Day 9 - Wilcannia and Nyngan

14-16 April 2023

---

Did you know the pepper grows in red berries on trees ? We didn`t but Tristan found out by experience.

As of today we are heading back leaving the outback behind us, driving slowly but surely back towards `civilisation`.

Wilcannia

Chloe has been talking a lot about Willcannia Central School lately: the students of Anzac Park Public School (located in the city of Sydney) and of Willcannia Central School (located in remote Australia) have been sending post cards to eachother to connect two very different worlds. We are all excited as we discover we will pass through Wilcannia today. What a nice surprise for Chloe! We take a picture of Chloe in front of the school to share with her teacher and class mates.

The town has only a couple of streets big and counts around 750 residents. This is what i didn`t know about Wilcannia at the time and just read now:

Predominantly populated by Aboriginal Australians, Wilcannia has received national and international attention for government deprivation of its community's needs, and the low life expectancy of its residents. For indigenous men, that figure is 37 years of age. Residents have reported that water quality in Wilcannia is unsafe, leading locals to rely on boxed water transported from Broken Hill, nearly 200 kilometres away. The town has been one of the worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales, and the government's refusal to ban tourists from the area to preserve the health of its struggling residents has been met with condemnation.

Pretty shocking for a country where safety is such a big thing.

At Willcannia we join the Barrier Highway and from here it is 11 hours back on the same road to Sydney.

Nyngan

After four more hours of driving we call it a day, and we stop in Nyngan. We find ourselves in a very cosy camp ground at the border of a small town (1988 habitants). We meet the locals when we eat dinner at the local RSL club, the only available dinner option. In the morning we enjoy a fresh coffee and hit the road again. Zeven hours left to Sydney.

Dubbo

Our very last night is Dubbo`s holiday park camp ground. The kids enjoy the company of many and keep on jumping on the huge trampoline for one hour.

We meet a family from Perth who is doing `the big lap`.

Last sleep over we pitch our tent in Dubbo and meet a family who is doing The Big Lap. This is apparently the terminology for driving all around, Australia, this lap is roughly around 15,000km (!) circumnavigating the mainland of Australia.

Very inspiring.... I dare to say that it is a dream of mine.