Lake Woytchugga
I left the Mozzie Capital of the world hoping to make the long trip through to the Emmdale Roadhouse on Day Five. It was soon clear the previous days of rough bitumen and head winds had taken their toll, and I travelled very slowly up to the Spring Hills, which I think show on some maps as Scropes Range.
The wind was now a full head wind, and the bitumen still very rough. I lunched at the Spring Hills rest stop 74km out from Wilcannia, and washed some very smelly riding gear. It took me three hours to cover 43km, which is much slower than I would expect, even for the climb.
There was a remarkable improvement in the bitumen after Spring Hills and I made up some time. I ended up camping 10k short of Wilcannia at an enormous shallow lake which I found in the morning is called Lake Woytchugga. (Why-choo-car. You can click on the picture to read it.) I spent the night with a melody of water birds. This was only half my hoped for progress on Day 5.
I took an old track off the road and camped about three metres up off the track on a flat patch of sand. During the night a 4WD drove past me- I could see its tracks over mine, but I didn’t hear a thing. That’s tired!
The photos below are between Little Topar and Lake Woytchugga. They are typical of the country at present. Only the arid land vegetation shows up the lie that this is wet country!
