Day 61: Cunnamulla to Bourke, 255km

Nothing between Cunnamulla and Bourke, except the lone lady who sold roadside coffee out of a converted caravan - 120km from any town.

The coffee van, in the middle of nowhere

Bourke has a good museum - the Back o' Bourke Experience. The town was a major inland port using paddle steamers to bring in and ship out (through the Murray) wool from NSW and QLD. When the railway came in the late 1800s it was even bigger and Bourke was going the be the Chicago of Australia and the railway was to be extended to Darwin. They even planned to have a meat works here to pack and freeze meat and send to Sydney for export. For sheep stations not on rivers, there was a lot of argy bargy between the teamsters union (who ran the bullock carts) and the Afghan camel drivers who were brought in to bust the teamsters, and were based in Bourke.

Lots of emus in this part of the country

The old Bourke bridge over the Darling River, built 1888 and the first "lift" bridge, to allow shipping to pass in times of flood

Darling River 

The Crossley Engine

On the riverside in Bourke, they have a fully restored Crossley engine that they fire up each day at noon. Built in Manchester in 1923, this was part of the change from steam, as it ran on crude oil. The flywheel is 6 ton and it has two cylinders, each 54 litre capacity. It idled at 100RPM and had top speed of 260RPM and was designed to run 24 hours a day. It was originally used as a power generator in the Sydney Powerhouse, then it churned butter on a farm, then was used as a water pump in Narromine. It gave out 100 HP, but had 5,000Nm of torque! It takes a few minutes for it to stop after the fuel is cut off (the only way to stop it). It now runs on a mixture of diesel and oil. Because crude oil was hard to burn, it was started with compressed air, then burned kerosene to get it warmed up. The exhaust ran through the crude oil pit to warm it, making it easier to burn. It didn't start today as they are waiting on some custom piston rings and a head gasket. They still get the 80 year old guy who restored it 20 years ago to come out and run it and oversee repairs.