Following the Sunset, Australia 2023

Date: 26-28th February 2023

Travelled: 1,200 kms from Sydney to Lake Bonney in South Australia   

Visited:  Junee, Coolamon, Balranald and Lake Bonney

Stayed: Lake Bonney CP, $20, S34.25127, E140.45229  

Budget: days @ $ per day

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After a filling the Jayco with everything we presume we’ll need for the next couple of months we say goodbye to the neighbours and make for the highway before 8am.

We have limited our planning to ensuring we have enough Nespresso pods to last until the 1st May when we will fly back to Sydney from Perth leaving the Jayco with Greg and Julia and making Adelaide by the 1st March to meet up with friends.

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It’s a very quick and comfortable drive to Yass before we turn for Cootamundra. We have organised afternoon tea with Aunty Joyce. We do a fuel stop in Harden, catch an excellent sausage roll from the bakery and spend 5 minutes trying to get a photo of the silo artwork.

Aunty Joyce is full of the stories of her youth, family and the recent flood that made the top step of her house. She tells us the sulo bin floating away was most inconvenient.

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It’s been a long drive but we continue on to Junee and a favoured overnight stop at the golf club RV park. We arrive to find the area full of semi trailers and a scattering of old cars and old people. A veteran vehicle club are on the way to a meeting in Lockhart.

They are a friendly bunch and we find ourselves having a drink and enjoying the banter about their trucking adventures avoiding the scales and log book inspections last century.

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The very warm evening turns chilly sometime overnight and we pull the doona up in the early morning. By 8am the sun has warmed the Jayco and we say our goodbyes and head off to Junee pool for some laps. Junee has an excellent swim centre and it’s the primary reason we enjoy staying here on our way to where ever.

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Leaving Junee we turn at Old Junee for Coolamon and take the Canola Way to Narrandera. Technically a short-cut but a couple of stop and goes for road works add 20 minutes to the drive.

Coolamon is a picture postcard country town. Every shop has something going, everything has a fresh coat of paint and the streets are tidy and the parks freshly mown. It’s well worth the detour and an hour walking the main street.

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The drive through Narrandera across the Hay plains to Balranald which is a long relatively uninspiring 300+ kms. There is little traffic heading west and we are passed by only two trucks and a few cars all afternoon. The outside temperature on the Jayco’s dash tells us it 29° which could be worse.

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We’ve visited Balranald before but never stayed overnight. Giving the free stop at the swimming pool a try we find a spot in the shade provided by the water tower next door. Undecided whether to go to the caravan park and use the air-conditioner or sit out the heat we walk over and have a chat with a couple from Young who’ve parked their motorhome nearby. We also find the pool only opens at 3 till 6pm but not on a Monday !

Some 30 minutes later a cool breeze finds Balranald and the temperature drop 5° in a few minutes, so a free camp it is. Some local lamb chops on the BBQ as we watch the sunset.

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Up early we head off for a long walk around the highlights of Balranald. The southern bell frog is the town’s mascot but we didn’t spot one doing the nature walk through the billabong that follows the river on the edge of town.

Back at the Jayco we have breakfast and get ready for the road once again. It’s another 300+ kms day mostly driving the northern Mallee. The road is good and the traffic light but very little of interest until Euston and the huge irrigated farms that line the road all the way to Mildura.

We have soon dashed across the north-western tip of Victoria into South Australia. Once passed Renmark there are no free stops along this section of the Sturt Hwy. Our data base shows a caravan park on Bonney Lake with a $20 a night special, so we set the GPS.

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Arriving at Lake Bonney we step down out of the Jayco and its air-conditioning to find it’s hot and there is no breeze at all. The lake looks lovely but we quickly set up and turn on the AC and enjoy a drink. An hour later a gusty breeze blows through and the temperature drops 10° in a few minutes. The AC goes of and we enjoy another mild evening…

Michael + Pam