What is Went worth?

Quite a bit as it gives us a half-way (about 850km) break on our trip to Port Lincoln!

We got away at 6:30 which was pretty good as it meant we'd get to Wentworth in good time.  The weather was fine for driving as we set off, with cloud and wind but no rain.  Here is the situation near Jugiong.

Going along the Hume we noticed a car overtake us with no number plates, which seemed a good way of avoiding speed cameras and similar infringements on liberty.  A little further we found said car again with the driver discovering that the Plods do not approve of such strategies and were having a conversation, which I suspect could do very bad things for their average speed, bank balance and future driving plans.

 Autumn has arrived in Wagga as shown by the foliage!

 Round about Wagga we noticed a lot of cars coming towards us in pulses which seemed a bit curious.  An interesting roadside sign promised "Balls baits and bullets" in Narranderah.  On the outskirts of the town we discovered the reason for the pulses: roadworks, fixing up problems that only the Roads engineers were aware of, at the intersection of the Newell and Sturt Highways.  Only about 5 minutes of delay

Once out heading towards the Hay Plain we noticed lots of motorbikes, including many three-wheelers towing trailers, coming towards us.  This continued for the rest of the day.  (That got solved the next day somewhere near Renmark where a sign talked about Ulysses MC AGM.)

Out on the Plain we encountered, as tradition requires, droving.  It was a tad un-traditional in that all the stock were Aberdeen Angus rather than Herefords or mixed breeds.

For many years we had crossed the Plain with no sight of anything to do with cotton.  On both our last two traverses we have seen heaps.  Perhaps we were a little earlier this time but it seemed to be everywhere in vast acreages.  No wonder the farmers are in an uproar about restrictions on irrigators in the Southern Murray-Darling Basin.  This image is a paddock of bolls.

Some harvested rolls: we crossed with many trucks carting these off to ...?

This snap shows: a line of bales in a paddock; the brown stems left after picking,; and a small amount of the whit stuff that always seems to accumulate along the roadside in a cotton area.

We wondered if the cotton was responsible for the dearth of emus.  At one point we thought we might not see any for the trip but a few - perhaps 7 in total were spotted towards the end of the trip.  There were very few birds around except Ravens.  A few Black Kites and Kestrels, 1 Pied Butcherbird and a couple of Black-shouldered Kites.

In my view the Plain ends at Balranald.  On what we saw, so does prosperity.   While the houses still looked OK quite a few businesses in the town looked to be closed (permanently, not just on Saturday afternoon).  On the highway out the other side we encountered another lot of road works that delayed us again.  I know roads have to be maintained but no-one here seemed to be working except the driver of the pilot vehicle.  All the others seemed to be sitting around talking about obesity - or at least demonstrating it.

This also gave the caravans a chance to bunch up and make driving slow.  While this is a further tradition I had thought it had been dispensed with as on our recent trips vans moved along reasonably quickly.  Perhaps the Hume Highway is different to the North South roads such as the Newell?

Somewhere around this point a truck was kind enough to spit a rock at our windshield.  I didn't notice a new chip so carried on.

On getting close to Wentworth we called in at a fuel station in Dareton.  It had closed but as a friendly local explained (there were no instructions on the pumps) there was a terminal on the wall that allowed one to get fuel.  It merged that as is often the case in rural aral areas the advertised price for diesel was for the dirty stuff that trucks use and car diesel was about 2 cents a litre dearer.  Grrrr.  It then emerged (again no instructions) there wasn't a pay-for-fill option.  However you could put in an amount of $400 and they'd only take what you used, with the remaining amount staying as an open order for 7 days.  Trust us - sure wouldn't.  them we'll get fuel somewhere else, of need be in Renmark the next morning.

As it turned out we got fuel in Wentworth as a servo operated by a human.  After shifting minimal kit into our room at the Central Motel (which allowed the small dog in the room - HUGE  bouquet) we went for  walk around the riverbank.  This is the  Darling, which merges with the Murray nearby.

There seemed to be a lot of water in the Rivers:presumably there has been good rain from cyclones in the head waters of the Darling in Queensland.

A statue of John Egge an immigrant from China who seems to have been one of the biggest traders on the River.  Or, in a flood, the main street of Wentworth which he sailed his boat down!

A memento of the old days.  I'm not sure if this paddle steamer moves or is just there to look good!

Although we have been to Wentworth before I do like a good War Memorial.

After the early start and a longish drive an early and solid night sleep.

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