Birdsville!
July 5, 2007 on 9:30 am | In Travels, June | Comments OffWe finally made it to Birdsville today, we had enjoyed the journey so far and have especially been loving bush camping. Last night we slept in the car for the first time, just to see how it goes and if it will be comfortable and we didn’t mind it at all. For quick one day stops its more than adequate and keeps us a little warmer, the days are beautiful but the nights are cool, down below 5 celcius I would guess. I think last night may have got close to 0.
Along the Birdsville Dev Rd, taking us into Birdsville, there isn’t a lot to see and not many people around. We met one couple when we stopped at a lookout at one of the highest points in the area (see the slideshow pictures) that had a monument to a young lad that died in a helicopter crash in the area.
There was also a nice old wreck of a car that I reckon has been photographed a few times ( but not with a troopy eh? Hehe).
The sand dunes along this road were very cool, the best of them being just on the outskirts of Birdsville, just before the racetrack.
We were planning on heading to the bakery in town for a quick bite, but instead got sidetracked by a café. Just like Gunther Diex in Captains Flat, this café is run by an artist who had come from Germany and eventually setup shop in Birdsville, fell in love with the place and stayed. The café is actually run by his son, but it’s a lovely place with loads of character and some very nice artwork on show. Well worth a visit if you are in Birdsville…they even had broadband internet available, but I wasn’t up for technology at that point.
Birdsville has a bore that supplies the town water from the Great Artesian Basin. The water comes out at around 100 degrees celcius (see slideshow pictures) and is run down some natural channels to cool before being stored for town use. It was very steamy and hot just standing 15 feet from the outlet.
There was also a nice old ruined hotel in town that captured my eye and seemed to be quite photogenic.
After taking a few pics, we filled up with fuel, topped up the water tanks, checked to see if we could replace the mirror (no luck) and moved onto start our great adventure down the Birdsville Track…YEEHAAAA!
On the way out of town we noticed a very small sign pointing us to the Bourke and Wills tree. So we checked that out and found that it was a tree that had their initials carved into it. We were then informed by another tourist that this isn’t THE tree…apparently THE tree is on the Cooper and we shouldn’t confuse the two…fair enough I guess. I got some nice pics of this one anyway.
Out of town we wondered how long it would be before the dirt road that was pretty much a highway became a track. We came to the SA border and the road was still wide enough for 5 cars and flat as a tack. Birdsville Track? Hmmm, I think that name needs a bit more thought.
There are plenty of sand dunes along this way, all very picturesque and haunting in their own way. Its very desolate although there is a lot of small plantlife at times.
We decided that for tonights camp we would hide behind a large sanddune, in an area that appears to be a bit of a lake when it rains hard. The surface was well compacted and it was safe enough, not being a runoff area or anything.
We had a great camp here, cooked a roast in the camp oven YUM and enjoyed one of the quietest nights camping we have had yet, not a sound was heard, it was kind of eerie actually.
Bush Camp 2
July 5, 2007 on 9:27 am | In Travels, June | Comments OffWe did actually get up early this time. Hoping to get up with the sun, we realised this morning that the sun actually gets up at about 7am….that’ll do I guess.
Quick pack up and we were on the road again. We headed straight out to Windorah, planning to have lunch there before heading off again. We were very pleasantly surprised by Windorah. For such a small town there is obviously a lot of pride in the town from the locals. The public toilets were very nice, well cleaned and even had flowers in the ladies (or so I hear).
We had lunch on the medium strip of the main street (there was a picnic bench there) and headed to the only café in town for a coffee…only to find out that they had run out of coffee and had sent someone to Roma for more, hehe.
100kms or so out of Windorah the road turns onto the Birdsville Developmental Road which is a nice well looked after dirt road. No problems at all. I had been running 50psi in my tyres until this point, but decided to drop 10psi out of them just because I could. The road did have plenty of rocks around and I didn’t see the point in risking tears or punctures.
We got about 10kms down this road and decided we wanted to stop and camp again. It was about 3.30pm and that would give us time to cook a nice meal of Butter Chicken in the camp oven…yummmmm.
So anyway, the camp we had was about 10kms down the road, then we turned off the road into the bush (what bush?) and drove about 500mtrs to a very small line of trees that followed a dry creek. It was sparse cover, but good enough for us. Of course, the first tree we drove close too decided it needed a sacrifice, so we donated our left mirror to the bush gods, knowing that it would be well received.
This area had a strong smell of the sulphur smell that we have smelt in the water lately..we could only guess that its from when the creek runs and perhaps had left its smell in the area, either way we got used to it no problems.
Stage 2
July 5, 2007 on 9:24 am | In Travels, June | Comments OffWe were up at sparrows fart today to get going good and early. Must have been about 8am by the time we got out of bed…yeah it’s a tough life.
We filled up our water tanks with local water from the Motel. The water in these parts smell very sulphuric, like rotten egg gas. Its also very soft and feels slippery on your skin. Its just because the water is bore water, its perfectly fine to drink and the lady at the Motel was telling us that its always very hot. In fact in summer time she has to turn off the hot water system and use the hot water pipes to deliver cool water to the rooms and the cold water taps then become hot water straight from the bores.
We drove onto Charleville, which is actually quite a substantial town. But finding a petrol bowser there is a bit of a challenge. In the end we found two, both Shell and both within a couple of doors from each other.
We had to do some posting in Charleville and some other business. We found out that there is a local Aboriginal artist there that makes all his own digeridoos and other painting and equipment. He was such a nice bloke, he invited us into his home to look at all the stuff he had done and him and his mate spent a good deal of time playing tunes on the digeridoos and explaining to us how they make them. It was a good afternoon and very informative.
If you are in Charleville I would very much recommend you look up Geoff Manthey (07-4654 1352 or kowari@growzone.com.au) as his artwork is excellent and the prices are all very reasonable. We will certainly be looking Geoff up in the future to buy some more stuff from him.
Finally finishing up at Charleville we hit the road again planning to try to get at least a good chunk of our trip done in the next couple of days.
The road conditions reduced considerably after Charleville, turning into a single lane road with plenty of roadworks on it…but it was still bitumen.
Nothing much about Quilpie or the other places along the way.
By the time we hit Cheepie (a VERY small town with a huge population of 2..count them) we were ready to camp out, it was about 3pm and we wanted to get the tent up and aired out a bit. But we didn’t want to camp near people. So instead of heading off the highway to the right and heading into Cheepie, we turned left down a small dirt road and drove about 5kms down that before going bush for a few hundred meters.
We were well and truly off the track and had a very nice little bush camp were we could relax and not be disturbed. We got the tent aired and dry very quickly as the air was very dry there and quite warm. We got a nice fire going and cooked up a great meal (Camp oven Stew…yum) and had a great night relaxing by the fire.
Leaving Brisbane
July 5, 2007 on 9:22 am | In Travels, June | Comments OffWe decided to head to Adelaide and figured that since neither of us had traversed the Birdsville Track that we really should do that on our way. We needed to be in Adelaide by Thursday the 5th and so if we leave on Tuesday that gives us 8 days to make our way…that should be enough time to do the track and not be too rushed about it.
So Tuesday we got up very very early in order to get packed and get going early for a big drive up the Warrego Hwy. Only trouble was, it was absolutely bucketing down and looked like it will continue that way for several days. What to do?
Instead we had breakfast and had a good think about wether we should hold off or pack everything up soaking wet.
By 9am we had decided that we should brave the rain and pack everything up then hope we can outrun the rain by heading directly west.
We said goodbye to Steve and Alison and thanked them again for letting us camp out on their beautiful property and keeping us entertained for the week. We also managed to finally get a picture of them next to their famous Ford that had travelled around Australia with them.
We got soaked, everything got wet, including the mattress and bedding. But we were off by about 11am and we felt better for being on the road.
In Toowoomba we stopped for a cuppa. It was still bucketing down and just running into the shop got us soaked. A very quick stop there and onto Miles. We planned to get as far up the Hwy as we could manage and stay in a hotel or cabin that night to allow things time to dry and so we could get cleaned up.
By Roma the rain had stopped and the afternoon was lovely and warm but it was beginning to get dark and so we decided to start looking for a place to stop in the next couple of hours.
In the end we made it to Mitchell, where we found a motel to sleep and a pub to have a nice hot dinner. Mitchell isn’t much to speak of really, the pub was very nice and old style, the Motel was comfortable and friendly. Mitchell itself was a small town that really didn’t entice us to stay any longer than we had planned.
We found out later on that there are apparently some very nice hot springs there. Bugger!
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