We wake early, it is six hours drive to our destination and we don’t want to be too rushed. We pack up quickly, grab snacks for breakfast and hit the road. We expect that there will be somewhere for a half decent breakfast in Wilcannia, which is about an hour away and where we’re due to refuel.
We should have learnt our lesson in Bourke - there isn’t really anywhere for breakfast in Wilcannia, at least, not a Sydney breakfast. The petrol station calls itself a restaurant, and that seems to be more or less all that is on offer - no smashed avo here.
I have been collecting postcards along the way and go into the Post Office to get some stamps for them all.
“Can I get five international stamps please, for the UK” I ask the lady behind the counter.
Her face drops. She turns to her colleague and starts muttering. They both look panicked. It is clear that nobody has ever asked either of them for an international stamp before.
They call over a third colleague to help. She is much younger than the two ladies behind the counter and appears to know how everything works. She calmly explains to the first lady how to process an international stamp in the till, and then open the drawer to find the stamps, and then, after some shuffling around in the drawer, explains how to turn to the customer and politely tell them that there they don’t have any international stamps, but to ask if a parcel label will do instead.
I shrug.
“If it does the job, sure!”
I leave with five parcel labels.
Next stop White Cliffs, it claims to be Australia’s first opal town and friendliest. It certainly seems like a friendly place, and we briefly stop at the general store which is also a cafe selling hand made arts and crafts.
As we leave, we pass a couple of local health workers, they smile and nod. One of them picks up her phone.
“Dentist, yes, I’ve got one on Tuesday but there are five appointments and twenty people waiting”
We hit the road again. It is unsealed for the next few hours.
We stop in Tibooburra for a quick break and to grab some essentials before hitting the final stretch.
The road into Sturt National Park is long, unsealed and passes through a vast, open, unchanging landscape. It is amazing to see so much open space.
Our destination is Cameron Corner. The point at which NSW, SA and QLD meet. It is September 2020 and COVID-19 means border closures across Australia and the world.
We planned this trip because it is the furthest we can possibly travel right now, and that alone makes it an exciting thing to do.
As we near the corner, QLD appears beside us.
We press on and soon we are at the imposing Dog Proof Fence that runs along the NSW/SA border. The gate is shut, and a ranger is patrolling.
We pull up, Joe jumps out and waves at the ranger.
“Are we allowed to go through” he asks.
We all know that we can’t go into QLD, as QLD have been very vocal about their border closure, but none of us have actually checked if SA is open or closed.
“Sure, you can” she says “you’re only going over to look and come back aren’t ya!”
So we open the gate, and briefly cross over into SA to make our way to the corner post that marks the meeting point of the three states.