RV TRAVEL
There are plenty of iconic drives through our outback that follow explorer routes, but I reckon this Darling River exploration is just as iconic.
The Darling River, the third longest river in Australia, is well known for various reasons, from its poor health and management in recent times back to hundreds of years when the Barkindji people lived along its systems. Our early explorers followed the river and used it as a base when seeking out new pastoral land. In later times, the river was used as a transport system.
Without water, expeditions couldn’ t move forward or survive, so by following and using the Darling, they could expand into areas that hadn’ t been mapped out.
I’ ve done this drive a few times and it never disappoints. This time, our starting point was in the beautiful town of Bourke, NSW. Charles Sturt passed through the area just before 1830 when he was looking for the inland sea. He quoted in his log that the area would be unlikely to become the‘ haunt of civilised man’. But he was very wrong.
Over the next few years, the area grew and and the river was used intensively for trade. In 1880, Bourke was the transport centre for south-west Queensland and western New South Wales, with bulk wool being transported down the river each year.
The Darling River was in flood during Kev ' s trip.
/ 45