Trying to go west (still)

13th April, 2021 – Bindara Station to Broken Hill: Days have been spent beside the curiously clay-coloured Darling River, very low but majestic in its meanderings. We wander through the bush, finding ‘crying trees (each lump on the tree is created to mourn a loved one’, ‘canoe trees (where a canoe is carved from a living tree)’, with their special roles and meanings to the past clans who lived here, as well as wool-washing river zones where the wool waited for the ferries which carried it to the coast. There’s also a Post Box tree where one shearer had his mail dropped by the visiting steamer. At night we join the camp fire with Barb, pet-goat owner as well as station owner /farmer /cook and host of Bindara Station. “We’re waiting for the flood from up north – as long as it doesn’t mysterioualy disappear along the way.” As a water sceptic, she’s a friendly, practical, down-to-earth woman and we enjoy her company, but Broken Hill calls.

We have now arrived in Broken Hill so many times it feels like home. But only long enough this time for Charlie’s vet visit and our Astra Seneca jabs. Next stop Peterborough, in South Australia – at last!