After a beautiful drive from Broken Hill eastward through Wilcannia, NSW, I decided to head up a side road to check out possible underground campsite in the town of White Cliffs. It was very hot (around 39C/+100F) and I was looking for a bit of relief. Like Coober Pedy, White Cliff is an opal mining town in which most residents live under ground to escape the intense heat. I camped in a cool underground mine in Cooper Pedy years ago so I was hoping to find the same in White Cliffs. No such luck! They had an underground hotel, but no underground campsites, so I was forced to camp in a near deserted, extremely basic caravan park. Unfortunately, there was rain in the forecast so I had to sleep with my fly on – and this resulted in a very uncomfortable hot sleepless night for me. I have since learned a few tricks about my new tent to open it up a bit wider for more airflow. I’ve also found a fan useful to use at powered sites in caravan parks.
The drive up from the main road to White Cliffs was absolutely beautiful, but it contained a menagerie of road hazards with no fencing for roaming black cows, sheep, feral goats, kangaroos, emus, and more. They all have their own characteristics to watch out for. Kangaroos as the most erratic (they can change directions at any hop), goats seemed to like to cross the road in single file, cows were the slowest to move but hardest to see in darkness, and sheep were the most paranoid.
