After 16 days and 5000 km on the road, our last day sees us drive from Nyngan back home to Armidale. Our last photo-stop is at the Warrumbungle National Park. This area has some amazing rockscapes which can be seen from several tens of kilometres away.

The smoke haze that was quite prominent when we first caught a glimpse of the Warrumbungle Range has all but dissipated and can now only be seen as a blueish gauze in front of the rocks.

[We’re two weeks into our Grand Outback Tour and are now only a little over a day from home].

About 70 km north-west of Cobar we stop to visit the Mount Grenfell Historic Site. This location, where the Ngiyampaa Wangaaypuwan people used the rock overhangs as shelters, is a significant Aboriginal rock art site. The rock faces under the overhangs are covered with paintings made with animal fats mixed with ochres of different colours.

It is believed that, while the original paintings were made in the order of 4000 years ago, the most recent were made only 200 years ago.

[I’ve post-processed the images to increase the contrast and accentuate the colours in order to highlight the art].

Silverton, an almost ghost-town near Broken Hill, is where that region’s mining began nearly 140 years ago when extensive silver deposits were found. This photograph was taken at or near the original mine (it’s not obvious where the first deposits were found).