2004/02 New South Wales loop - Kinchega |
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However, the park wasn’t a complete bust. Kinchega's campground along the Darling River 
was an absolute gem. It had big old river red gums all along 
the wide lazy river, and a flotilla of pelicans scooping up fish. The gums looked ready to fall over any time, but presumably they didn’t very often. We found a great campsite and spent the evening relaxing and watching the river. We had an army of ants here too. They didn’t bite but they seemed fascinated by our feet, and would dig into the spaces between our toes, a very weird feeling.
Tuesday March 2nd
I went for an early morning walk along the riverbank and found that we almost had the park to ourselves. There were plenty of animals though, kangaroos and wallabies, and lots of birds. Later, we left our chairs in place to reserve our campsite, and set off to drive all the park’s roads.
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Kinchega (18.09) |  |
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All the lakes were dry, but the woolshed was an interesting spot. This was 
the site of a massive sheep farming business a hundred years ago. The woolshed was built for the most efficient shearing of the wool, eventually using traction engines and power shears. Eventually the business crashed as a result of drought and the plague of rabbits, but it survived in some form until the 1960s when the site became a national park.
They used to bring the wool to Menindee and from there it would go by riverboat down the Darling to the Murray and Adelaide. We’d already seen the wreckage of one of the boats. Its crew had spent a long time in the pub and forgot to put water in the boiler and it blew up, killing them all. I can just imagine the crew’s historic last words “No worries, mate, she’ll be right.” Bang.
There were grey and red kangaroos, wallabies, and euros all over. Euros are also called wallaroos as they are midway in size between grey kangaroos and the smaller wallabies. We 
also saw emus and a large goanna. One of the kangaroos was asleep in the shade in the middle of the track. We stopped a couple of feet away as it scrambled to its feet and looked decidedly embarrassed.
We’d had a great day, but we got back to our campsite to find that someone had stolen our chairs! There had been a car parked on the edge of our site when we left and we assume the driver watched us leave and then stole them. For some reason he left my running gear which was drying over a branch.
Wednesday March 3
I took an early morning run along the river, and saw a tree loaded with pink and red- and yellow-tailed cockatoos, but of course I had no camera with me. I also disturbed a whole mob of red kangaroos that were drinking from the river. Suddenly there were all these big guys bounding down the road past me!