on Sunday. It is so disappointing – I’ll end up with such a short visit here. I wish I could have stayed so much longer since I’ve got plenty of food and the water is divine.
