6 July 2026 – 120 kms – Pooncarie to Dareton
Barkindji Country
The wind swings heavily in a our favour. It was not meant to be, but it is. We are travelling south and west. The wind was meant to be out of the south and east. But that is an east northeasterly if I ever felt one. It is giving us a very good shove on the easterly runs allowing us to clock 30kph with little effort. We’re going for a ride today.
I got up again in the deep dark hours of early morning. I took down the wet and muddy tent. I packed everything up. I carried the bike to the toilet block 100 metres away. I carried all of the gear after that. So I walked 400 metres to start the day. Then, after packing up the bike, I walked it the 1 km back to the main road. I don’t know where I got the thorn going into the campground the other day, so I was taking no chances!
And now we are sailing along. The southerly runs aren’t quite as quick as the easterly runs where I feel almost guilty for how fast and easy we proceed. The southerly runs don’t have quite as much tailwind and you have the climbs to slow you a bit as go up and over the prevailing east-west sand dunes. But hey, I like those dunes. They provide interest in the landscape and I’d so much rather be in them than down in the boring floodplain.
The sky is deep blue and there are a variety of cirrus clouds wisping their way across the sky today. They say fine weather is coming and that it’s very cold up there. No rain, sun and a tailwind. We have finally hit some sort of trifecta.
This road is new to me. We went to Pooncarie northbound via Lake Mungo, so at least all the nothingness is new nothingness. If the roads weren’t gluggy, we would skip Dareton and go straight to Buronga via the dirt Wemberra Road. But it is still closed. It looks soooo inviting when we pass by the turn-off….
Somewhere around 90 kms into the day, on a long straight stretch where I’m trundling along quite nicely, I see a cyclist up ahead. I can see him for a long way before I get to him. I roll over to his side of the road and say, “Oh man, you’re doing it tough into the wind.”
He replies, “Yeah, I thought it was going to be a southeasterly and I didn’t realise how much ‘east’ there was going to be in the road.”
He’s riding with a friend from Adelaide to Brisbane. They’re scooting up the river to Bourke. He’s really worried about the road closures. They’re trying to do 100 km a day and reach Brisbane in 5-6 weeks total. However, his friend is struggling with Achilles pain. We chat for a good 10-15 minutes, and the friend still doesn’t turn up.
I give him all the info I know about what’s ahead (Pooncarie pub is great – Menindee pub sucks, etc). I tell him that I’ve found that when the roads are listed as “4WD only” that I’ve had no trouble finding a good line, so those should be okay for him, too. He got a whole bunch of mud stuck in the bike near Lake Victoria and had to carry the bike a long distance, so he’s regretting his skinny tyre choice and lack of clearance.
I think he’s going to be able to get to Wilcannia via one side or other of the river from Menindee, as I think it will be firm enough by the time they get there. But the roads out of Wilcannia were still closed from the last lot of rain before this most recent, heavier lot of rain, so I don’t know about that bit. (Based on how long those roads stayed closed after I return from my trip, I am pretty certain they would have had to re-route – hope they made it to Brisbane!).
His friend is at least 35 minutes behind him. When I pass by, we both wave with full arms. Gosh, they’ve got 90 kms to do into a strong headwind, and it’s already 11.30am. If they make Pooncarie today, it’s going to be in the dark tonight. They started in Wentworth today. They are the only touring cyclists I meet on the whole ride, but of course, they are doing that Aussie ‘follow the river’ thing, so you’d expect to see more along here, I think.
I roll into the irrigated area and see bright oranges set amongst the dark green leaves of the trees. I also start getting passed by b-double ag trucks. It seems so odd to be riding through saltbush and blue bush and arid country plants and then all of sudden start seeing orange trees. I will say, the mandarins this year are phenomenal, and I’m eating a couple a day. However, I’m definitely willing to give up those sweet little sugar bombs if we can give more water to the rivers, reduce the amount of irrigated crops, and give the rivers and their ecosystems a fighting chance going forward.
We turn off of the road to Wentworth to go over to Dareton. There is less traffic on this cut through then I thought there would be, but I do get to ride right into that strong headwind now. What a contrast! Fly along at 30 kph with little effort vs crawl along at 12kph with heaps of effort!
The powerlines parallel the road, so I look ahead to see when the road will turn to the south and the hard effort can stop.
After we turn back south, we ride up and over a short steep dune to see Fletchers Lake.
This lake had not filled since the 1970s because of river regulation taking away its flow from the Murray River. However, the river managers needed somewhere to put a bunch of water in the 2022 floods, so they cut the road and regulator and allowed the flood water to fill the lake. After this, there was a push to maintain the revitalised ecosystem and there is now environmental water purchased to keep flows to this lake. You can hear a Barkindji man tell a bit about this story and why the water is important below.
We ride along with the lake below us for awhile before we drop down to the creek and then up into the Comealla Irrigation Area. It’s primarily known for dried fruits and wine grapes. It was first developed in the mid-to-late 1920s after a committee recommended the area for irrigation development. The town of Dareton is named for Water Conservation and Irrigation Commissioner Henry Harvey Dare, a staunch proponent of the proposal. However, it was the influx of soldier-settlers following World War Two, under the auspices of the War Services Land Settlement Scheme, that saw rapid growth and development in the area.
The town of Dareton is a rough place – the First Nations peoples in town have not shared in its riches. All of the shop fronts have bars on the windows and there are lots of community service sorts of organisations (e.g. health centre, youth centre, etc) that take up the main street. When I visit the women’s toilet to let that Pooncarie water do its daily total clean-out of my system, I am not sure if the people in the disabled toilet next door are having sex or doing drugs or both. You would not want to have had a young child in there and had to explain what those happy grunts and sighs were next door!
I sit in the sun at the park and cook up some lunch. I then look at some maps to figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow. Our headwind will be back – a 15-20kph southeasterly.
And so, we bid goodbye today to the sad and sick Darling (Barka) River, may you get the water you so desperately need:
In the afternoon, I go over and check in at the motel. There is also a caravan park here, but there are no sites available because there is a golf tournament on and they are full-up. They have two rooms left. And oh my goodness, it is absolutely the best bed, pillows, soft sheets and blanket and doona combo I may have ever experienced. It is like laying on a cloud. I cannot describe how beautiful all of that feels – particularly after four nights on cold, wet mud! Worth every bit of the further blowing of the trip budget.
