September 1 to 11, 2013 - Winton to Charleville

September 1 to 11, 2013 - Winton to Charleville

The next day was going to be goodbye to Winton and on to the Diamantina NP for a complex few days before, then, the final run to Birdsville ... but you know us and plans.

As amended (because of people we have met who know all about how to successfully 'do' the Birdsville races), the newest plan is that we will spend one more lazy day in Winton and surrounds, then begin the 700 km (cha bu duo) dirt and made dash to Birders the day after via Boulia, and so miss those complexities of going via the Diamantina NP.

Just outside of Winton town is Bladensburg NP; the 'Route of the Rivergum'. If one is stuck in Winton on a Sunday with little to do it makes for a nice drive along some wild-life abundant dirt roads. It's dry around in the Channel Country right now; a drought is brewing big. Apart from the rivergums which line the many currently parched channels and remnant ranges in the form of flat-topped mesas and rocky scarps, one also sees, once again, vast Mitchell grass plains but this time we viewed them with different eyes.

Our trip with Charlie has made us 'experts'. Everywhere we see the Gidgee tree encroaching we say a little prayer for the plains. And, indeed, back at the Pelican Caravan Park that night we put the wisdom to work with two city (Melbourne) folk who thought they new all about the evil farming trade in the wide brown land!

Younger woman (daughter) : It all looks really terrible with the dead grass, they have cut down all the trees except in a few places where it looks much healthier.

Pete : Nah, that grass is the native, it's them trees that are the interlopers.

Younger woman (daughter), looking shocked at being corrected : Oh, I thought some farmer had just run amok with a chainsaw.

Older woman (mother) : Yeah, didn't they?

Pat : Nuh! Not every tree is a good tree!

Experts, in just one day.

So, the Mitchell grass plains are natural and have been here forever.  But it is wonderful country for stock - the grass is very drought tolerant and extremely nourishing for grazing animals.

Knowledge, right there!

In Bladensburg we also saw many red and grey kangaroos, and many many wallaroos.

And, also.

At one stage we spotted an emu running wildly through the scrub but scarily on a manic route that might intercept with Bruce at exactly where the road was. We hardly slowed, but boy could that thing run the pants off a kangaroo!!!!!!!!



Bladensburg NP: Western Grey kangaroo; dry riverbed with river redgums; two views of a white-necked heron - the spots on his neck are his breeding plumage.

Around the river in Bladensburg: White-plumed honeyeater; yellow-billed spoonbill; red-kneed dotterel; a eucalypt in flower; bones of a long-dead sheep (we think).

We want to get to Birdsville ... it is as simple as that. We don't know what to expect so the earlier we arrive for the racing carnival, the earlier we find out what we don't actually know! Pete has wanted to 'do' this most iconic of outback racing meetings for a very long time.

We have been told that for the less 'hardened', i.e. us, a camp spot in the caravan park rather than down by the many dust blown banks of the Diamantina River (not to be confused with the NP) is a good idea. They have real showers and it is close to everything but the race course. With the drought, there is also some serious potential for bush fires in the area.

Boulia (Bullya) overnight, on and on the next day.

What we are seeing this time of the year is but one half of the split personality of the channel country: Mitchell grass plains and flat-topped plateaus stuck in swirling willy willy deserts are not the full story. When the monsoons do come to the top north of Oz the Diamantina and Georgina rivers flow out over the plains after the rains in a million different channels. Brown becomes green; cattle eat and eat. Our road becomes impassable.

And, actually, a few years back it even rained in Birdsville just before the races were due to begin. People were stuck there for a week, and the races cancelled!

Of drought and flooding rain ...

Some of the scenery on the road from Winton to Boulia.

It's Tuesday, and timing is everything.

The campground is a thriving village already, but still with plenty of space to fill. We set up in the next available spot, and the people just after us (and before) do the same. They will be our neighbours for the next six days whether we like them or not.

Timing is everything. We like them!!!

Good spot, next to the billabong which is an overflow of the town's water supply.

Danny, the pom, Bruce and Lynette, from Albury, and next to them Wayne and Ti Ge from Brisbane.

Potentially, from Tuesday afternoon to Friday lunchtime is a long long time but that is the time of our arrival, and the time the races start on day one of them. We needed stuff to do, and especially as it was hot and dusty in the campground.

Amazing, really, there was a movie theatre (well, a town hall sort of thingy but with air-conditioning if you asked them to turn it on) showing an old film about the other Tom Kruse, the bloke who used to run the mail from Marree to Birdsville and back when Adam was wearing short pants. There was the actual Tom, older, on the screen playing a younger himself driving an ancient truck across sand dunes and flooded Cooper Creeks. How odd! Lots of other stuff. A permanent coffee shop/bakery, and a pub ... and temporary stuff, food and drink ... pancakes, hotdogs, fresh fish from a refrigerated truck ... stuff. Fun to be had, and company to have it with. Thousands come to a place where there is usually about a hundred or so, and most of that lot probably bird watchers so hence the town's name. We got to see a show put on by the Outback Stockmen's Hall of Fame (based in Longreach but they've sent someone and some animals here for our entertainment). The guy is excellent enough and so are his horses and dogs, and he can sing as well. The races have become a way of raising money for the RFDS, and people to be people. On the day before the Friday, Thursday really, things liven up a lot more. Small planes arrive with wealthy farmers and their entourages sat inside them, the cream of outback society, and they join in with the usual set of drunks and scallywags throwing empty beer cans on the ground because that is the way it has always been done. That old boxing tent from the youth that many of us spent is also here, and that starts Thursday night.

Fred Brophy's!

Scene : Fred Brophy has warmed the crowd up with some jokes and the recent history of the demise of boxing tents in the part of Australia best described as overly politically correct (NSW, Vic, SA). There is a tough looking woman boxer helping him win paying customers by banging the drum to attract any wandering about who don't know the tent is now working.

Fred Brophy : Before we start the blokes, are there any women who want to have a fight too?

Female voice from the crowd : Yeah, I'll have a go.

The voice pushes through the crowd and ascends the steps. She is a tall and strong looking woman, but not as thickset as the professional.

Fred Brophy : And what do you do?

Female voice from the crowd : Yeah, work a station.

Fred Brophy : Oh, you're a jillaroo.

Female voice from the crowd : No, I own it.

Fred Brophy (looking surprised) : You ever fought before?

Female voice from the crowd : Only sometimes, when my husband annoys me!

Fred Brophy takes a step back!

Two boys about twelve were also to fight; one had actually fought the previous year. Pat and Pete, being the politically correct souls that they are, chose not to go into the tent for the fights, but Wayne and Ti Ge did.

The big day came; time for some punting at last for Pete. Two days of racing, six races each day. We all (our little group of lifelong friends just met in the campground) took the first bus out. Tour group buses responsible for so many of the one man Arab looking tents dotted around the town also become racecourse buses for the two days. Two dollar donation from everyone not wanting to be arrested for drink driving!

Hot and dusty, long and tiring, bring your own chair, undercover provided by a tin shed, bookmakers betting 150%, women dressed in hats forged from beer cans ... Flemington it ain't. But fun it is, made more so by Lynette studying the form as a hardened old professional punter. Everybody in the group had a win, but we think Danny was probably backing every horse in each race!!

The female voice from the crowd was dressed in a pretty miniskirt but, alas, the little bit of blood in one eye slightly made her less alluring than she could have looked so dressed!

She lost the fight, Wayne and Ti Ge told us, but was not disgraced. The two kids made a fortune. Hundreds of dollars thrown into the ring after their fight by the crowd!

Speaking of money.

Pete finished well in front on the punt Day One!

Long wait in the queue for the bus back to Birders; the helicopter doing very good business, however.

Day two, do it all again. Same bus, almost the same spot for our seats, there was Voice in the crowd all mini skirted once again. The eye had developed a bit of a bruise around it.

Bruce won something on the day, Lynette backed the winner of the cup. Pete gave almost everything from day one back! But at least Wayne and Ti Ge had driven out to the course and so offered the older members of the group, Pat, Pete and Danny, a free trip back without the need to queue.

That'll teach them two young 'uns for winning!

Hard to know if we might ever come back this way ... but we might!!!

The queue at the town's only fuel stop; black-face woodswallow; ladies at the 'food court'; the 'mini' races outside the pub in the days leading up to the 'real' event.

Fred Brophy's boxing tent; the outback stockman's show with Lochie Cosser; one of the star turns of the show chatting with Pat.

At the races!  The crowd before and after the start of the day; beside the track; some of the planes at the airport.

Sunday, we are reliably told by some of the workers in the campground, should be renamed Pumpkin's day. Almost everyone leaves. Rush rush rush, last man home is a pumpkin; and etc. These are not roads to be rushing on, tyres die in this sort of terrain if you hit the wrong pothole with them. Horror stories on windscreens broken by careless youth rushing past, spraying stones as if they are confetti rather than granite.

And many of the potholes are, indeed, the wrong potholes.

Wayne and Ti Ge head off early, Brisbane in under 24 hours; Bruce and Lynette a little later and more sedately at first, anyway, to Albury.

Bon voyage!

Danny took us out to Big Red for the day, a sand dune out in the Simpson Desert about 20km to the west of Birdsville. 4WD enthusiasts spend their time trying to drive up to the tiered top of it.  For the most part they succeed, but usually after letting their tyres down even more. Next to the dune is a large shallow depression which still has water from the floods three or four years ago.  There are red-necked avocets out there, which we've never seen before, and white-necked storks, pelicans and swans.  Too far out to get a good photo, though, as Pat has kept the billion dollar child safely hidden away from the dust all week.

After Big Red, we head back through Birdsville and then out to the north to see the Waddi Trees; the hardest wood in the entire Milky Way galaxy. There are only three stands (or rather forests) of waddi trees in that said same galaxy, all bordering the Simpson Desert.  One is near Alice Springs, one Boulia, and this one close to Birders. They are very slow growing, Pete threw a large rock at a skinny one and it bounced back as if rock had hit rock. The wood is almost as heavy as lead! Having lived for 200-300 years, their wood doesn't decay for 200 years or more. Some of the fence posts and rails made from their wood in the 19th century are still intact today. For Geraldine (and that well known plant watcher, Peter B), they resemble the desert oaks of the central deserts which are casuarinas, but these trees are, in fact, acacias, like the gidgee and mulga.


A waddi tree; looking east (the remains of the floods from 2 years ago) and west (towards the next dune) from Big Red.

Birds and flowers around the lake at Big Red.

See ya, Danny, safe trip to Coober Pedy, mate!

We finally leave later on Monday morning, after breakfasting on pancakes at the Frontier Services stall located in the once was hospital, then drive for 6 hours along those forewarned of dirt roads that had several vehicles with flat tyres and broken windscreens littering their sides. Long wait for help, but people had seats to sit in, and books to read. Not too many pumpkins on the Monday, really!

Windorah, we camped out the back of the caravan park in the churchyard ... and got up early for petrol. Even Windorah gets in extra supplies for the Birdsville event!

The Dreamtime Serpent on a hill near Betoota; scenery between Betoota and Windorah; nests of Fairy martins under the tankstand at the caravan park at Windorah.

Then to Quilpie the next day. Different mood coming to us now, you can feel it. South is the direction from tomorrow, south eventually all the way to Sydney. We check out a free camping lake outside of the town but you need to be fully self contained and we are still being tourists so we wander around looking at the birds before heading to the caravan park. Pat checked out the museum the next day as Pete found a place for coffee. The Bulloo River system is completely contained inland - it covers an area of central western Queensland and flows into several ephemeral lakes as far down as Tibbooburra in NSW, and these 'waterholes' are apparently quite spectacular when covered with birds when in flood.  To the west are the rivers that flow into Lake Frome and Lake Eyre (another, much larger, ephemeral inland system); to the east is the Murray-Darling system, flowing all the way from north Queensland, covering most of NSW west of the mountains, and into the sea in South Australia. 

After we leave Quilpie we will head to Charleville, and be in the Murray-Darling system.

Walk along the Bulloo River at Quilpie: Coolabah tree (famous from Waltzing Matilda); Gidgee; little friarbird.



AT :ake Houdraman near Quilpie: Pacific black ducksl pelican and emu feasting; a nameless butterfly.

Quilpie: Outside the museum; the shire council offices.

August 18 to September 1, 2013 - Alice Springs to Winton

August 18 to September 1, 2013 - Alice Springs to Winton

Somewhere way back there it was said that we would be taking a short break from blog writing as Alice would be taking all of our attention.

Hmmm.

It must have sure taken some attention!

For all of those wonderful people wondering about what may have taken place in Alice all those months ago, please see the blog entry that Pat has set up with all of her photographs from that time (if she hasn't already sent it to you). Basically, this will include people wearing silly looking hats, birds, plants, and people wearing hats of varying degrees of distinction.

Anyway, here is the news. We are currently in Sydney house sitting, and it is now next year already. Time can really fly when it gets the chance. However, just because time can't be too fully trusted, that does not absolve you all from knowing what took place from between our leaving Alice and all that booming and banging over the Sydney Harbour Bridge just two days ago now.

Here we go!

. . .

August 18, up cracking with dawn!

And agog!

Bruce is pretty well all packed; enough time to see Pete's nephew Mitchell duelling down the straight with Steve Monghetti (Monners) in the Alice half marathon.  Then, farewell it is to Kim, Mitch and Bec; been a wonderful two months!  

Oh, and the chooks!

See you all at the wedding next Easter! 

Agog it is, then, and the open road once again.

We got a plan: visit Davenport Ranges NP; revisit Daly Waters pub which we first visited back when Captain Cook was being made into a sandwich; go to Borroloola; visit the dinosaur stampede at Winton; the Diamantina NP (there are supposed to be night parrots there); and then Birdsville for the races.  After that, wander down to Sydney so Pete can have his little operation. Birdsville races are the 6-7th of September; we need to be in Sydney on the 25th of September. We will be spending a lot on fuel in a very short time!

Not a hard first day, though, a few hundred Ks to a roadside rest area at Taylor Creek. Lots of chatty neighbours here, all looking for shade in a sunny world. Jeanette and Virginia have retired to a country retreat near Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula after many years working in Alice, Norm is a farmer at Lock also on the Eyre Peninsula. A pleasant few hours swapping expectations and being told of all the places we won't have time to visit on this little trip. Indeed, of some 'must see' places we had not even heard of

In the morning an English couple confused us by driving their van to another part of the camp site. Apparently, they have discovered that it's far easier to collapse their van's pop-top if the door of it is facing down-wind. We file this information in the repository of new wisdoms!

It is now officially getting hot again in Central Australia. Many of our fellow travellers get up early and are gone off before the Sun can wreak much damage on them, but we have some garnered wisdoms of our own. We are the last away (as usual), departing at 9:30. Why waste the morning's cool only to arrive at a destination in the heat of the afternoon? 

Familiar terrain for us, if only going backwards now. We pass Wycliffe Well with its UFO centre, then Wauchope and Devils Marbles, then turn down the dirt road to Davenport Ranges NP.  Rough old road. A side mirror bit its dust not once but twice, and on that second occasion became a little bit smashed.

Only a little bit!

Pretty enough road, though, half empty creeks and isolated farm houses amidst the great and drying outback.

Whistle Duck Creek camp ground had too many options, we had to drive around for a while to find the nicest spot. 

Oh, oh! 

We have become softheaded townsfolk in those two months in Alice. Forgot to cover the fridge vents on Bruce Van, lovely dusting of red on everything inside. 

Oh well!

In the night we hear a pair of boobook owls, a nightjar and some feral donkeys.  In the morning we are up early and walk the 2km back to the waterhole where we discover a whistling kite and a flock of wood swallows; and we see a beautiful splendid fairy-wren but not with a camera at the ready.

Namatjira could have painted here; see photos.


Davenport Ranges NP - native hibiscus; 3 shots of the picturesque gullies; moonrise and sunset from our camp.

Davenport Ranges NP - reeds at the water's edge; whistling kite circling overhead; the track from our camp to the waterhole; escape from the heat at the waterhole.

After the walk we broke camp for Tennant Creek. We had intended to stay for another night, but while it's a really beautiful place, today is very windy - hot and dusty. As said, we are still a little 'town' soft just yet.

We adopted the newly learned strategy of turning the van door down wind to bring the pop-top down. Well taught, that man!

In Tennant Creek Pete bots a rolly from a kind man in the camp ground that night (the one that's not on the main road) and in the morning we shop at the indigenous-run supermarket and then buy and fit a new super-duper side mirror which the man says may not ever fall off even under the roughest conditions.

Onwards, again!

Daly Waters, after all these years!

Back then, Pete had said to Pat "Let's just drive to Darwin and see how long it takes". We didn't really even have a map, let alone any idea what we might find in those two weeks. One of the places we did find was this pub just off the main road that had a few hardy souls camping in tents, and about as many in caravans. The pub sold one meal: crocodile and barramundi with salad, and laid on a man with a guitar and a voice as good as any county and western singer in the business to soothe the thirty or so hardy souls chewing on the croc in the beer garden.

A cultural oasis in a tough old desert!

However ...

Some things change, some things do not!

Same menu, same sort of bloke with the same sort of musical equipment, just bloody hard to find any space in the camping ground or in the bar garden at the pub.

And we stayed two days so heard the same jokes told in the same order by the same musician. More birds here now, though, the lord taketh away as it giveth!



Daly waters: White-breasted woodswallows on an overhead wire; peacefule dove; black-faced woodswallow (with a yellow head!); a tiny double-barred finch; rainbow lorikeet; the main (only) street.

Next morning, we head back down the highway to the Borroloola turnoff, then off east along the Carpentaria Highway.  We pass rest areas where small birds drink from pans under the water taps.  The tanks are kept filled for passing travellers to use.  We lunch at one of the rest areas, chatting with another Victorian couple.  They will stay at Cape Crawford - a roadhouse/pub/caravan park in the middle of nowhere.  Well, not actually nowhere - it's about half way between the Stuart Highway and Borroloola, so almost 200km from the nearest somewhere; and to the south there's the Barkly Highway, but that's about 400km.

So, really, the middle of nowheres!


Carpentaria Highway: Unknown yellow flower; a grevillea; white-throated honeyeater on a tap; brown falcon; small birds drinking include grey-fronted honeyeater (with the bright yellow flash), the bigger long-tailed finch and the tiny double-barred (black bars across white chest) and zebra (black and white striped tails) finches.

A couple of nights in Borroloola. Time spent chatting; time spent in a museum. The usual.

In the camp ground we met a couple working as producers on a project to document/record/save indigenous languages in the area. A long discussion took place on the merits and insults of the John Howard intervention. Both sides were expressed. But, really, these two are involved in so much more than just a project here; the indigenous issues of Australia have become fully central to their lives. With the change to Bunk Abbott just around the corner, what becomes of their lives in a  few tomorrows from now is a large and complex question. Canberra here they come?

In the afternoon we also chatted with a couple who have been camping on the McArthur River (after which the McArthur Mine is named) near where it runs into the Gulf at King Ash Bay.  The following morning we check it out.  There's a big camp ground owned and operated by the Darwin Fishing Club, but you can camp anywhere along the river and pay about $30 a week to come in and use their facilities.  The local aboriginal owners welcome camping on their land here.

We also took the opportunity to visit the museum detailing Borroloola's Caucasian heritage. Pat was happy just to find a museum!!

McArthur River looking towards the Gulf of Carpentaria.

On our way back out we stopped at the Caranbirini Conservation Park, home of the 'Lost Cities' sandstone formation and a large permanent waterhole (with birds, of course). See below.

Then the driving began in earnest. Birdsville races and dinosaurs both a beckoning somewhere ahead. From Cape Crawford (such an ironic name for a place so far from the sea) down the unsealed Tablelands Highway across the Barkly Tablelands towards the Barkly Highway; we camp overnight at Kiana Turnoff rest area where only one other van is parked.  Anyone who meets Pete should ask him about the 'toilet incident' that took place here.

Next day, we lunch at Barkly Homestead and make it on to Avon Downs police station where there is a rest area with lots of people where we camp for the night.  Ahhm. People should also ask Pete just simply about the toilet here. These new age eco dunnies certainly lose their charm when your fellow travellers do not honour the instructions about what not to put down them. Dead microbes = living smells!


Birds at Caranbirini: A pair of green pygmy-geese; a collared sparrowhawk; a restless flycatcher (resting for a millisecond).



Part of the 'lost cities'

Along the Tablelands Highway: Common bronzewing; a sarus crane among the brolgas; little friarbird and brown-fronted honeyeater searching for insects; white-throated and grey-fronted honeyeaters facing off across the water.

We leave early in the morning and head to Camooweal for breakfast before continuing to Mt Isa (civilisation again!) where we stay two nights being tourists - visiting 'Outback at Isa' (museum, art gallery and native gardens) and Riversleigh Fossil Centre which is a museum containing information and fossils from Riversleigh. 

Somewhere along the way one of the arms of Pete's glasses had just snapped off and been repaired by gaffer tape (very useful item, gaffer tape - no camper should ever leave home without it). The broken arm was replaced with one that doesn't match the original; looks odd but works.

You need to be inventive in the outback; or have three weeks to waste waiting on a replacement.


Birds of Mt Isa: Little friarbird; whistling kite on nest; red-winged parrot; Australiasian grebe (without its breeding colours); little black cormorant with little pied cormorant behind; hardheads (male has white eye); grey-crowned babbler.

On the way to Winton we stop at McKinlay in the parking area behind the pub and meet some gem fossickers from Frankston. With Bunk Abbott just around the corner this may become the superannuation scheme of the future; finding the big one! Stopping for coffee and cake in Kynuna, we saw a brolga statue in the truck parking area. After ten minutes the statue actually became a real brolga.

An odd place to find a brolga!

In continuing the bird theme, at Winton we stayed at the Pelican caravan park.

Smallish town, a place to restock on food and pre-book a tour out to Dinosaur Land because the road is, reputedly, not one of Australia's finest once the bitumen runs out; and it's about 100km.

We have chosen a tour with the Carisbrooke Station folk; it will first take us onto their station and then to the Lark Quarry excavation site where one can see ancient footprints of several different kinds of dinosaurs allegedly running around in a wild 'stampede'!

Charlie, our octogenarian guide, had much to speak of, and more even to say. There is severe drought in the area because the monsoon failed this year but Carisbrooke's successful use of innovative 'key line' irrigation makes it less so for Carisbrooke for now, anyway. However, a larger and longer term problem is appearing for the locals. The eons old Mitchell Grass plains are receding; being overtaken by once abutting gidgee trees for reasons no-one can fathom (perhaps we should ask Bunk Abbott?). Charlie spoke of lots of other stuff, also; of the history of grazing in the area; and of the many plants and animals endemic to the region. A wealth of local non-indigenous knowledge but, alas, an avowed fan of "Joh Petersen".

We also got fed a lot: morning tea (billy) and cakes (from the Winton visitor centre); lunch, bread and meat and salad to be sandwiching with; and afternoon tea that involved homestead baked cakes (by Charlie's daughter-in-law, his son runs the station these days, while he himself lives in town) once we had done Lark Quarry.

The usual graphics based movie was on show there at Stampede Land; a visual reconstruction of little dinosaurs fleeing from a big one in a stampeding manner. According to the guide there, though, some archeologists think it might not have been a stampede at all. Hmmm. This is why we came out here?

Theories masquerading as facts; ain't Science a wonderful thing! 

In any case, the footprints are so clear that some of our tour companions even suggest the whole place might be man-made as a tourist attraction.

Oh good; now we've got conspiracy theories also to keep the water clear and cool!

Still, not a bad way to spend a day. After an 8am start, we are back in town (Charlie drives on these rough roads as if they were bitumen highways) by 6pm.





Some views of the spectacular Carisbrooke station (top 4); a very ancient rock formation which we unfortunately can't remember anything about; small and large dinosaur footprints; and Charlie preparing billy tea for us.