Day 4 / Tuesday (Tibooburra – Bourke, 359km, 223miles)

Up at dawn again, and headed back up to Sunset Hill, which contrary to what you might suspect, was actually a great spot for viewing sunrise as well, due to its 360 degree view.
However, much to our disgust, the clouds were sitting on the horizon preventing a colourful start to the day.
Again, frozen stiff, we headed back into town to grab some breakfast, have a shower, pack the car, and hit the track.
And ‘track’ it was! The first 40km or so was quite rocky, and rough going. After that, the road got marginally better and we were able to pick up a bit of pace.
The first leg of today’s journey was the 260km to Wannaring.
We were doing quite nicely, until about 50km out of Wannaring, a suicidal emu decided to pit his chances against a solid object travelling at 120km/hr. I saw him coming and hit the brakes, but I had too much momentum and he was too stupid to turn. Instead, he just ploughed into the right front panel and completely knocked the driver’s side mirror off the car.
Just great.
A bloke in a 4wd travelling about 5km behind me stopped and Scotch-taped it back on.
I can’t see out of it, but at least it will keep up appearances until I get back to Sydney.
After a counter lunch at the Wannaring Hotel, we hit the road for the second leg…. Wannaring to Bourke, another 192km.
We rolled into town with no accommodation lined up, having spent the last 2 days totally “off-the-air”… no mobile phone, no internet.
We got turned away from the first 3 motels we enquired at.
The fourth one was able to give us their very last room, just as the local tourism office was ringing them asking them about availability!
Talk about ‘close call’.

Take me to: <- Day 3 | Day 5 ->