Outback journey-Page 3

16th August, 2005
Leaving Broken Hill

It was time to leave the Hill. We stopped off at Dr Ian Plimer’s Geo walk. Plimer is the man who took on creationists in the High Court and one who knows more about the geology of Broken Hill and the ore body than anyone. We bought mineral keepsakes and turned eastward onto the Barrier Hwy and thirty clicks from Wilcannia, turned off to White Cliffs. As we pulled into town we saw the solar station, finished in 1981, that supplied the power when the town was off the grid. It still occasionally operates but it’s a lot less efficient these days and anyway, not really needed. We crashed at PJ's Underground Bed & Breakfast inside Turley's Hill.

17th August, 2005
Around White Cliffs
An interesting find here was the opalised two metre plesiosaur fossil found in 1976 and dated as 100 million years old. Australia's opals formed from dissolved silica in rock that was once the sediment of the Early Cretaceous Sea that entered the Australian mainland from the Gulf of Carpentaria. White Cliffs, Lighting Ridge and Coober Pedy lay along the shoreline of that long forgotten sea. We headed back to Wilcannia and came across Emu.

Hammering the Celica until we were about 30km out of Cobar, we turned off to the Ngiyambaa walkabout near Mt Grenville to see the rock art; recent work of the local tribal people who stopped visiting after gatherings were forbidden early this century.

Reached Cobar and turned due north onto the Kidman Way toward Bourke which we gained by late afternoon at warp one. Watched old man Darling flow past Bourke and bought Hamburgers and Lemon meringue pie for dinner. Yum.

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