Thursday 2 January 2020
We started the day with a 113 km trip north to Walgett for breakfast at the highly recommended, if not out of the way, Stone’s Throw café and gift shop. Great coffee and amazing stock of gifts that we can’t imagine will be ever be sold. We reduced the stock by one item.
Our next stop was the Home Hardware store, which like the hardware stores of our youth, sold everything. We had a ball finding things we never thought we needed, and came away with items ranging from a universal sink plug, a cake rack and William Morris mugs.
Fifty-five km on a dirt road, over a flat dry flood plain, adjacent to the now virtually non-existent Macquarie Marches (yet another ecological disaster) to Carinda. Our reason for this detour was to visit a “Buy in the Bush” outlet, where I was able to spend up big on some locally produced (like, just round the corner) items.
I also wanted to visit the pub whose only claim to fame, and significant it is, is that David Bowie made the film clip for his song, “Let’s Dance”, in 1983 (you can also watch it on YouTube — David Bowie - Let's Dance (Official Video);). But why in this remote isolated corner of NSW! The artist and film crew certainly would have been in for a culture shock. The pub runs the “Beats Starvin’ Bistro”; one TripAdvisor reviewer assured readers the food was better than the name suggested. I still wasn’t tempted and stuck with a can of Solo.
The temperature climbed to 43 degrees as we returned to Coonamble. We were pleased we’d decided on a quiet afternoon in our air conditioned motel room and later in the a/c Coonamble Bowling Club, conveniently located across the road. There was only one other family dining in the Club, far different from the previous "bingo" night.
To give you an idea of the ramifications of the heat, the water from our cold tap is hot enough to shower in. The water doesn’t have a nice taste either, as the aquifer reserves are apparently getting low, and we are purchasing bottled water even to make tea.
Judy Gill
