Mount Grenfell

Having now spent several days in Cobar, I’ve seen most of it and its immediate on my early morning shun the sun forays.....so a bit further afield was top of the agenda for this morning. There was a weird sky this morning though; not seen this one before.Looked a bit like a swarm of flies chasing me down the road.

Although I’ve now transferred all of the fuel from Gordon’s broken bike ( no point wasting it) to mine, I stopped by garage to top it up before heading out into the bush. And who did I bump into at the pumps? None other than Ian, the bloke who helped me recover Gordon’s bike after the crash! He was heading off down to Wilcannia for work, so we had a catch up chat before he left.

Then I went in to pay for my fuel and one of the women who worked in the garage turned out to be the wife of the bloke from whom we bought the ute. Funny! Small towns I guess; I love them.

Anyway, having filled my postie and chatted to half the town, it was time to get going. Mount Grenfell, a historic aboriginal site with rock art, is 65kms down the road. It's based on a waterhole where the Ngiyampaa people used to meet but was taken over by Europeans who started farming the area in the 1800s. Then in 2004, it was handed back to the aboriginals who retain responsibility for it but manage it with NSW Parks and Wildlife Services.

As I rode along, the remoteness of these outback places really hit me. And this is really only just of the edge of it. 

There is nothing beyond the outskirts of Cobar and what is essentially a small country town, and with very little traffic on the roads, its vital should you wish to stray beyond the distance you can walk should you break down, get a puncture, stack it etc, that you’re able to sort yourself out because there won’t be anyone to do it for you. And you will die out there in the heat if you don’t have water.

But I was confident and had all my stuff; water, a bit of food, full fuel tanks, knife, firesteel, tarp for shelter, first aid kit, puncture repair stuff ( incl tools and a pump), map, phone, hat, and GPS. I’d also left a note for Gordon as to where I was going, the route I was taking ( easy, as there was only one) and how long I would be.

So 38kms of sealed highway with various goats and other odd things to see on way, before turning off onto a dirt road for a further 33kms to the rocks. 

There wasn’t much traffic about at all, but once I left the highway, I saw nobody else at all. It was just me, the goats and the emus for the next few hours.

Some of those old billy goats are magnificent, with flowing beards and coats, and twisted horns that mean it's a very good idea to keep your distance. But you can sneak up a bit if you're careful.

I’ve yet to get a picture of an emu though. Apart from being well camouflaged, they are pretty shy and dart between the vegetation as anything approaches. The goats however, carry on doing what they’re doing then glare, before legging it from anything that gets too close for comfort. Then they stop and glare again and give you attitude.

It's also silent out there. Bird noises and stuff of course, but no man made din at all once you get a few hundred metres from the highway. Maybe that’s why the roos and goats just move far enough away but don’t disappear; they don't see people that often so don't feel that threatened. Who knows.

The road was pretty rough though, and  quite sandy, and having seen Gordon’s crash, I was very careful where I rode and kept my speed steady. 

But after banging and bouncing along for about 20kms, these signs  suddenly appeared! Like anybody going down there wouldn’t have noticed already! Funny.

But that rough then got rougher, the last 10 kms or so being rocky as well. Lovely stuff, and I had it all to myself.

I finally reached the place but apart from the usual dunnies and picnic tables, there was nothing else there. No information boards, no signs and no obvious signs of anything. 

I was a bit fazed at first because there was no indication of what I should be seeing or looking for. Then I spied a gate, which was shut, and a track leading away from it. That had to be it, and of course it was, so I rode between the posts and up a slope to a hidden parking area. That was it, a couple of info boards, some signs and another dunny.  ( which I didn’t need). There was still nobody else around nor any signs of any recent activity, so I parked the bike and went for a walk.

Rock paintings usually depict animals and images important to the indigenous people of that area, and they’re painted straight onto the rocks in ochre and clay. Handprints and squiggles, neither of which mean anything to me but then they wouldn't as I'm not aboriginal nor did I do them, often accompany these images, and  they are  now preserved behind fences so they don’t get touched or rubbed off. Natural conduits to route the water away from the paintings have also been installed to keep them dry and unsmudged.

The outcrops of rock contain hundreds of small rocks and shells, evidence of the area once being underwater. That really is surreal as it was under seawater, and this place is nowhere near any such thing.

I had a good old poke around all of the rocks, and even learnt where the self timer button is on my camera, just to prove that I actually went there. But then it could be anywhere and nobody would know....

I also found this odd burrow thing, complete with a little lid . I'm not sure what lived down it but I didn't poke my finger down there just incase it bit or stung...

The ride back was pretty warm as the sun was well up and I’d been out for quite a while. But I made it back by 12noon, the time I said I would.

So that left this afternoon free for a few jobs; I bought some food, found a lady to repair our ripped sun tarp ( ripped by the wind at Tamworth), and scored a proper mattress for Gordon to sleep on until his ribs heal. That will fit in the ute, and the shop is storing it because there is no way i could carry it, and as it was too hot to even think about carrying it back to the campsite. It will have to wait until the ute arrives.

A few Cobar facts too....the big beer can on the porch of the Grand Hotel can hold  22,000 litres of beer , or 79,398 middies to be exact, and its 5m tall. 

But even more impressive ( I think ) is the iron lace verandah of the Great Western Hotel. It’s just over 100m long and is supposedly the longest such thing in the southern hemisphere. But what impresses is that being metal, it must weigh a huge amount, but the wooden verandah hasn’t buckled under its load and fallen off the building. Yet......

It was pretty windy this evening, with trees swaying and gum leaves swirling. Its supposed to rain, but as yet, we’ve had nothing. But the breeze has cleared the hot fuggy air, and its relatively pleasant now.....with a funny coloured sky.