SA - Getting There
- Ken Fredric
- Feb 4
- 10 min read
Updated: Feb 16
Day 1 - Howard - Condamine Lagoon, QLD, 10 February, 2026
Yay, back on the road again, this time to the only state we haven't explored yet, South Australia!
We left home a little later than expected, as Meg discovered we hadn't filled up the fresh water tank while Mata was sitting idle in the garage for weeks.
The start of the journey heading south had become a familiar one to us since we moved to Howard, travelling south down the Bruce Highway, turning off at Tiaro, then out to the Wide Bay Highway, through Kilkivan and stopping at Goomeri for morning tea.
Then it was through Murgon, and Wondai where we turned off onto the Wondai - Chinchilla Road, that took us to our lunch stop at Chinchilla. Lunch was a pie and drink each from a bakery, before continuing on, but first taking the time fill up with diesel while the prices were cheaper than they would be in the next few days.
After that it was mostly more back roads, passing through Miles and Condamine to our first night camp at the Caliguel Lagoon free camp, not far out of Condamine.
Although it was still about 33 degrees, there was also a strong wind blowing, so we stayed inside for the rest of the day/night.
Day 2 - Condamine Lagoon - Culgoa River, Nr Goodooga, NSW, 11 February, 2026
After a relaxed start to the day, we broke camp around 7:30 A.M. and hit the road towards to the NSW border. Even though early, the temperature was already 29°, rose to 34° by 10:00 A.M.
This was mostly going to be a boring driving day, with no touristy stuff planned.
I wanted to stop at Meandarra, the first town we passed through, to check out their Anzac Memorial Museum, but it was only 8:15 A.M. when we got there and the museum was closed.
Carrying on we passed through Westmar, then headed towards St George, where we stopped at a pharmacy to have my sore eye looked at. I guessed that while volunteering at the golf course on Monday doing tree lopping, some dust or sawdust had gotten into my eye and it was quite inflamed and tender to touch. The pharmacist wasn't too concerned as the eye didn't seem to be infected, so I left it at that for the moment.
We also took the opportunity while there to grab some supplies from the supermarket next door, before carrying on to Dirranbandi.
As we were approaching the outskirts of Dirranbandi a family of emus, Dad and half a dozen young ones, were looking to cross the road in front of us. We stopped to take a pic and let them cross, but they changed their mind and went back the way they had come. That was our first Emu sighting of the trip, but we did see a few more further along the road, along with a couple of Bustards as well.
We stopped for lunch in the main street of Dirranbandi, also checking out their metal sculptures in the adjacent park. Over lunch we decided to check out the Hebel Hotel as a possible stopping point for the night and, if that didn't work out we'd try the Goodooga Artesian Spa as a backup.
We stopped at the Hebel Hotel, which was built in the 1890s and had loads of character, checked out the camping area and decided not to stay there as there was no shade and the temperature had risen to 38°. We did, however, enjoy a nice cold drink at the bar and chatted to the Swedish backpacker running the bar.
So it was on to Goodooga, crossing the border into NSW, where the artesian spa camping area also didn't have any shade, and the facilities weren't open for us to use the toilets or showers.
On to plan C, which was a free camp on the Culgoa River, about 10 km out of Goodooga, over a fairly rough unsealed road. By the time we pulled up beside the river the temperature had increased to 40°. Free camp = no power, which = no air con. Yay!
We got set up and sat outside, battling the heat and incessant flies as best we could until the temperature started to drop later in the afternoon.
Day 3 - Culgoa River, Nr Goodooga - Cobar, NSW, 12 February, 2026
This was to be another day of just driving, as we'd visited all the towns we'd be passing through on previous trips.
There was an option to start the day's drive on an unsealed road, but as we were expecting to be driving through rain during the day, we decided that wasn't such a good idea and stuck to the sealed roads.
Leaving Goodooga, the rain started falling lightly, as forecast, and continued until we were just short of Bourke.
We passed through Brewarrina, then carried on to Bourke, where we had a short stop to pick up some supplies.
Once past Brewarrina, we were shocked and disgusted at the numbers of feral goats on the roadside. They numbered in the hundreds and hundreds, and that was just the ones we could see. Meg read that the estimated feral goat population in the west of NSW was around 6 million!
It was still early enough in the day so we decided to carry on to Cobar, where we stayed the night in a free camp that we'd used the last time we came through the area.
While settling in to my normal routine of firstly updating this blog, I discovered that the laptop wouldn't power up. It had been playing up for the last few days and wouldn't power up without being plugged in, but this time it wouldn't even do that!
That changed our plans slightly to head straight for Broken Hill the next day to have the laptop looked at and hopefully repaired.
Thankfully with the rain temperatures had dropped significantly, so we had a more pleasant evening and night.
Day 4 - Cobar - Broken Hill, NSW, 13 February, 2026
With the change in time zone to daylight saving time, we were waking up later than normal, as it wasn't daylight as early as Queensland.
With a little later start than normal we went first into Cobar to make use of their dump point, then continued the journey south west towards Broken Hill.
As for the previous couple of days, we had already visited the towns we would be passing through, so it was a relatively boring day of driving ahead of us.
Once again we were shocked at the feral goat population ravaging the environment. The goats looked to be in good health, while the Kangaroos had ribs showing, leading us to wonder if the goats were affecting the amount of food the Kangaroos would normally have access to.
After a 450 km drive we arrived in Broken Hill and headed straight to a computer repair shop.
As these things often go, when I explained the situation to the young repair person, he opened the laptop, turned it on and it worked perfectly! He tried it both plugged in and unplugged, and couldn't fault it, so we left and hoped it would work later.
By then it was half-past lunchtime and we were hungry, but we paid a quick visit to the visitor information centre first to get some info on the local area, and to buy another Australian bird book, because we'd forgotten to pack our book when we left home.
Over lunch we decided to do a couple of touristy things before going to a caravan park.
First up was the Miner's Memorial that memorialises all the miners who have died in the Broken Hill mines, and there were dozens of them!
After wandering around the memorial we visited the Pro Hart gallery, which was amazing. "Pro" was born Kevin and adopted the moniker Pro at some point in his life. Pro, who died in 2006, was a prolific painter, sculptor and musician, and the gallery showcases his full life. Exhibits include many of his paintings, some sculptures and even a hand-painted Rolls Royce, which was one of four Rolls Royce cars on display.
With the touristing done, we drove to the Broken Hill Tourist Park and booked in on an unpowered site for the night.
Day 5 - Broken Hill - Mingary Creek, SA, 14 February, 2026
Getting back into the grey nomad touristing again today, our first stop after leaving camp was to the Living Desert State Park, about 12 km out of Broken Hill.
There are three parts to the park, the sculpture park, cultural walk trail and flora trail. Our first experience was visiting the sculpture park, perched high up on a hill overlooking the surrounding mostly flat and featureless countryside.
The statue park consists of twelve sandstone sculptures, created by artists from around the world, and were the outcome of a symposium by some of these artists in 1993. The sculptures were impressive and were the artists' impressions of the area, local culture, people and Aboriginal folklore.
We had the option to walk to the next experience, but as the day was heating up, and the flies were rabid, we drove to another car park next to the cultural walk. After donning shoes, hats and fly nets over our hats, we set out on the 2.2 km walk. The walk is classified as class 3, as evidenced by the rough surface and steep climbs up to the uppermost sections of the walk, which had us puffing from being out of condition.
Along the way there was plenty of information on local flora, fauna, mining in the area and Aboriginal heritage and practices.
Once back down at the car park we were tuckered out, so decided to forgo the 1 km flora trail, and head out to Silverton instead.
After stopping at the entrance to town to take some photos of the Silverton sign, we carried on through the township and out to the Mundi Mundi Lookout, a few kilometres away towards SA.
The view from the lookout was very impressive, but looking down over towards SA there was hundreds of square kilometres of nothingness.
Back in town we stopped off at the Mad Max 2 Museum, which was unfortunately closed until March, so we just took some photos of the outside and back of the building.
Across from the museum was our next stop at John Dynon's art gallery. John is a prolific painter and is more well known for some of his quirky paintings of Australian history and life, many of which feature caricatures of emus. Meg couldn't resist buying one of John's emu prints.
By then we were starving and went across the road to the Silverton Hotel for lunch. There is a lot to see in the pub, a lot of local history and many photos and relics of the Mad Max 2 movie.
With all the touristy stuff done for the day, it was time to look for a campsite for the night.
We'd decided to drive towards the SA border and try to find a campsite where we could spend the night, and to use up any of our fresh vegetables that may be confiscated at the quarantine station because of the SA quarantine restrictions.
The first potential site we came to required either cash, which we didn't have any of, or the use of a payment system that our mobile bank apps didn't include.
There's a small town on the border that had potential for an overnight camp, but we didn't like the look of it, and carried on a bit further to the Mingary Creek free camp, that was a hot, dusty, fly ridden area not far off the highway and close to the railway line.
Because the flies were so bad we didn't bother setting up outside, staying inside and coping with the 34° heat as best we could.
Day 6 - Mingary Creek - Hawker, SA, 15 February, 2026
Our main mission today was to drive to Peterborough to stock up on supplies after having gone through the quarantine station, and to buy a national parks pass from the information centre After having done that, we would look for a suitable free camp for the night.
There was nothing remarkable about the 200 km drive, other than a lot of Kangaroo roadkill, and seeing a few emus along the way. Because we were in grey nomad touristing mode, I kept the speed down to try and conserve fuel.
The roads were mostly straight and flat, with a few hills here and there to break the monotony of the featureless landscape (although it does have its own charm).
We stopped briefly in Mannahill to take some photos of their historic railway station and hotel, before continuing on to Peterborough.
First up was a visit to the dump point, then into the supermarket to restock our dwindling comestibles. Then, after filling up with diesel, we parked up beside a railway carriage museum for lunch.
After lunch we attempted to look through the railway carriage museum, but it was closed, like almost everything else in town, it being Sunday, which we hadn't figured into our equations.
With nothing else grabbing us in town, we set out for Magnetic Hill, about 35 km out of town.
We'd seen photos and videos before of Magnetic Hill, but didn't quite appreciate how weird it is. Beside the sign, the road slopes downhill. You stop, turn off the ignition and release the handbrake, and the vehicle starts rolling backwards up the hill! Probably wouldn't have truly believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.
With that little experience ticked off, we drove to the Cradock Hotel, where we'd read that you can park up behind the pub for the night, if you buy a beer at the bar. Because it was Sunday we had to get there before 3:00 P.M. before the pub closed, which seems to be the standard in this part of the world.
We arrived in Cradock an hour before the appointed time only to find that the pub is closed now all day on Sundays!
Moving on to plan B, we drove another 25 km to Hawker and booked into the caravan park on a powered site for the night.
Along the way we started to get some good views of the Flinders Ranges, a destination we were looking forward to visiting. We would normally go for an unpowered site at campgrounds, but the temperature was 36° when we pulled up there, so we paid extra for a powered site.
After setting up we had a quick swim in their pool, quick because it was surprisingly cold considering the temperature.
Although we had power, there was a strong breeze blowing and the flies weren't too bad for a change, so we sat outside for the rest of the afternoon.
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