10/05/2026 One Perfect Riding Day

 I had low expectations of the day when I was awoken before sunrise by the fellow in the neighbouring room talking loudly in his sleep.  Not any interesting secrets either, just loud talking-noises interspersed with his room-mate exhorting him to "Shut up!" but with extra swear words.

Tilpa Hotel just before sunrise.

My theory was that everyone who wanted to go anywhere in a hurry crossed the river at Tilpa and used the sealed road on the east side, leaving the west side to a smattering of locals and all the tourists on the Darling River Run.  The low traffic was just enough to pack down the black soil nicely after last week's rain, and it ran like silk under my tyres. The caravanners were all still tucked up in their boxes and I had the morning  to myself.  I watched the sun rise as little mobs of kangaroos set about their daily business and sheep woke up for the day.

Sunrise.

Long morning shadows.

Emus wandered desultorily across the road, stopped for a little chat, wandered in circles some more.  I got close enough to take a photo.  Eventually they saw me and did what emus do best: they panicked and ran away.

The hairy panic of yesterday had largely gone and wide floodplains of bleached grass stretched to low purple hills.  Water still pooled beside the road and a delicate shade of new-grass green fringed the clay pans.  There were multitudes of trees suitable for leaning bicycles. I stopped and walked over every grid, not that I couldn't ride over most of them but stopping reminded me to stand for a minute and look around me: to just soak up the stillness, the deep silence with no man-made sound, and the wide-open expanse of sky. I'd ridden out from under the airline flight paths and the sky was empty save for an occasional bird of prey, riding the wind in silence.

I kept expecting the road to get worse, and it kept getting better.  Despite all appearances, this was a pleasure to ride on: silky smooth and fast.  I fairly scooted along, achieving an astounding average moving speed of 13 kph.  Lucky there were no TDF contenders around, I'd have shown them up for sure.

I crossed the Paroo River just above its junction with the Darling.

The Paroo did not inspire excitement at this point in time.

Gate decoration at the entry to Kallara Station.  Kallara was one of the original station stays along the Darling but it was badly affected by flooding and was sadly closed to tourists.

I had plenty of time to think and as a result managed to solve most of the world's major problems before lunch, which I took sitting beside a convenient lagoon where two little ducks swam away as quickly as they could as soon as I sat down.

Water views for lunch.

A cluster of caravans (seven in a row!) came along at midday, all travelling together wrapped up in a cloud of dust and ruining my solitude.  Solo behind them came a German man in a landcruiser, who got very excited to see me and stopped for a long chat about bicycling and where to go and what to see and how to get there.

Mediocre, but at least someone made an effort.

There were a few reminders that the survival statistics weren't good for people who crashed on these isolated roads.

There were dirt airstrips at intervals all along the river, as many of the stations used their own fixed wing aircraft, in conjunction with helicopters and motorbikes, for all manner of station tasks.  The days of mustering with horses were long gone.

By early afternoon I had arrived at Trilby Station, a sheep operation that had been owned by the Murray family for 7 generations. Liz showed me to my room at the bunkhouse/shearer's quarters and left me to explore. I took my cup of tea past the shearing shed to convenient seats high on the river bank, and watched goats come down to drink on the opposite side while red-tailed black cockatoos settled into the trees above me for the night.

The river at Trilby was low and barely flowing, held back by weirs upstream.

"Nobody owns the goats" said Liz.  "But they're open slather if they're on your land.  We muster them up and sell them to the abbatoirs in Charleville or Bourke, and they go overseas to middle eastern markets.  When the kids were in boarding school they mustered goats every holidays and that paid for the next term's tuition."

Such beautiful birds, so hard to capture a photograph on my ridiculously inadequate camera.

Back in the bunkhouse three travellers from the NSW Central Coast had moved in and were preparing delicious vegetables for roasting.  I eyed them jealously as I prepared my gourmet dinner of dehydrated slop, and took myself off to bed before I was tempted to slide further into lawlessness by stealing roasted carrots.

Home for three nights: The Bunkhouse (aka shearer's quarters) at Trilby Station.