Since the route home was unplanned, the last part of our trip through Queensland and NSW was about finding new places to explore in territory we had passed through a few times, and we managed to find some….
This is the map of our trip home from Boulia (3900 kms over 22 days).The caravan park in Boulia, (population 300 and Land of the Min Min Lights) was good for a three day rest and it came complete with camels, a pony, chickens, goats and brolgas. The pony was keen to check out Belle.
Aside from doing laundry and emails, joining in for happy hour and eating in the pub one night, the one Boulia attraction we visited was ‘The Min Min Encounter’, which is a 45 minute laser and animatronic show. It was an impressive show and display telling the story of the Min Min Lights, unexplained balls of glowing light that appear to travellers at night in this area. The show features stories of people’s experiences where the strange light follows them home or just appears around them. It was a bit spooky and scary for some of the people who spoke in the videos. The woman who did our tour was a local and she was very authentic, so I asked her if she had ever seen the Min Min Lights – she said she had driving home late one night, they followed her home.
Just out of Boulia on the road to Bedourie, we stopped to check out a small grove of protected Waddi Trees. There are only three stands left in Australia. We did see another stand in the Northern Territory a few years ago. Some of these trees are almost 1000 years old and the timber is almost impossible to burn.This is the view from the Vaughn Johnson Lookout, which is the highest point on the cusp of Diamantina Shire and overlooks the Queensland Channel Country. We drove through a lot of very flat land, lots of floodway signs and no towns.We were attracted to the Bedourie Aquatic Centre and Thermal Spa, so we stayed two nights in this town of 100 people. In 1905 the artesian bore was sunk to 1213 feet and in 1970 their electricity was connected. I liked the Dust Storm sculpture and the Aquatic Centre with its 25 m pool was nice at 30 C, unlike the thermal spa at 41 C. As a bonus, they had good internet!On the drive to Windorah we came across an airstrip on the road.Found a lovely free camp at Cooper Creek, near Windorah. Quiet, pleasant view and INTERNET! Good for a 3 day rest stop.Our second visit to Quilpie (population 600) was much better than the first. These are the two different campsites we had staying at The Lake Quilpie. We moved from the lakeside to be closer to the amenities, the laundry and the happy hour!HAPPY HOUR at Lake Qulpie. This one had a fire and a bar. Good place to meet people and compare travel notes.Dramatic sky at the end of a day in Quilpie. We had a nice day exploring the town, unlike the previous visit on a Sunday when everything was closed. Visited galleries, a museum, did all the normal stockup chores, had lunch in a cafe and even managed some retail therapy (new outback shirt for me).Sunset drinks at the top of Baldy Lookout with Paul and Jenny who we met at Happy Hour the night before.Eromanga (population 120) is another special dinosaur stop. Their Natural History Museum, now in a fabulous new building that only opened four months ago, houses bones from the largest land dwelling animals – ever. Cooper, named after Cooper Creek and Cooper Basin, is Australia’s largest dinosaur and in the top 10 in the world. Based on the remains that have been found, it is believed he would have been 30 meters (100 ft) long and 6.5 meters (21 ft) high (from ground to hip). Above are reconstructions of the leg bones and the large space is where museum staff and volunteers work on the bones that have been dug up and wrapped until there are people available to work on them. The museum offers Dinosaur Dig experiences and depends on the work of volunteers who work with the palaeontologists and geologists in the field and in the museum. We enjoyed the tour and learning about these discoveries. They also offer Megafauna dig experiences since the megafauna bones found at Eulo are also worked on in the museum.Here is a picture of what Cooper, the largest dinosaur, would have looked like 95 million years ago. The second picture is a life-size art sculpture of a Sauropod and her two babies, which was commissioned for the G20 Summit in Brisbane and donated to the Eromanga Natural History Museum.Leaving Eromanga late afternoon we found an amazing free camp and caught another ‘red rock’ sunset.Its only for a couple of minutes, but those end of day colors are stunning. Here we have our own light show and no one else for miles around.
For those unfamiliar with the history, Burke and Wills were the first explorers to cross Australia from south to north in 1860-61. The expedition was fraught with disaster and both Burke and Wills died after achieving their goal, primarily because their supply team at the depot left the depot just hours before Burke and Wills returned from the coast. The Dig Tree is located at that depot, and is the place where supplies were buried so the local aboriginals would not find the supplies. The supply team wrote ‘DIG’ on the tree to alert Burke and Wills that they needed to dig to find the extra supplies left for them. Controversy surrounded that expedition and there are still conflicting reports being debated today.
During this trip we listened to the audiobook, Burke & Wills by Peter Fitzsimmons, so it felt appropriate to visit the famous Dig Tree. Here is the entrance with lots of signage explaining the history of the Burke & Wills Dig Tree. The station owners provide free camping along Cooper Creek at the Dig Tree, so we found a nice camp for the night.There are three significant coolabah trees here that Dick is standing in front of. The original dig tree, where the supplies were left for Burke and Wills in 1860. It had a blaze and the word ‘DIG’ carved into it. Then in 1862 a member of the second Howitt expedition to Cooper Creek carved DIG in another tree. In 1898 photographers, John and Minnie Dick, decided to carve a memorial to Burke on the Dig Tree. The owner of the land at Cooper Creek ‘suggested’ they do the carving on another tree 30 meters away; hence the face tree, as you can see above.After a night in a Thargomindah (population 300) caravan park, we decided to do a free camp at Lake Bindegolly NP. The string of salt and freshwater lakes are rain-fed via local catchment areas, and form an important wildlife refuge in this arid zone. It would be quite different in wetter times,This was our 11 km walk at Lake Bindegolly – easy walking, quite boring and no shade. We did see 12 brolgas, a few ducks and birds and one feral pig. Because it was so dry, the lakes were quite shallow and not much bird life around.However, we saw some flowers along the walk.
Next stop was Cunnamulla (population 1140) and as creatures of habit we returned to our old campsite in the caravan park. There we finally decided to return home so we crossed the border and returned to Moree. This time we tried a new caravan park which boasted 6 thermal pools. It was pleasant and would be a good stop if you wanted to lounge about in thermal pools with temps ranging from 36-41 degrees C.
Lots of driving and as this photos shows, some emus can’t resist running in front of cars. That lovely little blue bird was a regular visitor to our camp at Red Rock.After all that time in desert and all those rocks, we decided to indulge with a couple of days on the beautiful NSW coast. Red Rock (just north of Coffs Harbour) is a favorite camp spot – good beach, nice walks, good campground and INTERNET,We enjoyed both beach and bush walks, and even saw this gnome tree in the bush. Sign reads ‘gnome sweet gnome’ so someone has gone to a bit of trouble creating this along one of the tracks. Red Rock was a nice way to finish up our trip, and our time there coincided with a NSW statewide lockdown – right time to be heading home.This is why we were keen to get home. We were home for two weeks before the boys, Seb and Jake, got out of hospital as they were born at 30 weeks. The new grandparents can hardly believe how special it is to be with them.These little guys are doing well and its a delight to be with them. Their parents, Helen and Anthony, are relishing their new roles; so Seb and Jake are in good hands.
Thats the end of this blog and the beginning of a very exciting chapter in our lives,
On our trip we travelled 16,500 kms over 99 days. This is how the final trip map worked out.For those of you interested in statistics, here is the latest summary.
