Understand
Summers are blazing hot and dry, and if the sun doesn't get you, the flies will, so the best time to visit is between May and October. Winters can be surprisingly cold, though, and even a small amount of rain will close most unsealed back roads. Occasional flooding can close roads for days at a time.
Distances are huge. Even on main roads, towns and villages can be 200 km apart. On the back roads, you can drive all day and not see another vehicle. This is a great experience of itself, but it comes with the risk that a breakdown will strand you for some hours, at least, and it should come as no surprise that you won't be able to use your mobile cellular phone to call for help. It is always important to have filled up your car so that it has at least 350 km worth of petrol gas in it and you should always carry plenty of water.
The towns are also generally very small, and have limited facilities. If you're very lucky, there may be some live music at the local club, but generally, life in these remote areas tends to be very quiet. On the other hand, the scenery is exceedingly beautiful, and there's plenty of it.
If you head west along the Barrier Highway, the red dirt starts at around the mining town of Cobar, out past Nyngan. North, the Kidman Way takes you up to Bourke of "back of Bourke" fame, in cotton-growing country near the Queensland border. West, the next town is Wilcannia, once a major port on the Darling River. Beyond Wilcannia is Broken Hill, population 21,000, a mining town with a long and colourful history.
South of Cobar is the vast, mostly empty middle of New South Wales. Crossed by the Kidman Way and the Cobb Highway, it's just scrub and a few tiny towns all the way to the south border of the state. In the middle of that is ancient Lake Mungo, site of the oldest known human cremation, and Menindee, a system of lakes in the desert, which only fill after months of rainfall in southern Queensland.
To the north-east and north-west of Cobar are the isolated opal fields of Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs, both places where people live "rough", and often underground in White Cliffs. Tours of some underground places can be arranged.
Finally, in the far north-west of the State, there are the strange rock engravings at Mutawintji, and the isolated town of Tiboburra.
