Author: E Sharp

7 July 2026 – 145 kms – Dareton to Annuello

Barkindji and Tati Tati Country

The mobile roadworks sign says River Road is closed and it is ‘local traffic only’. It says Detour via the highway. However, I think this needs further investigation. I really don’t want to do 20 kms over on the highway if it can be avoided. So last night, some internet research suggests it’s really only the last bit into Buronga that’s closed for reconstruction. I remember this was the case when I rode through a month ago. And I remember there was meant to be a bike path along that section, too. Are we willing to take a gamble this fine, dark morning?

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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.

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3-5 July 2026 – 0 kms – Pooncarie

Barkindji Country

The days go by. One after another. Slowly.

We bide our time. Waiting to see if the roads might reopen.

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2 July 2026 – 240 kms – Broken Hill to Pooncarie

Wiljakali and Barkindji Country

Oh man, I’m so, so sorry. There’s nothing I can do about it. If there was an alternative, I would do it.

But everyone is just going to get a wake-up call, via a slamming door, at 5.25am this morning.

Because that is when I get out the door, and slamming the door is the only way you can get it to latch. That’s what the housekeeper told me when I was having trouble with it the other day. And she was right. You have to slam the door when you leave.

Sorry!

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29 June – 1 July 2026 – 0 kms – Broken Hill

Wiljakali Country

Well, it turns out it’s SAM’s fault. When things go poorly or not as planned, there’s always got to be someone to blame. Or some thing. Humans need to make sense of things, to know why things happened. We need closure and understanding. And to do that, to make complex things simple, we need someone to blame – think migrants taking jobs or houses or doing other things the data does not support.

So I’m blaming SAM. SAM screwed with me in spring 2022, also.

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28 June 2026 – 70 kms – Roadside Camp to Broken Hill

Wiljakali Country

Are there degrees of silence? Or is it an absolute? Are there only degrees of quiet?

Regardless, I’ve enjoyed these hours with no human sounds, no smelly goats, no thump of kangaroos, no rooting around of wild pigs (I saw some dead ones by the road yesterday). The wildlife stayed away last night, or at least poked around quietly enough I never woke. No vehicles went by.

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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.

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27 June 2026 – 10 kms? – Byngnano Range Track, Mutawintji National Park

Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, Barkindji and Malyangapa Country

I walk up the sandy creek bed with the red sandstone creating rounded walls on each side. Trees grow from cracks, and flat surfaces on cliff walls and under overhangs reveal yet more aboriginal rock art. Water has pushed the sand into thick mounded hills in the creek bed and sculpted the rock where sand has not settled. The landscape is an oasis of water, vegetation and protected valleys that lie in the middle of the desert and its flat, open expanses. It is no wonder it has been sacred to the First Nations peoples for thousands of years.

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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.

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25 June 2026 – 80 kms – Hazel Vale Station to Mutawintji National Park

Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, and Malyangapa Country

The sun is shining. The wind is at my side instead of in my face. The road is empty and travels through country invigorated by rain. The bike is built for this sort of road and eats up all the terrain that can be thrown at it. I feel strong and capable and excited for the landscape to come. It’s one of those days where all the external variables line up positively and you can’t imagine being anywhere else but on the bike. These sorts of days are few and far between on this ride, so I enjoy it while it lasts and take none of it for granted.

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