The long haul from Broken Hill To Byron Bay

This is my summary of the highly eventful, stressful, intense but in hindsight, kind of funny, 3 days of traveling through outback New South Wales. Whilst writing this, I'm thinking that Prati is our bad luck charm.

We departed from Burra on Friday (2/10), a mostly smooth drive but rolled into Broken Hill with only 8 litres left in the tank. Oops!! We settled at Sturt Park after a long, hot day of driving and I had a solid conversation with a nice 33-year-old bloke about investments, stocks, and life as he’d just quit his high-up, miserable 9-5 job in Sydney and moved back with hopes to get a psychology degree in Melbs or Adelaide. According to him, if I follow his hot tips, he’ll see me again when “I’m 30 and a millionaire”; mental note to buy Bare Foot Investor and listen to a podcast by Harry something. Flash forward to 10 pm, the local cops wandered through Sturt Park looking for some rowdy boys which we should’ve taken as a sign to NOT SLEEP THERE as we woke up at midnight to twelve-year-olds throwing rocks at the van. A bit freaked out, we pulled up to the cop station, me with no pants on, and got told to sleep behind the station. Nice way to start our first night in NSW. The next day was quite toasty and we found aircon in the supermarket which had uncomfortable vibes especially when we were catcalled walking in. We did our weekly shop and whilst unpacking it, Prati asked “Elle, do Weetbix go in the fridge?”. The highlight of my day.

Later, I got swooped by two birds simultaneously to and from the van, so was running through the same dodgy park with a book over my head and escaped into the toilet. The heat and series of bad events were getting to us and agreed that Broken Hill = bad vibes. We planned a new route to hit the Queensland border within the next few days and left for Cobar (about 500 kms) at 5 pm with no reception onwards. There was a pretty sunset, and the most amazing big red moon rose and loomed over the trees that night.

sunset on Barrier Highway

We passed through Wilcannia at 9ish - f*ck f*ck f*ck no. Hot tip - don’t stop there at night or just ever. People sitting on the curb, loitering and eyeing you off - no no NO. Prati then hit a kangaroo around 10 pm and being a bit shaken up, we decided it’d be stupid to keep driving so we crashed at the rest stop halfway between Wilcannia and Cobar. Some blokes pulled up for 30 mins to take a piss and fiddle with their car, but just in case, I had the fire extinguisher at the ready. It hit midnight = Emi’s birthday! Prati and I bought out a carrot cake with ‘happy birthday’ candles 40 minutes late because of the time difference oops. We stargazed on the roof of Prati’s van in what felt like the middle of absolutely nowhere. 8 am start to try beat the heat and woke up to red dust swirling around us and flies as soon as the sun came up.

rest stop between Wilcannia and Cobar

We had lunch at another rest stop and whipped out Ian’s fly nets which saved the day - thanks Dad :) Prati refused to wear one and attempted to fix his bumper and wipe off the kangaroo blood.

a handy present from dad

At 3 pm we rolled into Bourke (the town with the highest crime rate in Australia in 2017), and called ahead to the Cunnamulla (Queensland town just over the border) cop station to double-check the requirements to cross the border. We needed an online declaration pass and then ‘we’d be fine’. We had a little trouble with one of the questions so went to double-check it with the Bourke cops and they said ‘oh yeah just tick no that should be fine’ so naturally, we thought oh sweet let's send it to the border and off we went. 170 kms later, we arrived at the border with our ‘G’ passes in hand, only to be told we had the wrong type of pass which was bad because we had no reception to get the proper one. But alas, that’s not the worst part, to get to the Queensland border from SA, we had come through and stayed in Broken Hill for one night (one shitty arse night), which is not within their ‘bubble’. SO, that meant we not only couldn’t cross the border but had to stay in NSW ‘bubble’ for 14 more days. We had driven 170 kms from the nearest town only to be told to turn around and wait two weeks. I reckon we went through denial, laughter, anger, and sadness all in about 30 minutes. It felt like the last straw to a rough couple of days. We pulled a u-ey INTO Queensland so technically we crossed for a couple of seconds (seriously considered just absolutely gunning it), but headed to the closest pub/rest stop about 1km from the border. With no reception and me on the verge of tears, we cracked open some drinks and Emi called home on the pub owners' landline to let them know we were safe and for her birthday. We wallowed in our sorrows with the locals and sadly laughed at our past 24 hours. Then a quirky truckie told us to head to Moree (about 550 kms East), avoid another dodgy town called Walgett and then continue onwards to Byron Bay. So we did.

The following day (Monday 5/10), we arrived at Moree around 5 pm and had some burrito bowls for dinner and all 3 of us in tow (I snuck in under a nice hot quilt) and snagged a shower at the caravan park. For the first time in a while, we felt relatively safe until we heard “you fucking bitch” so we scrambled back into the van and dimmed the lights. We slept outside of the cop station that night. We left Moree at 9 am on Tuesday, and drove all day to hit Byron Bay but stopped by Grafton. We bought a tub of cold Connoisseur Choc Peppermint (the best flavour) ice cream and ate the whole thing in that car park. It was fabulous.

lookout on the way to Grafton

We continued to chug along and hit Byron at 7 pm. The place was buzzing. Picture Glenelg during New Year’s Eve, on steroids… and it was only a Tuesday night. Everyone was tan, good-looking, and wearing ridiculously stylish clothes. Feeling slightly intimidated and getting a few funny looks navigating the crowded streets in a slow, ancient van, we retreated to the suburbs and slept on a quiet road in hopes that our next few days wouldn’t be as crazy.

Till next time,

Elle x