Outback Spirit Corner Country Tour. 9th August 2026
Adelaide SA
Made our way by taxi from the West Beach Caravan Park to the Stamford Grand Hotel in Glenelg. After a coffee in the restaurant, we sat in the foyer, where we were joined by six or so other adventures all waiting to be picked up by the coach. The plan was to pick up the rest of the crew from the airport, have lunch and then be given a bit of a cook's tour of Adelaide.
Lunch was at the cafe at Mount Lofty lookout and comprised a bread roll and a cup of coffee. This of course was quite OK, but it was odd: there are tables of four and four bread rolls appeared, one each, but all different! I was lucky to snag the only ham one, but I also had the haloumi one as no one else wanted it. Both were excellent. Judy ran straight into the same food problem as she had on the Murray Princess. Despite nominating multigrain bread only, there were none. Upon request they immediately gave here 'Nourish bowl'. I laughed just at the thought of it. Basically it was a shredded cauliflower steak on a bed of chia with some tomato relish and fresh spinach with aioli.
The cloud had rolled in the moment we got there but I managed a snap of the obelisk which was erected in 1902 to replace the original stone cairn. It was originally used for shipping navigation and as a trig point for Adelaide.
The 'tour' turned out to be a drive up and down the main boulevards culminating in a visit to the park commemorating Colonel Light. Light was the surveyor who sited and set out the town of Adelaide. The park is situated overlooking the city and used to have a great view of the town and the hills beyond until they built the sports arena right in front of it.
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| Col. Light. Surveyor of Adelaide. Adelaide SA August 2026 |
From there we made our way back to the Stamford Grand Hotel in Glenelg for our evening meal and accommodation.
Such a grand sounding name. It may well have been once but seems to lost some of its inherit charm and character. This is the best I could do to make it look 'flash'.
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| StamfordGrand Hotel. Glenelg SA. August 2026 |
-> Blanche Town SA
Early start today and most happy to be leaving the drizzle and cold for what we hoped would be warm sunny climes as we proceed north. Let the adventure begin.
First stop (of many many stops as it would transpire) was for morning tea at Blanche Town, where we had been just the week before on the PS Murray Princess cruise. We parked up next to the river just before the bridges and quite some way from the Lock 1 precinct and proceeded to 'leg stretch' and drink tea.
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| Blanche Town SA. August 2026 |
-> Renmark SA
Renmark is our lunch stop, which consisted of chicken wraps pre-ordered from the bakery, eaten in the park in the middle of the main street. Knowing that the river was perhaps 50 metres away I couldn't understand why we hadn't pulled up around the corner at the nice park on the banks of the Murray. Oh well, early days yet.
-> Paringa SA
Paringa is all of 3 km from the lunch stop, right across the other side of the river. We were given an opportunity to admire the silo art. You be the judge.
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| Silo art. Paring's SA. August 2026 |
Mildura Vic
Let's backtrack a minute. Before we arrived in Adelaide the news came through that the Maree portion of the tour was cancelled due to flooding and road closures. And while this is perfectly acceptable, I couldn't help but feel a bit deflated as Maree and he Birdsville Track were definitely on my bucket list of places I wanted to see. But now, as we trundled eastward, we are told that the Mungo Lake section is also closed. Not the same level of disappointment, mostly because we have already done a brilliant tour there a few years back, but just another of those little blows that start you wondering just how much of the whole tour we might get to see. The bigger problem was that we were supposed to stay at the Mungo Lake lodge, and so the Outback Spirit machinery had spun into action to find accomodation and meals for 28 people on short notice. I never thought for one second that it would be anywhere but the Grand Hotel in Mildura. Here's that grand appendage again. And while the Grand Hotel is very nice, it too has lost any old world charm it may have had through the many successive upgrades it has had over the years.
Because of the change of plan, we had arrived in Mildura a bit earlier than we would have if we had gone to Mungo Lake, so we had a quick tour of the river front: Chaffey's homestead, the lock and weir.
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| Lock 1. Mildura Vic. August 2026 |
-> Wentworth NSW
Early start in the morning with the obligatory 'T&P' stop at Wentworth to view the confluence of the Murray and the Darling Rivers. Lock 11 is here too but up a flooded dirt track and half a kilometre away. I didn't think there was time for me to take the longer walk around the road, and assumed the bus would at least do a drive-by. But no, soon enough we were out onto the highway and north-bound.
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| Murray and Darling collide. Wentworth NSW. August 2026 |
-> Pooncarie NSW
A surprise! Instead of going straight up the Silver City Highway to Broken Hill, we took a right-turn into a smaller road leading to Pooncarie, some town unknown to me north of Mungo Lake. Pooncarie is where we would have come out from Mungo Lake if we had stayed on the original tour plan. Second surprise, the road is fully sealed all the way. Third surprise, Pooncarie, or 'Port' as it was known in its heyday, was a very busy port on the Darling river for the paddleboat trade. There isn't much of a town to be seen, but we were taken to the site of the old wharf where there is a little cafe that was closed for a private function - us. Here's a snap of where the old wharf was, but not a trace of it or anything else to do with paddle wheelers to be seen. And the mighty Darling is tiny! Not much more than a stream really.
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| Site of the old wharf. Pooncarie NSW. August 2026 |
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| Peugeot 204. Poncarie NSW. August 2026 |
-> Menindee NSW
Menindee was next on my list of must-go-there-one-day towns. No real reason, but there must have been some long forgotten connection. Maybe something as simple as reading a slogan once that said, Men die in men-in-die. As it turns out there is nothing to see in Menindee. Its only claim to fame is the The Maidens Hotel, which is where Burke engaged William Wright, manager of nearby Kinchega Station to replace Wills, who had been promoted to second-in-command after Landells had a dummy spit and left in a huff. And Menindee is where Burke split the tour group and left Wright in charge to gather more supplies and then follow him and the rest of the party up to the next depot. Here's a snap of bustling downtown Menindee, Maidens Hotel on the right.
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| Menindee NSW. August 2026 |
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| One of the Menindee Lakes & a weir. August 2026 |
Broken Hill NSW
Line of Lode Memorial and still closed cafe. Broken Hill NSW. August 2026
We have been to Broken Hill a few times, well twice to be exact. Once in 2002 with Judy's mum and dad, and a few years back in 2015 on one of our caravan trips. We went to the usual places of interest: Silverton, Sulphide Street train museum, Line of Load Lookout and the Royal Flying Doctor Service out at the airport. There was also a mineral / rock / mining museum that was new to us.
The accomodation arrangements this trip were a bit weird: Rooms at the Royal Exchange Hotel, meals one city block away down the street and across the road at the Astra Hotel. The Royal Exchange is an old hotel, which has retained its original charm and the stay was even more enjoyable because the room had a bath, so one cold soak some the bus trip out of ones backside and spine.
The meals at the Astra were fine as well. It looked very much like the only eatery open in town and seemed popular with the locals as well. We had been to the RFDS on both previous occasions and were expecting it to be a bit 'same old, same old', but they surprised us with it all being in a brand new bigger building and beautifully done, complete with some of the old restored RFDS planes, an introductory film and a chat by one of the volunteers. Well done RFDS volunteers!
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| de Havilland DH.50 single-engine biplane. RFDS. Broken Hill NSW, August 2026 |
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| Lump of almost pure silver. Broken Hill NSW, August 2026 |
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| The Comet. Broken Hill to Parkes express. Broken Hill NSW, August 2026 |
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| Inside the Line of Lode Miners' memorial. Each miner killed is listed (except 3??) with all the info they could find. People find it fascinating to see how young or old they were and how they died. Broken Hill NSW, August 2026 |
Those missing three? As you go up the hill your guide will tell you that all the miners are listed except 3. This is not true. They will also tell you that the three 'mullock' trucks you see represent those men, which is 2/3 true. Fact: all know miners killed at the mine during its operation are listed in the Memorial. Two of the three rusty trucks are placed as a memorial to mark the spot directly above the place in the mine, some 500 feet below, where a rock fall killed two men in 1902. These are the only two bodies never recovered from the mine. The third truck just happens to be there next to them.
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| Two rusty mullock trucks stand as memorials for the two young men whose bodies are still buried underground. Broken Hill August 2026 |
-> Silverton NSW
Silverton is about 30km west of Broken Hill and is one of those places you just have to go to, and then wonder why you bothered. Well, that is in my opinion, of course. Basically there is a pub and a few scruffy shops and galleries. There is also a decent museum we didn't get to this time. The snap below shows the main street. The Pub is on the right and a few tourists hanging around for lunch. Mind you, when the Mindi Mindi Bash is on (next week), the place will literally be swarming with 10,000 people and this street will be jam-packed.
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| Silverton NSW. August 2026 |
We left Broken Hill early, destination Tibooburra, gateway to Camerons Corner. Our first surprise today was that the road is sealed, I had always thought it was all dirt, north from Broken Hill. The second surprise, although it really came as no great surprise given the weather conditions out to he north and west, was that the road out of Cameron's Corner and up to Innamincka was closed, and possibly for quite sometime due to extreme road damage. Oh well, time to settle down and watch the landscape slide by. One shouldn't complain, travelling by air-conditioned coach at 100kph is way more comfortable than the way Sturt (1844) or Burke (1860) and his mates had travelled.
-> Fowlers Gap
We stopped at a place viewing spot on the side of the road called Fowlers Gap. we took a snap of a metal statue, an artwork, one of many in the area. The whole area is apparently owned by the University of NSW and is a research station.
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| Ghost of Pioneer, art work. Fowlers Gap NSW. August 2026 |
-> Packsaddle NSW
Packsaddle Roadhouse was our lunch stop. There is a story told that connects Sidney Kidman the 'Cattlle King', RM Williams the boot and saddle maker, and the Packsaddle Station. There is definitely a connection between the two men. RM Williams learnt the Adnyamathanha ('Rock People', from the Flinders Ranges) art of making leather goods from a single piece of leather and only basic manual tools. Williams then made himself a packsaddle and sold it (and subsequently hundreds more) to Kidman, thus ensuring his future. Kidman owned Packsaddle the Station at the time but I can find no further connection. Packsaddle the roadhouse is on land that once belonged to Packsaddle the Station before it was subdivided. Anyhow, interesting place with lots of old leather and sheep shearing artefacts and good tucker.
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| Packsaddle Roadhouse. Packsaddle NSW. August 2026 |
-> Milparinka NSW
Sometime after leaving Packsaddle we pulled into a tiny almost ghost town called Milparinka. the area was first visited by Europeans in 1841 when Sturt camped near the spring. Malparinka may well mean 'water nearby' in the language of the local Malyangapa people. The town itself came into being in the 1880s when gold was found in the hills nearby, and had its heyday in the 1890s. Rediscovered as a ghost town in the late 1990s it has been partially restored, parts are heritage listed and is now a great tourist attraction.
There are a few building that are either thoughtfully restored or at least stabilised, I quite like the courthouse and police station, complete with cells.
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| Rear of courthouse and police station. Milparinka NSW. August 2026 |
But wait. There's more. about 15 km to the west is Depot Glen, Sturt's home for six months during the drought of '85, and the final resting place of the only member of his party to die during the entire expedition into the interior.
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| Sturt's 1845 Depot Glen. Milparinka NSW. August 2026 |
XXXX Working progress past here XXXX
Tibooburra NSW
Innamincka SA x2
Wary Gate NSW
/ dog fence / NSW/Qld border
Noccundra Qld
Dig tree
Low level crossing
Cemetery
Birdsville Qld x3
Boulia Qld
Alice Springs NT
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