Part 2 - Broken Hill to Cobar then Home.

Photo courtesy-  Barrier Daily Truth

The Broken Hill area has a rich history and much has been preserved for us all to visit and enjoy.  The Broken Hill Uniting Church was getting ready for a birthday -125 years of service to the town and surrounding properties. Valerie White, the church secretary, has even been polishing up the foundation stone!This will be a big event and a great booklet has been printed for the marking of this event.

Next day a big group headed ‘up the road ‘to farewell the outgoing minister of Cobar. By the way-‘ up the road’ to Cobar is 456 km  round 5 hours both ways! The fellowship was great! We had dinner Friday night on arrival, then next morning, the last service at Cobar with Rev Ian Tucker, 50/50 Frontier Patrol and Cobar /Nyngan Parish. This was followed by lunch and then a Closure of Service. The SES and all the local churches presented food which was wonderful. Then it was dinner at the Bowling club for around 20 of us! Such a day with a long drive home for many, including the local Presbytery minister and his wife. They had to drive up the road to Nyngan to do it all again the next day.
I shot through.

From Cobar to home it is around 500 km. Even though the sun is shining, all the dirt roads are closed from the good rain that fell this week. Big sky country has and very different feel .With farming, mines and tourists everywhere you go sharing the road with road trains with big loads some as wide as the road , then there are the roadside hazards,goats are in plague numbers. The conditions mean they have twins- cute- but they eat more than the stock. They go through the fences. One good thing is that they run away from the road most times.

There were emus too, in big mobs. I got a shot of them- camera not a gun! and by the number of dead roos there are a lot of them around too. Pigs have also become a major problem round here. They are not something you want to hit with your car!

This is the why people have lived and moved over this land from the beginning of time : it has beauty and ruggedness, sun sets that look like the sky is spreading the sun across the mountains . It has a mining Industry that goes deep into the earth to bring out the raw deposits to make all we crave. It provides an army of men and woman big money but at what cost? The same land grows crops and stock that feed us. It’s a harsh country in the dry but it has finally rained. Who will win the fight to survive? Many I talked to hope to make some money for the first time in many years.

As you look out into the distance across the Mundi Mundi Plains you see how small we are in the scheme of things.....

                                 ......Yet God loved us while we were still in the womb!

                                                                                                                           -Phill Matthews