Thread: County trip around outback NSW

My County continues to impress me. It behaved perfectly on its trip around NSW between Christmas and New Year eves.

Sydney to Dubbo, with an afternoon and morning visit to the zoo (to see the animals get their Christmas treats.) Onto Nyngan, Cobar, Wilcannia then up to White Cliffs for Christmas dinner.



The Solar Thermal Power Station was interesting, as was the underground motel, dugouts in general, and fantastically friendly towns folk - no end of offers of help when I was fishing out pebbles stuck between the inside of one front disc and its protective plate.

We headed to Broken Hill via Mutawintji NP. Cruising along the wide straight dirt road at speed, and after several unblemished floodways, we hit a nasty bump caused by the recent flash flood. The road looked perfectly fine until it gently dropped away. We got some air time and made a mess of the gear in the back. The worst was getting out to find fluid gushing from the engine bay, but luckily we'd just split the windscreen washer bottle.



After that the floodways and causeways got progressively worse.



We set up camp in Silverton, then headed out to watch the sunset over the Mundi Mundi Plains.



The following day we headed back to Broken Hill, then onto Menindee and into Kinchega NP. We camped at the homestead and went to Lake Cawndilla for breakfast. Drove south out of the park (nearly clobbering a few joeys springing out of the shrub shadows and across the road, and disturbing an impressive wedge-tailed eagle eating roadkilled roo - by the time I stopped and got the camera, he was quite a way away.) Down the west side of the dry Darling, to Pooncarie.


After the nice high 20s in the first half the week, it was starting to get into the 30s, and our in-cabin temp was hitting 40.

Mungo NP was spectacular. We did a couple of loops and camped for the night.



The morning plan was to drive east to Ivanhoe and Willandra NP, but I was a little unsure about the apparent fantastic fuel economy we got since Broken Hill. Decided to play it a little safer and drove towards Balranald instead, which turned out to be a wise move. 75 km out of Mungo, the fuel gauge needle dropped to a quarter tank and the fuel light came on. A few more kilometres and the needle dropped to empty. We made it to Balranald and put 78 litres in the 80 litre tank and topped up the oil. Monitoring the fuel gauge showed it was reading high at least a quarter tank - the big bump out of White Cliffs must have knocked the fuel sender.

Headed across the hot Hay Plains, with in-cabin temps hitting 45, and camped at the Narrandera caravan park, since they were right next door to an impressive pool complex. The following day we camped in Weddin Mountains NP, and the next morning headed back to Sydney.

All up, over 3100 kilometres for the week, at least a third of that of dirt roads, and the County didn't miss a beat.

The temp needle didn't budge from normal, no flats or broken windscreens. The fuel sender needs to be looked at, but that's not the Landy's fault, and the throttle cable started sticking in the slow crawl through Sydney traffic on New Year's Eve - it's a little frayed and needs replacing.

All up it was a fantastic trip. I can't wait to go out there again!

Hi Ben

Nice trip and great photos, what lens did you use on the VW and the defer outside the pub?

Thanks