A TRIP TO NARROMINE

A trip to Narromine, New South Wales.
In December last year I took a trip from my hometown of Adelaide, South Australia, to Narromine, NSW. Before leaving I had decided to buy a small, 2 person tent that was easy to erect to use as my accomodation on the trip. I had done the trip before and found that the cost of renting Motel rooms was rather expensive and as I was going to do the trip in several stages, buying a tent seemed like a better and cheaper option. My first overnight stay was in Balranald, a nice caravan park with lots of powered and unpowered sites, much to my surprise an unpowered site cost me $15. After a good nights sleep I began the next leg of my journey, first to Hay, NSW, then up the Newell Highway to Parkes, NSW. (The town made famous in the Australian movie “The Dish”) As I left Balranald I made a little detour to the ’Yanga Wool-shed’100 m. The wool-shed is an impressive building, over 100m long. It was built in the early 1900’s and had the capacity to shelter over 3,000 sheep even in wet weather, it contained 40 blade shearing stands which was later reduced due to mechanisation. The original shed was burnt down in the midst of a dispute between shearers and pastoralists in 1896 and was later replaced by the current shed. After leaving the wool-shed I began the long drive over the ‘Hay Plain’, long straight sections of road on flat ground with very little of interest to look at.
Next overnight stop was the Parkes, NSW.

Yanga Wool-shed

Wool classers table

Murrumbidgee River, Balranald

The Hay Plain

The Parkes Observatory,a.k.a.’The Dish’

The next morning I visited the Parks Observatory which is 20 k’s north of Parkes, before heading to Narromine.
After visiting a friend for a few days, I began the trip home, this time I travelled further down the Newell Highway to Tocumwal, then to Halls Gap in The Grampians, Victoria. I visited the McKenzie Falls and a few of the lookouts within the National Park. I found a lot of old empty derelict buildings along the way and a lot of old unused business’s that have been replaced by newer and larger buildings.
I then continued my journey westward to Adelaide and travelled through some very dry pastoral properties along the way.