Day 5: Mon 12 May 25 - Griffith to Mount Hope Community Hall

May 12, 2025

Mon 12 May 25 - Griffith to Mount Hope (210km)

Weather: 7 Deg at 6:00am, mostly sunny in the morning with clouds building in the afternoon, reaching 25 Deg.

After a slow start, we drove away from the caravan park at 0945, stopping a few minutes later in town to visit Bertoldos Bakery for some fresh Italian bread, coffee and biscotti, which was consumed at a park shortly after on the way out of town. We eventually drove away from Griffith heading for Hillston, where we planned to camp overnight on the banks of the Lachlan River, but when we arrived, the river didn't look as nice as it sounded. After a look around, and some lunch, we continued north towards Cobar. I have never seen so many dead kangaroos on a stretch of road. Thankfully we didn't see any live ones that might jump into our path. The road was quite rough in patches, but there was very little traffic to contend with which was nice. We eventually reached Mount Hope where we decided to stay overnight at a free camp. There's only a pub and a few homes here, as well as an old abandoned copper mine which I checked out before sunset.

Stop at Merriwagga between Griffith and Hillston.

This Black Stump legend here relates to the death of the wife of a teamster who was travelling with her husband and his team of bullocks, probably carting wool on a stock route between Hillston and Gunbar about 15 kilometres west of Merriwagga. On this particularly hot day while her husband was away finding feed for his bullocks, her dress caught alight from the cooking fire and she burnt to death. The husband is reputed to have described her burnt body as looking "just like a black stump".