Gariwerd, in Victoria, is the southwestern tip of the Great Dividing Range that runs 3,500 km up the east coast of Australia.
Its a beautiful place for riding the back roads, walking in beautiful bushland, and taking in the views from mountain top lookouts.
Geriward is also a place of significance for Australian Aboriginals. There are over 200 sites of Aboriginal Rock art in Gariwerd. It has the largest number of rock art sites in southern Australia.
Gariwerd can be translated as meaning Mountains created by Bunjil. Bunjil is part of the Aboriginal creation story.
I visited a couple of sites on this trip.
‘Bunjil shelter’ is the only known representation of Bunjil with two dingo helpers.
Ngamadjidj is another site that is accessible.
The art is generally found in rocky outcops in Gariwerd.
There are beautiful walks through the forests…
To waterfalls…
And mountain top views…
For the motorcyclist, the riding both on and off road is excillerating.
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
From “Mulga Bill’s Bicycle” by Banjo Patterson.
I like stopping at the towns and villages recounted in the early Australian balads.
The flood plains of the Namoi River were full of water.
In the “land of drought and flooding rain” therehe had been a flooding monsoon north in tropical Queensland a couple of months earlier. The flood waters were slowly moving south, bringing vital water to the edge of the Outback as it travels thousands of kilometres to the Murray River, which empties into the Southern Ocean.
Wallgett was just a photo stop as my destination was Lightning Ridge, famous for its Opals.
Lightning Ridge is very much more a tourist town rather than a prospecting these days. Especially if compared to the Opel prospecting South Australia, Coober Pedy, and Blinman.
There are some good aspects to a tourist town….
The street art…
The Opal shops…
Even fine coffee with delicious apple strudel and ice cream.
Lightning Ridge sits on the Great Artesian Drive, a series of thermal baths drawing water from Australia’s Great Artesian Basin.
It was hot 30c in Lightning Ridge so I enjoyed the cold water of the campground pool to the hot spa.
My next stop was Brewarrina and little detour to Goodooga for a hot bath in the cool of the morning.
I arrived at the Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Brewarrina for the last cultural tour of the day
Brewarrina sits where the northern rivers come together to form the Darling River, which funels the monsoon rains of the tropical north of Australia southward along the edge of the Outback, providing precious water to a dry land.
Drone photo by Dave Kelly
Brewarrina, which means Tall Trees, was/is a special meeting place for Aboriginal Australians. The rock fish traps pictured above were built over 10,000 years ago. And were an intrcately designed so that fish could be caught and stored in ponds.
This photograph (below) from 1870 shows aboriginal children collecting fish from the fish traps.
Photo in Aboriginal Cultural Centre.
The banks of the Darling River also contain ochre, which is used for skin care and decoration by aboriginal people.
White ochre on the river bank.
Unfortunately, the high state of the river had covered fish traps. But a river full of water is something beautiful in itself.
And on the river bank, I spied some some red tailed black cockatoos. A beautiful bird that lives along the rivers on the edge of the outback.
From Brewarrina, it was time to follow the river flow south toward home.
Sea Lake is a small village in the Mallee Country in the North West of Victoria. It gains its name from the salt lake next to it.
It was a great opportunity to take my faithful old mighty Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 for a run.
Lake Tyrrell whose name is derived from the aboriginal word Deril which means open to the sky. It is Victoria’s largest salt lake that is believed to be formed 120,000 years ago.
The lake is a a light pink colour.
The thin film of water over the lake provides a mirror like finish and perfect reflections.
The outback sunset was just an amazing sight reflected on the lake.
The Lake is also a great place for star gazing and practising astronomy watching the endless sky of the outback.
Unfortunately the building cloud cover that added drama to the sunset made star shots not possible. But what a view this beautiful lake provided.
The Murray and Darling rivers converge at Wentworth. These rivers form the Murray – Darling Basin which is an area important for both food production and environmental diversity.
The Murray starts in the Australian Alps near Mount Kosciusko fed by snow melt and Alpine rain. The Darling is fed by the monsoons of northern Australia. In the photo you can see the muddy water of the Darling in the foreground as it mergers into blue water of the Murray.
I camped 20km down stream of the rivers junction on the banks of the Murray.
Beside the Murray River as it slowly rolls south west to the Southern Ocean around 500km away.
In many ways the Murray forms the southern boundary of the Outback or at least the southern east corner of the hot dry lands that are the outback.
I had ridden up from a cultural holiday in Adelaide and this was the first stop on the edge of the outback that would lead me to Mungo National Park (my next stop) then up the Darling to Bourke (previous post).
Leaving the banks of the Murray it was onto the dirt roads to get out to Mungo National Park – A World Heritage area.
It was hot and I was happy to set up my tent under a shady tree
The Park was once sheep station and the old shearing shed a relic of those times.
Mungo National Park has both colonial and aboriginal history. The colonial history goes back a century or so. The aboriginal history is an over 46,000 years continual association with the land.
This long association was confirmed with the finding of the remains Mungo Man and Mungo Lady. These remains that have been dated as 46,000 years old. These are the oldest homosapian remains found on the Australian Continent. These are also some of the oldest examples of ritualistic burial any where in the world. If you want more information follow this link: https://learn.culturalinfusion.org.au/story-of-mungo-man-and-mungo-lady/
Another feature of Lake Mungo is the sand dunes that stretch for 135km across the horizon like the walls of China, but nature made.
Areas of dunes are called Lunettes because of the luna type landscape. But in these dunes are artefacts tens of thousands of years old.
At sunset the dunes tale on a redish hue as the sun burns the sky orange and red.
That night I slept with wonderment of the place and what a tiny spec modern humanity is on the universe while sleeping under the milky way.
In the morning I did a tour of the dunes with an aboriginal ranger. As part of the tour I help artefacts 10,000 years old and heard stories of the land, this place that had been passed down from generation to generation in the oldest continuous culture in the world. Stories and rituals that had their origin back 46,000 years ago.
As I left Lake Mungo there was a Sand Goanna on the side of the road.
I thought it was wishing me a fond farewell but, looking back, I think that it was a sign that the 350+km of dirt road I had before me to get to Bourke was going to be a difficult and sandy ride.
Budj Bim in Western Victoria and the Cooring in south Eatern South Australia are beautiful and spiritual places. Particularly spiritual for the Australian Aboriginal people who have occupied and cared for the land for 10,000 years.
The purpose of the trip was to meet up with friends from Adelaide at Kingston SE which sits at the southern end of the Coorong. It also claims to be the lobster capital of Australia!
Budj Bim National Park was a stop on route.
The campground is noted for its families of koalas. Beautiful to see but their growling and grunting through the night makes sleeping a challenge!
The park is set around an old volcano. In the park there are small lava tubes and lava canals you can explore as you walk around the old crater.
The basalt rock covers the local most of the local landscape. On the road out to Tae Rak (Lake Condah) there is Tumuli (lava blisters). Unique basalt rock blisters dotted on the landscape.
Tae rak (Lake Condah) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tae Rak incorporates the oldest aquaculture farm in the world. An Eel farm that has operated for 6500 years
Due to recent heavy rains the lake was full of water and the still day meant the water was mirror smooth
At the cultural centre I joined a cultural tour with an aboriginal guide.
It’s about a half day ride from Budj Bim to Kingston SE and the Southern Ocean and an extra special sunset.
The Coorong is formed as the estuary of the Murray River (Australia’s longest river) where is flows into the Southern Ocean.
The Coorong is a series of lakes running south for 200km from the Mouth of the Murray. The lakes are separated from the ocean by high sand dunes.
The lakes vary from almost dry saline ponds to deep expanses of water brimming with wild life.
Climbing over the dunes the Southern Ocean is wild and cold and pretty much deserted.
Of course I could resist taking a dip in the cold ocean.
The Coorong was the setting for the famous Australian movie Storm Boy. Also in the documentary Wash My Soul that examines the life and music of Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach there is stunning cinema photography of the Coorong.
Dotted around the lakes are reminders of colonial settlement like the well dug by Chinese immigrants as they made the long walk from South Australia to the Victorian goldfields in the early 1800s.
In my 2022 travels this was my December trip. There was lots of water in the Coorong which was beautiful. The big flood waters that fell in NSW and Victoria in November are still yet to reach the Coorong and the Ocean. Maybe another visit in the next month or so to see the lakes in flood is on the cards.
A bit like opposite ends of road touring in Australia. The BMW adventure bike and my friend’s EV.
