27 June 2026 – 65 kms – Mutawintji National Park to Roadside Camp (65 kms)
Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, Barkindji and Malyangapa Country
We head back into the great wide open, leaving behind the reliable water sources and protected valleys of the ranges. We head out into the Bancannia Trough – a basin full of sediments that the NSW Government is opening up for gas exploration. (They’ve just reduced the exploration licence fee from $50,000 to $1,000 – even though this government campaigned on stopping gas development!).
The rocks we just walked through lie underneath this basin, they were just never uplifted over here. All the creeks from the national park dump their loads in this trough via terminal floodouts, shallow ephemeral lakes and clay pans.
The road rides fast in most places – a packed red clay or loam. I can tell the section that remained closed for so long – it is definitely cut up and still rides soft. However, I can just follow a tyre track and it still rides fast for me.
We get to the road junction where we would turn north to White Cliffs – the way we’d really like to go. That would give us lots more remote roads of which we’ve not had enough of on this trip. Could I make it a good distance today and then fight into the wind to get to White Cliffs tomorrow? The strength of the southeasterly makes it tempting, but the size of the rain event coming means I know I’d just get stuck there. And it’s not a place I’d really want to be stuck.
I turn south and into the wind, but turning away gives me that same feeling when you climb a mountain, get pretty close to the summit, but have to turn back due to weather. It’s unsatisfying, but you know it’s the right and safe thing to do. Sigh….
The wind slows us down in the southerly runs of the road, but pushes us along on the westerly runs. The road surface is mostly just fine and rides fast. There are only sections here and there that obviously get boggy or get water running over them, because they’ve dumped a whole bunch of the chunky white gravel on it, and those sections are loose and corrugated.
We scream along in the sun as clouds start to build. This is good stuff and I’m making excellent time. How I wish I’d had more roads like this on the tour!
Zooooom. The grassy stuff is good enough to support cattle. I haven’t seen any of them in a long time.
Eventually, we get back into blue bush country as we pedal and pedal. I love the big, wide open spaces. I get passed by two cattle trucks. The one advantage of all the rain is that none of the roads I ride are dusty. Normally, you would be covered in a cloud of truck dust for a bit, but there is so little dust that any they’ve kicked up settles in under a minute. Take the good with the bad.
I see two more vehicles going the other direction. And that’s it.
The clouds build and line of ridges appear in the north. We’re going to put down a lot more than 30 kms today.
I get back to bitumen just as the sun is getting low and I’m starting to look for somewhere to put the tent. There are some clear spots among the bushes and rocks where there is some level of chemical or mineral in the soil that doesn’t allow plants to grow.
I’m looking for one of those set back from the road a bit, when the perfect spot appears just after the first hill on the bitumen. There’s a track taking off toward a distant creek and beside that is a pile of roadworks materials by a row of trees. Perfect. I’m all for a hump of dirt between me and cars travelling over 110 kph.
I lay the bike down on the track. I carry the panniers over and find a spot that has the least spiky and tall plants and least number of ants. I go back and carry the bike over. I do not set the bike down on its tyres. I gently lay the bike down on its side to prevent picking up thorns. In doing this, I wrench my back and get a nice shooting pain down my leg. I likely just aggravated the herniated disc – so I get some ibuprofen down as soon as I’ve got the tent set up.
Ever since Swan Hill, I’ve been carrying around a $2.80 blue tarp that is just a bit longer than my bike. I bought it there when it was raining so I could put my bike on it the motel room. I’ve been using it for that purpose ever since. But I’ve also been using it as extra protection under the tent when I have to put the tent somewhere kinda spiky. I have a ground sheet, but sometimes I feel like I want a bit more than that and something that is a bit wider than the tent. Tonight our camp is directly on a bunch of plants, so I’m grateful to still have that inexpensive bit of gear picked up along the way.
I crawl in the tent as the sun hits the horizon. Two vehicles go past heading in the Broken Hill direction just after sunset. I know one of them is the couple I spoke to before leaving camp.
And then that is it. There is not a single vehicle again until 7am tomorrow.
Bliss. It gets quiet, so quiet the only sound is the wind pushing against the tent. I try to listen to see if I can tell if it is shifting from southeasterly to northeasterly by how it hits the tent. But I fall asleep before I make any determinations about that.
It is easily the best night of the trip – just some random spot on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere about halfway between Broken Hill and the national park. Silence trumps just about everything else in my world and I’m happy and grateful to get a silent night.