April 10-12 Above: Cotton Bales waiting transport to the Gin
Next stop was Dirranbandi, on the bank of the Balonne Minor river, becoming the Bokhara a little further downstream. Upstream from here the Balonne divides and becomes the Culgoa and Balonne Minor. Further downstream the Bokhara flows into the Barwon and this and the Culgoa merge to become the Darling between Brewarrina and Bourke.
Dirranbandi is another small town hanging on solely on the basis of the surrounding farms; they recently lost the Newsagent and news was taken over by the licensed Post Office; but they gained a Pharmacy.
There is a recently re-opened free camp on the river about 4km out of town, and one Caravan Park where we stayed for 3 nights. Usually relying on seasonal workers for the Cotton season, this year is very quiet with only a small amount of crop having just been harvested.
Dave, the caravan park owner, is also the town Electrician and does tours of Cubbie in his Nissan Patrol. Five of us went along and enjoyed an informative 2 hours drive through the main station areas. Unfortunately harvesting had been completed about a week before but there was plenty of activity moving the bales to the Cotton Gin; now also owned by CubbieThe well known Cubbie Station had only about 25% of their full crop capacity and will have even less next year with only a 2% water allocation.
