Longreach Via Broken Hill

Derm

You could take your van to Cameron corner and keep going to Innimincka and then round to the Dig tree and then head east towards Noccundra (bitumen not far from dig tree. Then turn north through Eromanga to Quilpie then Windorah and then through Jundah to Longreach.

The only gravel bits are on the road from Broken Hill to Tibooburra around to the dig tree and bitumen is only a short way towards Noccundra. From there it is bitumen or only very small pieces of gravel. Windorah to Jundah was gravel but that may be bitumen now. Definately bitumen from Jundah to Longreach

Enjoy your trip

Alan

G'day,

This is our experience up that way.

Broken Hill; 2 caravan parks - the one on top of the hill still had trees in October 2013, the one in town had lopped theirs right down, taking the shade away. From memory, there was no grass in the town CP, plenty of lawn in the other one. BUT, the sites are pretty much all on an incline in the one on top of the hill. The one in town is flat.

Silverton is worth a visit, as is the Living Desert. The Miner's Memorial has great views of Broken Hill & a nice little cafe.

Silver City Hwy; I'd keep a very close eye on the weather before you go up that way in July. If it rain's I'd choose another route.

Apart from that - there is about 22km of dirt till you get to Packsaddle (in 2 stretches) The rest is black top. Lunch at the roadhouse is pretty good!

From there it's all dirt! Milparinka was a ghost town in Oct - no facilities whatsoever, but I've read things are happening there again?

Just a heads up; TJ's roadhouse is in Tibooburra, some maps have it further down towards Milparinka.

Plenty of facilities in Tibooburra. The CP is clean & you book at TJ's. There is a nice new, clean, free BBQ around the back.

If you've taken caravans up the Silver City Hwy (I wouldn't, but others do!), you may as well keep towing them, as the roads aren't particularly worse to Cameron Cnr & Innamincka from Tibooburra & they're most likely already covered in stone chips anyway.

At Innamincka there are facilities, motel style rooms, or a "bunkhouse" (good value at $95 a night!) or you can free camp on the town common.

The road from Innamincka to the Qld border is only short, but it's a doozey! Lots & lots & lots of big rocks on the road!

From the border, it's bitumen. There is about 14km of very good dirt road into the dig tree from the developmental road.

Another way up from Tibooburra is along the Warri Gate Road to the Noccundra pub - that is another rough road! The pub has nice clean Donga's or you can camp on the riverbank for free. There are amenities out the front of the pub for a gold coin donation to the RFDS. The publicans are very nice people!

Continuing up the developmental road - Eromanga, very quiet spot, lovely people in town! The pub is great & the CP is 4 powered sites behind the motel. It cost us $20 per night.

Next town - Quilpie; we were stopped by the boys in blue for a breatho as we drove into town & the fuel pumps were padlocked! The bakery was packed, but expensive! $8 for a pastie. We made sandwiches!

You turn north from there & I'll let others contribute that leg.

Good luck with it! I hope you have a great time up there, we did! :)

Hi just to let you knowTibooburra has almost ran out of drinking water and is soon to be switched over to bore water carted in from RTA road works bore

just saying that got a alert for heavy rain Broken Hill and surrounds but it will take a lot of water to getTibooburra back on its feet again

Best be planned and take some extra water and take the pressure ofTibooburra

so far it has been very hot and dry here today is possibility the first big rain for some time so it I do not expect much improvement for some time


also the roos and goats are plague proportions as well as emus

We plan to do it the other way around - Longreach to BH. At the moment we plan to stay at the Stonehenge jump-up on our second night ex Rockhampton. After that the plan is to do whatever seems to be the right thing, but probably stay on the Cooper at Windorah, call in to Quilpie and then backtrack a bit to go Eromanga and on down to to BH. It will take us at least a fortnight to get to Kerang and whether that is fast or slow I will be able to tell you when we get to Kerang.

A couple of years ago we were going via Roma to Quilpie and the down the back way to BH. Hissed down rain between Roma and Charleville, and was raining further west, so we went left at Charleville and went Cunnamulla, Cobar to BH. It pays to have an alternative route in mind when planning a dirt road trip.

We don't have billy lids to complicate things, so we can be a lot more flexible in our plans.

Four weeks is not much time to do the trip you are planning. Having said that, we did about 1900 kilometres in four days to get to BH, but I would not like to do that very often.

Should be a good trip - the vision splendid of the outback plains extended and all that.

Cheers,
"A".

Can you go home via Charleville? There's a caravan park out on the Quilpie road that's on someone's property and has campfires and the nice little touches. Haven't been there but I've checked the website and I'll be checking it out the next time we're through. The Bilbies and Cosmos Centre are awesome (we do them each time-you have GOT to look at the moon through a $40,000 telescope!)
Lark Quarry, south of Winton...pretty darn amazing.
Yes...a school of the air somewhere.
Watch for the huge roos out that way...and the goats...and the emus...and the wild pigs...!
Don't worry about how much time you have or haven't got. Even if you just glance into places it's still one heck of an experience for adults and kids. Who cares if you have only 1 day in Winton, for example and you're told to take more...you'll have "tasted" and added some great experiences to your family albums.
And you'll want to go again!
:)

Derm - last July we did a similar trip but in reverse as we were coming from East Gippsland where we included Parkes, Forbes, Lightning Ridge (opals, Artesian Baths), Roma, Carnarvon Gorge, Emerald to Longreach . We travelled from Longreach to Stonehenge & Jundah via the Thomson Dev. Rd and onto Welford NP where we camped by the Barcoo River for a few days. The park is a combination of red dunes, claypan & mulga. From there we headed via Windorah, Haddon Cnr, 'Arrabury' to the Dig Tree where we spent a couple of days. From there to Innamincka (yes the road from the border is brain jolting with some washouts in the causeways) camping on the Town Common and taking a day trip to Coongie Lakes NP (well worth the visit - if you have an off road van you can camp by the lake). After speaking to a local truckie at the pub we took the Old Strez Track to Cameron Cnr (track in great condition compared to the 'new' Strez). Stayed in the camp site a few 'k' nth of the Tibooburra in the NP (only ones there).

Then journeyed via Milparinka to Mutawintji NP to Broken Hill visiting Silverton and watching the sun set over the plains west of BH. Next stop Kinchega NP camping beside the Darling then onto Mungo NP.

There is a lot of dirt road travel but the NP's are worth it.

Graham