TRAVELLING ROADS LESS TRAVELLED. Mungo to White Cliffs painting 2021

Mungo, Broken Hill to White Cliffs outback Art Tour 2021.

What an adventure it was! from a flat battery to a broken back bus window and terrible roads full of corrugations, dips, rocks, gravel and sand, we bounced along through wonderful landscapes and great little towns, painting our way through outback NSW.

Overnight in Balranald- where I had the biggest and best steak I have had for a long time!

Mungo! Fantastic view across the lake (no water) to the Lunettes from the lookout, where we sang happy Birthday to one of the group and partook of a delicious fruit cake supplied by our driver Peter, from Murray Off-Road Adventures. Painting at Mungo Woolshed, walking on the Lunettes at Sunset, enjoying a delicious meal at the lodge, It was great. Mungo is a wondrous place and because we couldn’t drive around the loop track we had one session painting the lunette in the morning, and in the afternoon painting another view from a boardwalk at the back of the lunette, which was solid and sculptural.

Menindee with its  river red gums decorating the banks along the Darling River was spectacular! An afternoon cruise on Lake Weatherall to see the sunset was a highlight. We saw lots of birds, and trees, and some unusual colours as the sun sank. A mornings painting at Kinchega Woolshed, beautifully preserved. AND we found another fabulous spot to paint on the Darling River again that afternoon.

Broken Hill! Lunch at Bells Milk Bar, we were transported back to the fifties! Dinner at the Palace Hotel ( of Pricilla fame) covered in paintings of landscapes from ceilings to walls! Painting at Silverton, the Silverton pub for lunch of course, and viewed the vast Mundi Mundi plains where Mad Max was filmed. We visited the Sculpture park for another Sunset along with all the other tourist buses! Pro Hart Gallery, and the Regional Gallery were worth the visit.

BUT!! The next morning on the road to Mutawintji we struck the worse road I think I have ever travelled on, and never again will! Pot holes, Dips, corrugations, sand, rocky surfaces it had the lot! We bounced around like corks in a bottle. After all that we had some time to paint along a dry creek bed. Then off to White Cliffs over another just as bad a road, arriving just in time to have a look at the opal diggings, white in the fading sunlight,  and to get changed for our final show and tell and dress up dinner. We had a ring neck parrot, an emu, a Pricilla, a lunette, and an artist hat with brushes, and the outback hat as well. What a great mob !!! White Cliffs is an experience once tried, never forgotten, and the Underground Hotel a real rabbit warren. Somehow we managed not to get lost in the labyrinth of tunnels.

Driving across the Hay plains was a highlight for me. Flat as far as the eye could see. An overnight in Hay and then back to Canberra.

Favourite spots? Mungo, Silverton, and White Cliffs.

So as we rest our legs, backs, hips and heads we can reflect on what we saw travelling through that vast landscape, playing paddy melon Bowls to stretch our legs on the way, painting in places we had never been, seeing sights like, a junk and a pirate boat, built in Covid lockdown sailing up the Darling River. Staff from Mungo singing Happy Birthday complete with sparklers! Lovely work done by all in our show and tell times on the way. We have come back with plenty of reference for future paintings!

Our painting group and Jeanie from Murray Off Road Adventures