‘Beautiful one, perfect the next’

Sunday 18th June

Birdsville is beginning to get ready for the Big Red Bash which is a music festival in its 10th year. It attracts people from all over Australia, many of them coming up the Birdsville Track, in from the west on the Plenty and Donahue Hwys long dirt roads. In fact, there are no sealed roads to get into Birdsville. Some fly of course, usually the performers!

I did have some pictures of Birdsville but I dropped the SD card in the car and we can’t find it!

We left Birdsville today and headed east. Again we are travelling through the Sturt Sandy Desert and the scene is so vast and that it really takes your breath away.

We may have mentioned this previously but the Sturt Stoney Desert is named for Capt Charles Sturt who was exploring in this area in 1884 – 1888. It is interesting to note that his expedition had an ox team towing a 30′ boat!

This was because the early explorers were searching for an inland sea. The indicators were that a lot of the rivers flowed toward the centre from the Blue Mountain Range. They were right of course but a few millenia too late for the sea, however Lake Eyre, a vast salt lake, is the remnant of the inland sea and, yes, rivers like the Diamantine, Warburton and Cooper Creek all do still flow into the lake in years of heavy rainfall. As you can see from the map of the Diamantina system below that this causes a total disruption of movement over a very significant area, see the scale below which is in 10s of kilometres!

The Diamantina itself is barely noticeable in these conditions but in flood it can be 30 ks wide and several metres deep.

Currently the track is very good here and we make good time, until our tyre pressure monitor advises us that we have a ‘Fast Release’, which = Puncture. At least the warning ensures that we don’t ruin the tyre! Changing the wheel is no big deal but now we don’t have a spare and it is 200+ ks to Windorah, dirt most of the way. In fact, 40ks up the track at Betoota, there is a pub, yes a pub, nothing else for a 100ks in any direction but a pub! It is 6ks off the road but we go and have a look as we need somewhere to stop and mend the puncture. We pull up next to another Bushtracker and the guy, Brian, is more than happy to help mend the puncture which, with his help, takes about 15 mins, for which we are very grateful. It means we can get back on the road with the knowledge that we have a spare if necessary.

We get into Windorah a little later than planned and decide on the caravan park which is has space and we get ourselves set up, a cup of tea for me! This is the new part of the Caravan site across the road from the older one with nice new amenities and well laid out sites on gravel. A nice long hot shower rounds off a day of mixed fortune.

It is our friend Denise’s birthday today so we give her a call but get Brad ‘cos Denise is out somewhere! We discuss caravanning issues, they are leaving to head north tomorrow.

Monday 19th June

Leaving Windorah, Pat took this shot of the Old Courthouse.

Then just out of town we stopped for a look at the town’s power supply which comprises these ‘mirrored’ receivers, the town’s population of 100 is presumably amply supplied by these sun-catchers, however, there is also a diesel general for ‘when the sun don’t shine’.

There are occasional natural water holes that seem out of place in all the red dirt.

Today we head out through ‘channel country’, unfortunately we still can’t find the SD card to record the scenery as we go along which is a rather spectacular landscape of (currently) mostly dry creeks.

This is just one of the myriad of creeks shown on the map above, looking downstream and, upstream.

This one, as you can see is pretty low but you can see by the height of the sand (left side pic) that those trees just right of centre would be under water and we would not be on the causeway!

The section of the river system we are crossing is probably 50 or so ks wide but it is enough for us to imagine what it is like when there is heavy rain in the hills to the east.

The road is sealed from Windorah, so we made quite good time to Quilpie, where we managed to source an SD card for the dash cam, ‘oh no i hear you cry’!

East of Quilpie we were looking for a spot to camp for the night but the instructions on WikiCamps were not too accurate. We found it eventually about 3 ks further on! (Look for the phone tower).

Tuesday 20th June

Today was a fairly undulating run in annoying sense. QLD roads have apparently changed their methodology and material for road building, in particular the roadbase. As a result the roads are most uncomfortable, like switchbacks, the rig is literally bouncing up and down and sideways.

A lunch stop at Mungallala was a welcome break and we spotted this parasite plant called a Strangler fig, taking over a tree.

The road surface has meant that driving is tiring and we were pleased to arrive at Mitchell where we looked for a place called Neil Ross Weir, which is in fact a huge area where free camping is permitted. It was relatively easy to find somewhere to park but it was harder to find a level bit and some artificial assistance was required. The kettle is the priority in these circumstances and a cup of tea critical!

We had a look at the weir this morning, it is a significant construction, it’s purpose is to slow up the flood water as it heads downstream. It must be an amazing sight if you can near enough!

Wednesday 21st June

Another day of driving the bucking bronco, it really takes the enjoyment out of the run through this quite pretty part of QLD.

Tonight we stayed in a fairly basic but very nice bush camping spot just outside Chinchilla with sheep for company, fortunately the other side of the fence.

Tonight was the first night, since we left home, that we did not need the use the diesel heater – is this a sign?

Thursday 22nd June

Another jolly tiring day on QLD roads, we thought that by taking the ‘B’ road it would mean less traffic but it still turned out to be a ‘B’ road, the Birdsville Track was considerably better than this!

A lunch stop again provided a rest period at a place called Ficks Crossing, a really very pleasant spot.

A short drive brings us to Goomeri and its showground camping area, where we get set up and Roger has a very welcome cup of tea. We are able to sit in the sunshine though the wind is still quite pointed.

We thought it might be noisy here with a lot of trucks stopping for fuel and the bakery but in fact we heard very little noise.

We decided to stay here another night and on Friday we went to Murgon a few ks back down the road, visiting the information centre and having a very reasonable cup of coffee.

Then we went to visit a winery and had a very nice lunch with a good view.

We also visited the Joe Bielke-Petersen Dam (a past long-serving Premier of QLD), which is a huge expanse of water with boat ramps and a lot of camping areas.

Apparently I had a little sleep this afternoon!

A quiet evening.

Saturday 24th June

Today we have a short run to our friend’s place at Pomona. The last part of the route took us onto the Bruce Highway into heavy traffic (something we’ve avoided for a month!) Fortunately it is for a relatively short time before we turn off and about midday we arrive at their place. Their house is in 10 acres of sub tropical rainforest but is on the side of a gully and the access is really quite steep and has a few turns in it.

The last time we were here i managed to get the caravan down here – it wasn’t easy………………..

……………………… this time we left it at the top!

This is our trip to date.

Now we need to sit down and work out how we’re going to get back to WA!