These wonderful trees – the purple ones are Jakaranda, the orange is a Grevillea, a gumtree – were the last we saw of the Warrumbungle region. The National Park suprised us last night with very low tempratures. We faced 4 degrees C and were freezing into the morning. After breakfast, accompanied by an interesting talk to a german-australian couple, we hit the road, along Newell highway via Dubbo, where we had a coffee, to West Wyalong.
The highway – in Germany, we would call it a Landstraße – stretches hundreds of kilometers through the landscape. Traffic is not very dense and we met mainly the long trucks, called „road-trains“. On the Newell highway, speed is limited to 110 km/h mostly. Closer to urban areas, it goes down to 80, then 60 km/h – and many townships have 50 km/h limit. Speedlimits are supervised by so called „average speed cams“ – you pass a bridge with cameras, the plate is registered and before the next township another bridge crosses over the highway. If you pass earlier than calculated, you must have ignored the speedlimit – and you pay…
That makes sense – because the highway is lined with dead Kangaroos. They are unfortunately not very clever and don’t learn how to avoid trafic. They have no natural enemies an are therefore not very skittish. We stoped in the park, when we saw two ‚roos at the roadside. They stared at us and stayed – even honking could not impress them. At last, they jumped away. Some however jump directly before the radiator grille…
But we arrived without any incidences in West Wyalong. It is a typical, little town along the highway – we wouldn’t even call it a town…
Astonishing, that even such little towns have so many motels and other accomodation – arround twenty here in West Wyalong. But we don’t want to show you these – we have a picture of the „highlight“ of West Wyalong – „The Wetlands“ – a little park with swampy lakes, that give a nice mirror for the trees in the sunset.
We finish the highway-day with a sundowner at the pool of our budget motel…
PS: Afterwards it rained…. ;-(
And that is our today’s track:
PPS: We would be glad to know wether the maps are good to read…make your comments!