21-28 June: Testing times in Tannum Sands

Author: Mr A

Location: Tannum Sands, Queensland, Australia

On some weeks life just doesn’t quite work out as planned. We were looking forward to a relaxing week exploring a new area (and our first sight of the coast since we left South Australia), and in 6 days managed one bike ride and a short walk! We had a whole list of things we thought we would get to do, but thanks to some unexpected incidents those plans were sidetracked.

Tannum Sands is a small coastal community with a few shops and a couple of takeaways, quite different to the “gourmet dining scene” the brochures had promised. But we are used to that and expectations were appropriately kept in check. Whoever writes these tourist brochures for regional Australia should be awarded literary prizes for fiction 🙂

Our campsite was right across from the beach, and the first day we arrived was the only time we had a chance to set foot on it in the early evening.

Right opposite our campsite

The bike ride was great, a dedicated cycle path winding up the coast along these beautiful beaches and the river.

Contemplating if my tyres would keep me afloat 🙂

We made it round a headland to the Boyne River, all very picturesque. So where do these people who live here eat out I wondered pointlessly.

Low tide

Usually cycling and birding aren’t easy bedfellows, but this ride was to prove the exception. Catherine spotted a kingfisher down by the river bank, and we later discovered it was a type we hadn’t seen before, a Torresian Kingfisher that you only find living around mangroves.

A Torresian Kingfisher

Her sharp eyes then spotted a lace monitor soaking up the sun.

A lace monitor chilling out

Fairy wrens were abundant, flitting everywhere around the vegetation. Queensland has had some decent rain this year so maybe the bird life is flourishing from this?

A Red-backed Fairy-wren flirting with his future girlfriend

Another day we took a short walk along the coastal path, and had an almost bird free time of it until this handsome fellah turns up. Now here’s a name to conjure with – he (or maybe she they look very similar) is a Spangled Drongo! Curl your tongue round that one. Feels good doesn’t it?

A Spangled Drongo, looking as splendid as their name suggests

And that’s about it for the fun stuff. Another day was consumed with 5 hours driving to Bundaberg and back as Catherine’s iPad was failing to charge, and that was the nearest repair centre. Despite having just one pin broken on the charging port it was a whole new iPad (out of warranty by 6 months of course!). I would love to know what happens to them. I hope some business is repairing them even if Apple won’t, and on-selling so tech like this doesn’t just end up in landfill.

While we were there we also managed to get a new car tyre to replace our punctured one, sort out charging for our remote solar panel, get Catherine’s bike tyre and gears fixed and pick up prescriptions and other medical supplies. So a productive day all in all.

A rueful smile as a perfectly good iPad is wiped clean and we hand over money for a replacement…

Then the nightmare started. We had noticed signs of mice being in our car after camping at Carnarvon Gorge. We had left an apple in a rucksack, and just thought that was a one off. The next day there was even more damage inside with lots of shredding of our possessions in the vehicle, and a very unwholesome smell of what we assumed was mice urine. Well it seems they liked our car so much they decided to settle in long term.

We emptied out everything from the car, a feat in itself as we are carrying a lot gear given we are full time travellers. Everything was cleaned and washed. We tried to get mice traps, and the supermarkets had sold out as Queensland has had a mice plague this winter. We only found poison-bait, and put this down. The next morning this was scattered all over the vehicle, but no sign of the mice, except scurrying noises every so often in the ceiling cavity.

Now, given we have a cat you’d think she would be of some use in this situation. Oh no…she has been completely oblivious to them, our little princess. The car has been emptied again and again and cleaned, but to no avail. We’ve tried cotton wool soaked in peppermint oil stuck into the air vent system, the car smells like a Polo-mint factory, but despite what Google Scholar says, the mice seem to be immune. Perhaps they are breathing easier though their little noses, but disappear they haven’t. We’ve tried driving the car to quiet spots and leaning on the horn for ages, another recommendation. Other than giving us both a headache and reminders of driving in Italy, it seemed to have no impact on the mice.

So we have managed to find one dodgy looking mousetrap from a “two dollar” shop. I have low expectations. We have called around every hardware store between Tannum Sands and Rockhampton today with no success in procuring more traps. The danger is the mice will start eating into the insulation around the wiring, as happened in our motorhome in the UK, then all sorts of bad things will happen. The other scenario is that they die somewhere we cannot reach and we need to live with the smell of decaying rodent for a few weeks!

Just when we thought we had seen our fair share of issues this week, the car has developed leaks through the roof. After 12 years of faithful service from our 200 Series Landcruiser, this is really the first issue we’ve had. I managed to persuade a Toyota dealer to have a quick look tomorrow, as it is hopefully just some perished washers around the roof racks, or the internal gutters blocked with all the dust. Let’s see..

These things are sent to test us. It’s really to be expected that there will be issues to deal with when you’re travelling like this. But against this we put the fact that we had lovely neighbours on our campsite this week. Rarely have we met new people like that on campsites and ended up having drinks together, but these guys were just delightful. If they are reading this then thanks Annie and Wayne for brightening up the week and sharing our life briefly. As I’ve said previously, the downside of this nomadic life is the lack of physical connection into a community. Moments like this help alleviate that, and we’re grateful.

18-21 June: Exploring the feathered side of Cania Gorge National Park

Author: Mrs A

Location: Cania Gorge National Park, Queensland, Australia

We were woken up in Moura at 4.30am by the idling engines of four wheel drives as the resident mining community headed off to work. We had already had a somewhat disturbed night with the caravan park’s pool constantly gurgling and making unpleasant suction noises as the water level was too low. We couldn’t wait to hit the road and see Moura in our rear view mirror.

Within two hours we were pulling into our little piece of paradise for the next three nights, Cania Gorge National Park. We were staying on the edge of the National Park, surrounded by red sandstone walls, tall forest and many birds at Cania Gorge Tourist Retreat. The park is actually for sale, if anyone fancies a project and has $1.5 million to spare. It needs some upgrading, but is in an unbeatable location.

Every afternoon at the retreat is bird feeding time, and while we disagree with feeding wild birds in principle, it certainly brings the inaccessible birdlife down to meet the average person. We were given some sunflower seeds and held our our hands to see which birds were hungry.

Rainbow Lorikeets and King Parrots were the most courageous visitors

The brightly coloured and gregarious Rainbow Lorikeets flocked to the site, their screeching almost deafening as they squabbled to get to their free feed. Beautiful King Parrots (red and green) were also there, but a little more cautious in their approach. In the trees surrounding us (but not game to come down to the people) were pink and grey Galahs, Laughing Kookaburras, and Sulphur Crested Cockatoos calling from the highest treetops, excitedly.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

We had a wander around after the feeding, to see what other birdlife was around.

A juvenile Blue-faced Honeyeater
Laughing Kookaburra
Fan-tailed Cuckoo

Cania Gorge has a First Nations history dating back at least 19,000 years, (to the height of the last ice age) with many examples of freehand artwork in the park, but none of the nine art sites accessible to the public. The Gooreng Gooreng people were the custodians of this land, their territory stretching from here all the way to the coast (200+km away). When white settlers arrived in the area, the Gooreng Gooreng, like many other tribes during the 18 and 1900s, were murdered, starved or sent off to settlements such as Woorabinda, Cherbourg and Palm Island (making for very grim reading).

In good news (it is hard to find any!), in the mid 1990s a bunch of academics worked with a Gooreng Gooreng elder in order to save the language from extinction (90% of Aboriginal languages are extinct), and produced an English/Gooreng – Gooreng/English dictionary to teach the next generations. This is so important – Indigenous history is a living thing, handed down and carried on by language via spoken word and the story telling. More than 40,000 years of knowledge about Australia’s flora, fauna, how to cook, how and where to travel, when to harvest particular foods is shared in this way. When a language disappears, so does all this knowledge. We often wonder what we are only now learning that our First Nations people may well have known for centuries.

We acknowledge and thank the Gooreng Gooreng people, present and ancestral, as the traditional custodians of the land we visited.

We did a early morning short walk looking for birdlife, just relishing the refreshing temperatures and clear blue skies. Following various birdcalls, we found ourselves climbing up to the Giant’s Chair Lookout, where a pair of Rainbow Bee-eaters were swooping acrobatically through the sky, chasing insects.

Laughing Kookaburra

We breathed in the oxygen from the surrounding forest, finding peace in the greens and blues and just taking the time to stop and be amongst nature. Without realising it, we have really missed the variety of vegetation on our travels the last few weeks.

King Parrot munching seeds on the forest floor
King Parrot
King Parrot
Black-faced Cuckooshrike
Mr A on his spotting scope watching the Rainbow Bee-eaters
Rainbow Bee-eaters – the males have the longest tail feathers
The male Bee-eater watches as his mate swoops past chasing an insect
Mr and Mrs A at the lookout feeling happy

Later in the day we decided to tackle a longer hike, heading up along a dry creek bed to Ferntree Pool, a location we hoped would attract some of the harder to see forest birds. It was a bit of a workout for Mr A as he carried my heavy camera lens on the 7km circuit as well as his spotting scope, but it was worth it.

Hiking up through the valley, the vegetation changes to more rainforest with vines and a new variety of tree
There are some giant trees here
Mr A has to limbo under a fallen tree trunk

We almost couldn’t believe it when we saw water in the pool, a precious resource for the native birds and wildlife here. We stopped and sat quietly at the water’s edge, enjoying an apple and watching quietly to see who would turn up.

Ferntree Pool

First to arrive was a Grey Fantail. She flitted around catching insects, before finding herself a quiet edge of the water for a bath.

Grey Fantail searching for insects deep inside the ferns
A frenzy of splashes as our Grey Fantail has a bath in the shallow water’s edge

Then we gasped as a little flash of red, black and white appeared, then another and another – a small flock of tiny honeyeaters flew down to the ferns, dipping down for a quick drink of water, then up to the safety of the undergrowth. It was so hard to capture them, but we later learned they are Scarlet Myzonelas. They are rarely seen as they feed high up in the canopy, usually identified by their calls.

Male Scarlet Myzomela
Juvenile males have smaller amounts of red, while the females are completely brown

We watched them for a while before continuing on our way, climbing back up on to the ridge and returning back via the Giant’s Chair Lookout.

Picking our way along sandstone walls
Fine views at the lookout but no Rainbow Bee-eaters this time

When we returned to the campground we had missed the evening bird feeding, but I persuaded Mr A to hold out his hand and see whether a bird would come down…the answer was yes….but he would be swiftly punished with a Lorikeet nip for not having any snacks in his hand! Oops!

Warning, don’t tease the birds, they will soon let you know you are naughty!

Before long it was our final day at Cania Gorge and still there were many walks we hadn’t done – we really could have stayed here a week, but already had a booking at a site on the coast we didn’t want to lose (things are getting busier now as the wave of travellers heads north from South Australia, Victoria and NSW for the winter).

A short drive took us up to Cania Lake, a large reservoir at the end of the valley, and likely the reason for there being so many dry Creeks in the area. Other than some Pelicans and Little Black Cormorants there was little evidence of water birds.

Lake Cania
Lots of Pretty-faced Wallabies up by the dam – this female carrying quite a large joey in her pouch

We decided to try our luck at finding some new birdlife down at Three Moon Creek – one of the few waterways with water in it.

It was a good choice. We immediately saw Peregrine Falcons soaring up at the top of the sandstone cliffs, and a frenzy of birds flitting along through the undergrowth. We found ourselves some quiet spots and waited to see what would come to us once we were no longer seen as a threat.

We spent a good hour there, seeing some interesting birdlife, many we had never seen before (thank goodness for the Merlin bird ID app in helping us work out what we’d spotted!).

Very little and cute White-browed Scrub Wrens – picking along the creek edge finding morsels to eat
White-browed Scrub Wren
An Australian Raven stopped for a rest on the trunk crossing the creek right in front of me
Australian Raven – with the sunlight on his glossy feathers you can see the purples, blues and greens in what usually just looks black
A loud fluttering in the bushes behind me and a Brown Cuckoo-Dove had landed just a metre away
The moon had already risen, its craters clearly seen
Dusky Moorhen – a noisy little bird
Clockwise from left: LIttle Pied Cormorant, Peregrine Falcon (long way away!) and a Grey Fantail

We had a great couple of days here, but it was time to move on. We’re finally going to reach the coast again after six weeks of being land-bound, and are quite excited about it!

15-17 June: Lake Wagan Wagan (Nuga Nuga)

Author: Mr A

Location: Lake Nuga Nuga, Arcadia Valley, Central Queensland Highlands, Australia

After the (relative) busyness of Carnarvon Gorge, the tranquility of our next stop was a sharp and welcome contrast.

We camped on the shores of the largest natural body of water within the Central Queensland sandstone belt – Wargan Wargan Lake, what us white folk have now called Lake Nuga Nuga.

We acknowledge the Karingbal and Brown River people as the custodians of this mesmerisingly beautiful land. Their burial sites were found in the 1950s around the lake, and were systematically raided over the next decade, until now nothing remains. Can you imagine the uproar if First Nations people had wandered into cemeteries in the 1960s and dug up graves looking for some trinkets to display on their coffee tables? Finally, in the 1980s there was at least some public support for protecting these and other archeological sites. This lake was said to have been created in the Dreaming (the creation of life) by a pair of Mundagarri (Rainbow Serpents) to ‘keep their skin wet’.

Our secluded campsite – nearest neighbours are 250 metres away across the other side of the island – just how we like it!
Perfect bouncing posture

The lake glittered in the late afternoon sun, and we set off to wander around its edges with long lenses and spotting scopes in hand. Lake Nuga Nuga is listed in the National Directory of Important Australian Wetlands. and we could immediately see the rich diversity of bird life it supported. But wait, not just birds, what was that pile of waving legs on a tree trunk?

“Hey, stop hogging the diving board, others want a turn too, you know”

She was trying to ignore the flapping wings of the Little Black Cormorant uncomfortably close behind him. Officially known, we discovered, as a Krefft’s River Turtle (named after the museum curator who sent the first sample to the British Museum for investigation). we would see an number of others soaking up the sun around the lake. Clearly a healthy eco-system here.

A topple of turtles – the bigger ones are females
Krefft’s River Turtles love sunbathing

A plethora of other birds were soon in our sights. White-throated and Striped Honeyeaters, Egrets (great and intermediate), flycatchers, Whistling Kites, our bird list was going to be a long one!

White-throated Honeyeater
Striped Honeyeater
A Paperbark Fly-catcher
An Intermediate Egret
Whistling Kite
Juvenile Pale-headed Rosella
Pale-headed Rosella eating in a Casuarina tree (native pine)

The evening light bathed our camp in a way that is so quintessentially outback Australian. Everything just glows with colour, I couldn’t tell you what colours of course, being colour blind. I will leave that to the more artistic eyes of the lovely Mrs A.

Can you spot the kangaroos bounding into the woodland?
The vegetation on the island area where we camped includes Queensland bottle trees (centre). Elsewhere in the park are endangered Ooline trees, ancient remnants of a much wetter Australia
Some of our furry neighbours come down to the lake for an evening drink

Evening settled in, we only shared this little paradise with one other couple who were camped out of site on another part of the lake, so our only company was the calls of the roosting birds. Just how we like it.

A pair of Whistling Kites sit on top of the tallest tree, admiring the sunset

I decided to try my hand at digi-scoping again, attaching my phone to the spotting scope. It is a tad fiddly, but this time managed to get my first successful shot. The image quality is not going to give Mrs A a run for her money, my purpose it is to upload into the amazing Merlin bird identification app.

A fine location to use the scope – from here I could watch Pelicans on the other coast of the lake that we were unable to even see with the naked eye!
Great Egret digi-scoped
And via the camera as it soars gracefully across the lake
Look at those shapes
Black-winged Stilt
Black-fronted Dotteral
A Chequered Swallowtail butterfly – also known as the Lime Swallowtail
Those turtles sure like a sunbathe

If you are a budding twitcher like me the Merlin app is gold (it is global, so should work for any of our readers!). Just upload a photo and it will identify the bird 99% of the time, providing the image is captured clearly enough (though we have tried with quiet blurred photos and still achieved a successful result!).

Merlin Bird ID draws upon more than 900 million observations from the e-bird citizen-science project. Another rabbit/bird nesting hole to go down. So wandering around with a spotting scope has now become a favourite pastime, almost like a kind of meditation. If somebody told told me a few years ago that this was in my future…nope, I would not have believed them. So it‘s good to surprise ourselves sometimes.

With a lake on our doorstep it would have been rude to not get the kayak out and have a paddle. So the inflatable master of the water gets a quick outing. There’s nothing quite like driving quietly along for spotting some more wildlife. Our timing wasn’t great though, as the weather was on the change and the wind was getting up.

Mr and Mrs A heading out on the lake – a change in weather is afoot, indicated by the wind picking up…
A cosy pair of White-breasted Woodswallows
A Little Friarbird swoops in and displaces the woodswallows
Paddling towards Mount Warninilla…in autumn this area of the lake is famous for its waterlily display
Little Friarbird – they have a blue-grey piece of skin around their eye which is feather-free
A pair of Grey Teal ducks.

We even got to spot this very unusual combination of a roo having a quiet lap at the water, with a passenger Willy Wagtail on board! Wonderful…

Mrs Kangaroo and her pet Willy Wagtail? Or just a fancy peaked hat?
Perhaps the Wagtail is an ear nose and throat doctor “Put out your tongue please”

The bird species count continued to climb, what a rich environment this was with the largest freshwater lake in the central highlands.

Masked Lapwing
Evening drinks and bath time for the Little Friarbirds

Now, when we looked Google maps we saw that we were in fact, according to their cartography, on an island.

Google Maps showed us as being on an island…

We then had a “severe weather incoming” alert on our weather app – thunderstorms. So not a good combination! It was actually just low lying land, but we certainly hoped it wasn’t going to pour down for too long. Lady luck was on our side, the storm passed either side of us and we just had a short shower.

We watch the storm heading off along the southern side of the valley
Disappearing off the east as the sun begins to set

The atmospheric morning mist after the storm was also pretty amazing.

Four Black-winged Stilts fly off into the mist across the lake
The morning sun starts to burn off some of the mist

We were going to take the kayak out again, but unfortunately Catherine had been suffering from a headache for several weeks, and that night it got a lot worse with a pain in her ear. I managed to get a doctors appointment at the nearest town of Moura, 252km away. We needed to make tracks. Unfortunately our luck ran out when we tried to leave. The dreaded tyre pressure monitoring system alarm went off to indicate we were losing pressure on our rear tow vehicle tyre. We changed the tyre – never easy with the big heavy 17inch wheels on the Cruiser, but a Team Ando effort, admired by a herd of cows, and we were feeling good… until…we noticed that our rear number plate was missing! We have been down some pretty lumpy tracks, and somewhere along one of them lies a NSW number plate. Ah well…

Team Anderson – tyre changers extraordinaire

We arrived at the small mining town of Moura just in time to unhitch and get Mrs A to the doctors. The diagnosis, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain, impacting the joint that connects the jawbone to the skull. Fairly common when it has been overused for talking. Actually I made that last bit up…It can be brought on by a host of things, but I rest my case!

We certainly didn’t fall in love with Moura. Like many small mining settlements across outback Australia, “functional” would be the kindest description you could give. When we are in a town we usually try and spend some money in it, and enjoy eating out, but the local “pie and sausage roll” cafe, Chinese restaurant with peeling paint, or the predicable menu at the “bistro” (complete with banks of TVs, strip lights and rows of gaming machines), didn’t tempt. So it was back to the Zone for one of Mrs A’s fabulous creations, with a nice glass of Grenache, and our latest Netflix obsession of “Start Up”. A lot to be said for having your home away from home on the behind the car.

10-15 June: When the cat’s away…the mice will play…

Author: Mrs A

Location: Carnarvon Gorge National Park, Queensland, Australia

Departing Roma we were quite excited about our next location, Carnarvon Gorge National Park.

Carnarvon Gorge is not particularly easy to reach if you are not travelling with your accomodation. It is around a 9 hour non stop drive from Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast, or 4.5 hours from Rockhampton. There are two campgrounds, only one with power and water, the other (Sandstone Park, where we stayed) for self-contained vehicles. There is one resort with cabins, and otherwise no other options unless you are backpacking or prepared for a two hour drive from the nearest town, Injune or Rolleston. For Mark and I, it is this remoteness and status as a real oasis in the desert that really draws us in.

Carnarvon Gorge – a long way from anywhere!

The Gorge has been a sacred location for the First Nations people for at least twenty thousand years, with more than 2,000 examples of artwork in the National Park. It was visited for ceremonies, involving a recognition of the Rainbow Serpent which they believe created the gorge. We recognise the Garingbal/Karingbal and Bidjara peoples as the traditional custodians of this region and acknowledge their ancestors, stories and cultures which helped preserve and protect the land we visited and stayed on.

We were staying at Sandstone Park, a 50 acre cattle station and bush camping area, with sites set up high on a hill with 360 degree views across the gorge’s white sandstone walls. With no power or water on offer, we had filled up our tanks to the brim and hoped for clear skies to help charge up our solar power.

All set up including the screen house – fits the BBQ, chairs and table with room to spare…all we needed were flies!
The view from our campsite

The western view from the park overlooks the ‘Milgin’ or Sandstone Belt. According to our First Nation peoples’ culture, this landscape represents the burial sites of their indigenous forefathers. The tree line represents the brow (Milgin) above the eyes of the resting ancestors who continue to watch over and protect people in the surrounding area.

Having visited Carnarvon Gorge twice before and explored most of the walking trails thoroughly, we did not feel pressured to repeat everything again. So on Friday morning we set off along the main walking track with no agenda.

It didn’t take long to see our first wildlife, with a Pretty-faced Wallaby taking its morning drink down by the first water crossing. The water here is semi permanent and has only been recorded as stopping twice since records began. It. was so lovely to see water clear and pristine, not tainted by the mud and damage of the introduced carp as we have seen in so many other waterways.

Starting our 12km hike (map)
A Pretty-faced Wallaby coming down to the river for a drink

We just drank up the scenery as we walked. The huge forests of cycads and tree ferns looked incredible after the flat land we had been travelling through, the multitude of shades of green with the morning sunlight breaking through just breathtaking.

Carnarvon fan palms Livistona nitida, ancient cycads, ferns, flowering shrubs and gum trees line the main gorge

Off the main track there are several side walks to other gorges, caves and interesting sights, but we were happy to miss these out on this occasion, stepping away from the crowds of people and find our own quiet spots. Picking our way a short way down the creek we found a lovely quiet pool, a haven for small birds and butterflies – the perfect place for a picnic.

The river is a stunning feature of the gorge
We did a little rock hopping along Carnarvon Creek and found ourselves a little paradise for lunch
Step away from the crowds and you can find peaceful little rock pools looking like landscaped gardens

After lunch we continued our walk along the gorge, deciding to head to an area called ‘The Amphitheatre’. We were just walking over the stepping stones and I spotted a Platypus swimming along. It is so unusual to see one of these shy, often nocturnal creatures, we decided to miss out the side-walk in favour of watching out to see whether it would return.

This is the pool where Platypus live!

Our patience paid off – it didn’t take long before we spotted ripples and bubbles coming from the pool, and then there it was, popping up to the surface and making a dive down to catch a yabbie or other nourishing snack.

Platypus! As hard as photographing dolphins!
And again…trust me, this IS a Platypus!
And for our intrepid Platypus hunters, this is what you are looking for – enthusiastic ripples with a lot of bubbles – a clue that a Platypus has dived under and is finding a meal under the water

It was truly a magical experience, and worth waiting around for.

We concluded our day’s hiking by diverting beside another quiet area of Carnarvon Creek, along the ‘Nature Trail’. We watched a few birds enjoying their late afternoon baths and drinks, before heading back to camp.

These great sandstone walls tower over us on the walk
A Willie-Wagtail catching insects by the water
Walking on water? Willie Wagtail launches off to capture another insect
Late afternoon bath and drink time at the creek for this Blue-faced Honeyeater
Blue-faced Honeyeater

We had a lovely evening with a couple of other Zone owners, Sandie and Leigh, popping over for pre-dinner drinks and nibbles, sharing travel stories and all things Zone. There were so many parallels to our stories, and we had lots of laughs.

Later, when most of the lights were out and fires dying down, I went out into the cool night (about 5 degrees centigrade) to photograph the stars. The smear of smoke coming from the back of our Zone is in fact the Milky Way – hundreds of thousands of stars, seeming to go on forever. I have still a lot to learn about astrophotography, but I was quite pleased with this effort.

Perfect clear evenings

The following day we had a lazy start, deciding to enjoy the ambience and the campsite before taking a nature and bird watching focus for the afternoon.

Big views and a little cat
Tassie spots an interesting hole…mice!

As I picked up my rucksack I noticed a strange odour…I looked inside and found an apple I hadn’t managed to eat the day before was still inside, however with several bites out of it. Mice! Ugh. Other campers had mentioned there were lots of mice about and we hadn’t noticed until now. I cleaned out the mess and we continued.

We had decided to tackle two of the quieter walks – the Nature Trail and Rockpool walk. Both follow the creek, and walking quietly along it doesn’t take long to find plenty of bird life around, as well as some stunning butterflies.

Never get tired of seeing a Laughing Kookaburra
Striated Pardalote
More Striated Pardalote – note the very shy female bottom right
There are many Grey Kangaroos and shyer Swamp Wallabies around
Olive-backed Oriole
Spiny Cheeked Honeyeater
And the rear of a Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater
A White-necked (Pacific) Heron
White-necked Heron
A King Parrot shouting!
A White-winged Chough. These live in large gregarious family groups and turn over the ground looking for grubs and insects while chattering away. The white in their wing is hidden unless they fly. They have red eyes.
Fan-tailed Cuckoo – hard to see here, but they have a lovely striped tail
White-faced Heron – he was stood near the White-necked Heron, looking like he was sulking!
Red Dragonfly, Meadow Argus butterfly, orange grasshopper, Blue Argos butterfly, Monarch Butterfly

After a lovely afternoon in nature, we returned back to cook a home made pizza on the BBQ – finally we have nailed the technique – two delicious pizzas, perfectly prepared. Brilliant. After dark, I took Tassie out on a mouse hunt – she had a great time at our next door neighbour’s caravan chasing several little critters away from their fridge…she’s a little too slow to catch any these days, but had a good time trying.

You can’t beat a sunset glass of wine and a fire to end the day on

On Sunday morning we decided to hike up to Boolimba Bluff. It’s a walk with a warning: only for the physically fit. Apart from me being unable to breathe unimpeded(!), we both felt fit enough to tackle the climb (54 floors of climbing) via steep paths, steps and metal ladders.

A walk only for the very rugged – Mark proving he is in this category by climbing the first ladder (in distance)
Climbing the final ladder before the top

I won’t pretend I found it easy with my restricted airway, but we made it up to the top and were rewarded with a magnificent view, and a bench to catch our breath on.

Then and now – our first visit to this National Park and this lookout in 2014, and 7 years later
A view worth climbing up for

The climb down was much easier than the way up!

Climbing down is much easier!

Monday was our last day, so we decided again to have a wildlife spotting focus. After cleaning out the previous night’s mouse damage from the car (this time they had torn up tissues and attempted to eat everything – including the inner soles from Mr A’s shoes!), we drove back down to the National Park.

It was a blissful afternoon. Just taking the time to stop and observe what is around you is so calming, and helps us develop a far deeper connection with the environment we’re in. Mark’s really getting the hang of using his spotting scope for observing birds, and I’m getting lots of practice learning the photography side of things.

Red-browed Firetail – these are tiny little birds which feed in the grasses – flying up to nearby trees when they are disturbed, often very hard to see
A pair of female Red-backed Fairy-wrens
Female Red-backed Fairy-wren

We were just returning back along the river and I noticed a rock looked different from before. Mark looked through his scope and exclaimed “Yes! It’s a turtle!”. We stopped and watched the cutie as it sunned itself on the rock, before ultimately deciding it was time to get wet again and plopped back into the water with barely a ripple. Wonderful.

On our return walk we spy a Keft’s River Turtle sunning on a rock
Our turtle friend decides it is time to head back into the water, and vanishes with barely a ripple

We have been watching Sir Richard Attenborough’s Our Planet series on Netflix. While it has some fairly somber messages for the world, it does remind us what still remains and how important it is that we take steps to ensure humans and wildlife can live harmoniously. We hope that by sharing our photos and stories, we can raise awareness of some of the stunning bird and wildlife out there and maybe sway people to think about how to protect these in the future.

Carnarvon Gorge National Park will remain in our memories as a very special location. It is a spiritually and culturally important place and a haven for many birds and animals. Five glider species call this home – we saw a few on our last visit during a night safari tour. The gorge is also full of echidnas, rufous bettongs, kangaroos and wallabies, as well as freshwater turtles, fish, snakes, goannas and more than 170 species of bird (we counted about 30 on our trip!).

While we can never hope to fully understand the significance of this location to our First Nations people, we leave with that continued feeling of connection we had felt in the past. We would certainly recommend this location to anyone that wishes to experience nature at her best…except the mice – hopefully the owls will sort that out before you visit!

A final sunset as we bid this beautiful place farewell

7-10 June: When you’re excited to go to a supermarket…

Author: Mr A

Location: Morven and Roma, Central Queensland

We continued our journey east, we would be staying a couple of nights at the small town of Roma to resupply before heading north and off grid once again. On the way to Roma we decided to break the journey with a night just outside the small settlement of Morven.

Our home for the evening was a working farm, grazing sheep, cattle and goats, with an abundance of bird life. Checking in at the office we also noticed it was home too a small business Gidgee Smith Bags. The owner set up the business 13 years ago on line and has gone from strength to strength, now employing a couple of people and producing these really smart bags from a pvc material.

A few of the bags on display in the office

We love to see this type of small enterprise, unencumbered by their location in the middle of nowhere. It probably keeps the local Post Office open as well! They also run a little coffee shop and mobile van for the passing (mostly caravans) traffic on the highway. How enterprising.

Tassie liked the fact that she had 15 acres almost to herself! It was a very peaceful afternoon for the three of us, Catherine capturing some more fab shots with the zoom lens, me continuing to get the hang of my new spotting scope, and Tas, well she was just hanging out. She doesn’t even have to leave her chair to get a drink!

Table service for Princess Tasmania
Tassie melting into her cushion in blissful sleep – the perfect combination of sunshine and shade to her liking

Apparently over 70 species of birds had been listed on their property, and what a lovely surprise to be somewhere our hosts even knew that! I think we got to 20?

Australian Kestrel in the setting sun
Hoary-headed Grebes swimming in the dam
Australian Magpie
”I’ve got an itch right on the back of my neck!” – Apostlebirds
Caper White Butterfly in the campground garden
Australian Ringneck (Mulga Ringneck)
Australian Painted Lady Butterfly
Female Superb Fairy-wren
A young moulting male Superb Fairy-wren
A Yellow-faced Miner
Striated Pardalote – very hard to see as they are so tiny and spend their time up in the tree’s canopy. You can hear their loud voices from a long way away.
Singing Honeyeater
One we have never seen before – a Striped Honeyeater. They have a brush tongue and use it to eat nectar from flowers

We then tootled off to Roma, our first town with a large Coles/Woolworths type supermarket since our small supermarket at Leigh Creek – 1,741 km behind us! Isn’t that just incredible? Charleville did have an IGA to be fair, but it was still a small supermarket. So this was our first town with a big supermarket in since Whyalla, over 2,095 kilometres away!

From Whyalla, our last town with a big supermarket, to Roma – 2,095km later!

For those of you not familiar with the sheer scale of Australia, that illustrates how low the population density is away from the coast and our cities. Imagine needing some fish sauce or oyster mushrooms for that Asian recipe you want to cook…or to find some wholemeal or fresh vegan pasta..….oops..”Bye honey…just need to pop out to the supermarket…don’t wait up…back in a week or two” And in the couple of little shops we did see on the way, you will of course be paying an enormous premium for basic foodstuffs. Quite a different world. So we were excited to get our big restock done at a big national chain supermarket!

Is it sad when you rejoice in a trip to a big supermarket??

I wonder how many Australians forced to take their holidays domestically this year (we are banned from travelling other than to NZ, and that is often interrupted by our continuous outbreaks of COVID-19 from hotel quarantines) and will be shocked by how different life is for the 15% of Australians who don’t live in our five urban centres? Hopefully the tourism dollars flowing into these regional businesses will help revive some of these small towns.

We arrived at Roma to find a delivery waiting for us – a pop up screen room from our old favourite manufacturer Oztent. We have looked at annexes over the years, but they tend to be bulky and heavy and take a while to put up. This screen tent is plenty big enough for us, and literally pops up in seconds. Another couple of minutes to peg it out and we have doubled the fly and mozzie proof living area we have available to us. Let’s see how it works out but first impressions are very good.

Oztent Screen House – waterproof walls to keep out that wind and rare rain

A wine top up was also required, and fulfilled at a little bottle shop next door to our caravan park. I also slipped in most importantly, another bottle of Woodford Reserve, our bourbon of choice. Well, it’s going to be zero degrees at night where we are headed, so something a little warming is required, or so the rationale went.

A warming drop of Kentucky Bourbon around the campfire in our future

Mrs A spotted (despite my best efforts to distract her) a sign to “the biggest bottle tree in Roma”, and off we went.

Bottle trees swell up with stored water. This tree is probably several hundred years old.

For you folk not based in Australia, yup…weird looking creations. I feel like singing “Who ate all the pies” when walking past them, but as they are pretty prevalent in Central Queensland that’s probably a slippery slope to mandatory mental health support.

So water tanks are filled, fridges and freezer stocked, washing bag empty (highly unusual status), wine store brimming over (not so unusual), its off to the wooly wilds again. Our water will need to last for five days, and thankfully the sun is forecast to shine as we will have no access to mains electricity. Carnarvon Gorge here we come! Talk soon…

28 May-7 June: A journey from the desert to the bush

Author: Mrs A

Location: Travelling from Birdsville to Charleville, Queensland, Australia

Farewelling Birdsville we turned on to the imaginatively named Birdsville and Diamantina Developmental Roads and pointed ourselves east. Over the next couple of days we were making our way across to Charleville, pretty much half way to the coast of Queensland.

Driving at the speed limit with no breaks, this journey would take about 12 hours

Much of the journey was along graded gravel road, with occasionally a stretch of single lane tarmac for good measure. Our first day’s driving took us across the outer reaches of the Sturt Stony Desert and Strzelecki Desert into what is known as Channel Country, so named for the numerous creeks and rivers (often dry) which intertwine across the region.

Our lunch spot – we were pleased to hide inside away from the dust and wind

The landscape is largely featureless and flat, stretching across to the horizon. The morning we left there were strong winds which whistled across the desert, nothing to stop the dust flying. As it was a head wind it made driving a challenge too – the Land Cruiser certainly ate up the fuel.

There are occasional rest areas, sometimes with picnic tables and toilets, a chance to break up the monotony of the journey. Mid afternoon we saw a slight uplift on the side of the road, decorated with a giant serpent. The Dreamtime Serpent is an important figure in the Aboriginal creation story, representing the mythological serpent which joined all the waterways throughout Mithaka Country. This artwork had been created with different coloured gravel and gibbers from across the region.

Dreamtime Serpent
I was tempted to do some weeding, but thought better of it – any plant that can survive out here deserves to live where it likes!

As we continued on through the afternoon, hills became more frequent, and we pulled over at this bizarre sign directing us to the ‘Hole through Mount Henderson’. There is a walk up to a lookout up on top of this, but the sun was getting low in the sky and we still had to reach Windorah for the night.

Interesting sign at the side of the road…
Following the arrow you can see an eroded window through the hill

It was at this point the single track of tarmac became continuous, and we knew it wasn’t far to Windorah. There we pulled up on a field behind the pub, donating $10 to the Flying Doctors to park there the night.

Blacktop making for a much smoother ride
A huge flock of LIttle Corellas takes off from the side of the road and flies across in front of us – this is just a fifth of the flock!
A Brolga (Australian Crane) strolling along the side of the road!

The following morning (Saturday) we pumped our tyres back up and gave the car and van a good wash with a high pressure hose just outside Windorah. We know it is going to get dusty again, but hopefully slightly less than the past couple of days have been.

We actually passed through Windorah and Cooper Creek when we very first started our big trip – four years ago in 2017! We reflected on how much more comfortable we are now travelling, feeling less stress towing and parking up. We have learned a lot in that time.

Cattle mustering as we leave Windorah
Another Brolga strutting across the dry mud, roadside…

The landscape started to change as we progressed, the small drought tolerant shrubs changing to small trees, then larger trees, paddocks full of dry grasses and more undulating hills on the horizon. We called in for a lunchtime break at a rest area beside a creek (with actual water in it!) I had read was good for spotting birds. It gave us a chance to stretch our legs and think about something other than driving. We saw quite a number of birds, including flocks of budgerigars flying past, Mallee Ringneck Parrots, a White-necked Heron and more.

A Spotted Bowerbird – the males make a sculptural bower on the ground and adorn it with white items – mostly shells and bones, but anything else they can find is added too.
Spotted Bowerbird
White-plumed Honeyeaters

Another roadside rest area just outside the small town of Quilpie was our camp for the night.

The journey continued on Sunday morning, with just a few hours’ driving this time to our destination of Charleville. We stopped at a ‘Ghost town’ called Cooladie for lunch on our way over, which gave a chance for some more bird spotting before we settled in for an afternoon of washing.

White-winged Fairy-wren – only the male has white wings and is electric blue – he was quite shy and hard to photograph, but she was curious and had a great photo session 🤍
An Australasian Pipit – running around in the grasses

Cooladdi was originally a railhead for the local pastoral community. At one time, Cooladdi had a school, post office, and police station with a population of about 270 people. As the railway line extended further west, Cooladdi’s role and population declined. There is little evidence of a town (let alone a ghost!) today, no more than a few wooden floors and a cairn marking the town centre.

A Queensland Bottle Tree was once probably somebody’s pride and joy

It was only a short while further to our destination for the coming few days, Charleville.

Charleville is a small town located on the Warrego River. Its traditional First Nation custodians are the Bidjara People who historically lived all along the river banks. These people are still an important part of the Charleville society. As of 1980 the Bidjara language was almost extinct, with only 20 elders speaking it in communities along the length of the river. It has now been revitalised and is now being taught in schools.

The settlement built up during the mid 1800s as a service centre for pastoralists across this region. While slightly smaller these days it is no less important, with its hospital serving as the primary medical centre for the whole region. If you get sick in Birdsville, a 2-3 day drive away, it is likely you will be flown to Charleville for your treatment via the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This service is absolutely essential for residents living in remote areas and means we no longer see the high death rates seen prior to the launch of the service in 1917.

After a morning exploring the small town, the hospital was where Mark and I found ourselves on Monday afternoon, for our pre-booked Covid-19 first vaccination. We are very keen to continue our travels around the world and believe being vaccinated is our first step to being able to do this.

Smiling faces outside a hospital – now that is a rare thing!
We both had the Astrazeneca vaccine – next one mid August…I wonder where we will be then?
The hospital grounds are home to a mob of kangaroos – enough to make any unwell person smile!

We went out to dinner at the local Thai restaurant (with a Vietnamese chef!) to celebrate.

We have spent some time exploring the various parklands and riverside walks for birds of course. Mark has a new tool in his bird watching kit – a spotting scope. It is like a telescope you put on a tripod and can see birds in incredible clarity up to about half a kilometre away. It is like watching a live nature documentary unfold in front of your eyes, just amazing. He has bought an adapter to allow him to take photographs on his phone though the scope. I am certain he will soon be complementing my camera photography.

On the Warrego River Walk we felt very privileged to see a pair of Pale-headed Rosellas feeding their hungry family – just metres from people out for their afternoon stroll or jog. A few trees back I heard a call I recognised from my childhood, and up in the trees behind us was a flock of Cockatiels, their yellow faces and rosy red cheeks looking so familiar. I much prefer to see them flying through the treetops than captive in a cage.

The Warrego River (complete with Galahs having an evening drink!)
We watch the Galahs take turns at the bottom of the branch
A Pale-headed Corella and its three hungry babies. These were in a hollow branch right above a busy walking path. Just look at those huge orange beaks!
This is the female – we watched as the parents flew off to eat seeds in the meadows near the river, before returning to regurgitate them as pulp for their chicks. Their chicks were rarely alone with both parents working in quick rotation
Pale-headed Rosellas hang out in pairs rather than flocks
A pair of Pale-headed Rosellas
Cockatiel female
A pair of male Cockatiels – Cockatiels fly in huge noisy flocks, landing high up in the top of trees to call out. Another bird often seen as a pet in a cage but far lovelier to see flying free

Another outing near the Charleville Cemetary had us observing Apostlebirds, White-browed Babblers, Whistling Kites, Galahs and more.

Whistling Kites
Sulphur Crested Cockatoos flying overhead
A Whistling Kite – big raptors!
Grey Butcherbird
An Apostlebird – these gregarious birds hang out in gangs (like the 12 Apostles!) which run around mostly on the ground, and seem to love campgrounds for their rich pickings.

A novelty for us was the change in the weather. Just for one day we had rain! I know our friends and family in the UK will scorn us, but we do appreciate the brief change. With the low humidity and dry air comes dry skin and high levels of static. I am a little tired of getting electric shocks every time I turn off a light or get out of the car! The increased humidity definitely helped reduce that for a short while.

And with a little rain comes a rainbow – a symbol of hope in so many cultures

Other than the river, there is little surface water around, so the lakes at the Charleville Water-treatment Works attract a lot of birds. On the advice of a lady at the Information Centre we popped over for a look. We found five or so large patches of water surrounded by reeds and full of water birds.

The birds were quite skittery, clearly not used to seeing people. A large flock of zebra-patterned ducks took flight as we arrived. We later learned these are Pink-eared ducks (if you get close enough, you can see they have pink ears just behind their eye), and live only in Australia. Ibis (commonly seen with their long beaks in city rubbish bins!) were here too, as well as Pied Stilts, Spoonbills, Pacific Black and Grey Teal ducks. We had a good look around before leaving them back in peace.

Pink-eared Ducks (have zebra-print feathers and fang-like beaks!) and Ibis flying past
Yellow Spoonbill
A pair of Pied Stilts with their ridiculously long legs. We watched this pair for a while, as they walked along the water’s edge looking for insects and larvae, their legs barely causing a ripple
Tiger Milkweed Butteffly

Meanwhile, a couple of walks down to the quieter end of the river near where we are staying yielded some new and old birds for us. Just walking in the forest, listening to the wind and the chatter of our multitude of feathered friends is so peaceful. We ended up walking 10km without realising!

The Warrego River becomes less navigable just a short way up, with billabongs broken up by sandbanks. Far fewer people up this way, and more attractive to birds
Australian Wood Ducks (with the spotty breasts), Pacific Black Duck and an Azure Kingfisher (a long way away!)
A White-faced Heron high up on a branch overlooking the water
Brown Tree-creeper – perfectly disguised as they hunt for grubs in rotten wood
A female Galah – the females have pink eyes, while the males have black
A White-plumed honeyeater flying down for a drink. These are usually seen up in the tree’s canopy, drinking from the nectar, consuming berries and seeds and catching insects and larvae
A female White-winged Fairy-wren searching for insects
Flocks of tiny Plum-headed Finches fly out of the long grasses and up overhead like fluttering, chattering butterflies, so hard to capture a glimpse of
A pair of Red-rumped Parrots fly down for an evening drink

After a pub dinner, we went out to Charleville’s Cosmos Centre. We had booked on an hour’s stargazing session with some powerful telescopes and a guide to explain some of the sights we were seeing. We wrapped up warm with our beanies and thick coats against the 10 degrees temperatures, but had a perfectly clear, starlit night with no moon. Ideal for seeing the Milky Way and constellations. It was an interesting evening and a different way to see the stars without sitting beside a warm fire…we were pleased to warm up once the show was over.

Some of the free information available at the centre, the largest observatory and planetarium in Queensland. Bottom right, the remains of a satellite which fell from space, landing in the desert just north of Charleville. It looks like a giant burnt sphere covered in black raven feathers!

We had a lovely week, taking the time to do our cleaning and recover from the relative trauma of our disruptions on the Birdsville Track and in Birdsville. But now we are ready to farewell Charleville (or Barky-ville as we have renamed it, due to the multitude of noisy dogs here) and continue on our adventure heading east.

We would like to acknowledge and thank the Yarlayandi, Karnwali, Birria, Kuungkari and Bidjara People through whose traditional lands we travelled and spent time the past few days.

Traditional custodians – a great map at: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia
Our journey over the past six months since leaving Sydney in early December 2020

25-28 May: Birdsville – you little beauty!

Author: Mr A

Location: Mungeranie Hotel, South Australia to Birdsville, Queensland

When we decided we wanted to travel up the Birdsville Track, we never imagined driving several hundred kilometres of it at night! We never drive at night, let alone down a track. But we had no choice. Our caravan was on the back of a truck somewhere behind us, and we had to make Birdsville that night because we had nowhere to sleep otherwise.

The first hundred kilometres from the Murngerranie Hotel was easy going. The late afternoon light bathed the desert in an eerie golden glow.

Driving through the Sturt Stony Desert in the late afternoon light
Low sun across some wetlands
Sturt Stony Desert

We passed a couple of vehicles coming the other way, then we were on our own. To our west was the huge expanse of the Simpson Desert, all 176,000 square kilometres of it, and that is the size of Cambodia! To our east the, Sturt Stony Desert, then the Strezlecki Desert. Vast, almost completely empty of people, the odd cattle station, that’s it.

Segment from Mungeranie to Birdsville

Travelling through country like this we felt exposed without our home being towed behind us. We had nowhere to stop and shelter should we break down. The surface deteriorated, as we had been told it would, and we had to slow right down. The surface here is made up of what is called gibber rocks; what is left after the sheets of sandstone have been broken down over the millennia by erosion, and the sand and dust has blown away. Careful driving is required. But we had to press on as night fell. It really isn’t a smart idea to drive in the bush at night, especially on these unfenced roads, where wandering stock can suddenly appear.

The last glimmers of the sun as dusk falls

I normally do all the driving, as Catherine is not so comfortable doing it when we are towing, but now she took over the wheel as my glaucoma makes night driving problematic. We were both on high alert, and suddenly there was a cow and her calf charging along beside us. Luckily they didn’t veer in front and we were safely past them, hearts pounding. After what seemed like an age, but actually we made good time, we spotted the sparse lights of Birdsville as we crested a hill.

I had rang from the hotel to get us a motel room, and managed to snag literally the last bed in town. This is peak travelling season as the winter temperatures makes the desert country more accessible. Combine that with the restrictions on Australians leaving the country, and the scarce towns that there are, are heaving.

The no pets policy was kindly waived by the lovely folk who run the Birdsville Caravan Park given our situation. We got in at 7.30pm. Our tow truck driver didn’t get in until 10.30 pm, we found out the next day. These guys work so hard. Anyway we crashed out, our little Tassie super excited to be in a new environment, racing (a relative term in her case nowadays) round the room with big wide eyes. Every so often she’d come up to one of us, stare into our eyes, and tap us with her paw on the shoulder, with a speech bubble only we could see that said “What the hell’s going on? Where have you brought me now?” Heart melting stuff, for us cat dotty folk anyway.

We went over to see our tow truck driver Blake in the morning, he was now wearing his other hat of bush-mechanic-extraordinaire. He warned us that he would “get to the repair when he could”, but had to first go and rescue someone who was stuck in the desert after the storm last night. A bit of rain on that surface and the tracks get pretty crazy. We settled in to Birdsville life, with me quietly expecting we were going to be here for a bit.

The streets are wide and dusty out here, Clint Eastwood stuff.

The first visit was to the bakery. After some blood tests in March showed my cholesterol was way too high, I had been off the pies since April 1. And yes I was an April Fool to think it would stay that way forever. The smell of baking was just too much, and the local speciality was a curried camel pie! It was so good I had another…oops.

The bakery
Served by a chap from the north-east of England? Priceless!
Yes, the prizewinning Curried Camel Pie is still for sale
A water-windmill is the centrepiece to the seating area, decorated with the Dimantia Dreaming Story by two local Aboriginal artists

I asked the guy serving (Jim I think) what was his story, as I do, and it would become a familiar one in Birdsville. He and his partner was passing though in their caravan, liked it and stayed. The same for our mechanic Blake and his partner, set out to tour Australia from Brisbane and never got past Birdsville.

’So what was the attraction?’ I asked. From several people, a similar theme of enjoying a strong community (around 120 permanent residents). Interestingly thats around the size that the research tells us humans can just about remember who is who and have the emotional bandwidth to maintain their relationships with. A hundred and fifty people is the upper limit and called “Dumbar’s number” It seems to even hold true for digital relationships. So check your Facebook friends – more than 150 and you really are going to struggle to give them the love and attention a friendship deserves.

Time to book the pub. We got the last two seats for dinner.

The famous Birdsville pub, an oasis in the desert

Checking in with our mechanic, I was right and it looked like we were going to be here at least one more night.

No change with our home – still loaded up on the truck with no work started: Blake was absolutely flat out

On the way to the pub for our evening meal, we were treated to a great sunset and view of a blood super moon. We liked Birdsville!

Sunset from the Birdsville Hotel
The super moon rising over the trees full of Little Corellas beside the river, glowing in the moonlight

What a wonderful dining experience. Our server Joel was just such a delight, taking time to tell us about what we might be interested to see around the town. A great little wine list, and the food was superb.

Cheers!

The original pub had burnt down and been rebuilt by its current owner who happened to be a builder. And what a great job they have done. After dinner we moved to the bar and got invited to join a couple of staff from Brown Brothers winery who were there to promote their wines to the pub and its customers. Great fun. then on the way back to our motel room we saw the moon’s eclipse.

More hats and memorabilia adorns the walls and ceiling

The next day it was not a surprise to hear our mechanic say he would once again “get to it when he could”. He’s working on his own at the moment, servicing not just the hundreds of tourists driving in every day with issues, but also the station owners where he gets his year round work from. Last month he has been called out to rescue an 84 year old guy driving his Volvo solo across the Simpson Desert. A bold move indeed.

So we took a drive out into the Simpson a short way from town and wandered along a track we had been recommend for a spot of birding.

This is a Waddi Tree – the wood is said to be so hard it breaks saws! Aboriginal people used burning sticks of Waddi to transport fire between camps
Walking out to Dingo Caves, the hills in the distance – across the desert
Is this the closest to Mars we can get?
There were several groups at our campsite who were getting prepared to cross the Simpson Desert…not something you should tackle solo.

We were rewarded with a Black Kite circling round and eyeing us up. As always I get this super strong connection open up to memories of my father. If you have never listened to Spirit Bird by Xavier Rudd, then give yourself a musical treat. He tells his story of a similar experience he had, connecting with his First Nation ancestors when they visited him through a bird. Its also the same species as the one I had interacted with for my 60th birthday present. Beautiful creatures.

When we headed back into town and checked on our van, there were tools underneath, progress had been made. Blake had sourced some metal rails to replace our broken ones and had started fitting them, then got called away on another emergency. He was finally able to finish the job at at 8.30pm that night, and he still had another one to do after us!

This for us will be the lasting memory of Birdsville. The kindness of its people. They are isolated in a pretty inhospitable place. They look after each other. A great little community we’ve had the pleasure to briefly be part of. It’s time though now to leave and resume our travels.

23-25 May: It’s all part of the adventure on the Birdsville Track!

Author: Mrs A

Location: Marree to Mungeranie, Birdsville Track, South Australia

We set off from Marree on a beautiful bright Sunday morning. The track from Marree has been recently graded, and apart from one or two deep sandy bits and the occasional cattle grid, was smooth driving. Even Tassie managed to get some sleep.

Family photo as we set off
Cairn marker at the beginning of the track. The plaque reads: « The Birdsville Track – Pioneers brought their sheep and cattle to the vastness of these Aboriginal Lands before Marree was established. Drovers, Cameleers, Teamsters and Mailmen battled the Track making development and even survival possible. Through their deeds the Track became an Australian legend. This Cairn honours these People of the Track and commemorates the centenary of Marree. 1883-1983

The Birdsville Track follows an ancient Aboriginal trading route which links several water holes. The route was then made into a track for mustering sheep and cattle to Adelaide. These days most of the sheep stations have changed to cattle stations, cows being a little more robust and able to protect their new born calves from dingos and wild dogs.

The Birdsville Track is 517 km long and usually takes 2 days to complete

The route traverses three deserts; the StrzeleckiSturt Stony Desert and Tirari Desert and as you would expect, the land is incredibly dry with no more than 10cm of rain falling per year. The survival of people, flora and fauna is predominantly thanks to the Great Artesian Basin – a huge underground freshwater reservoir which stretches more than 1.7million square kilometres. This huge water source is the world’s largest subterranean water basin and could fill Sydney Harbour 133,000 times.

Bores (a hole, often using a windmill to draw up the water) have been sunk into this reservoir, with approximately one every 40km along the track. In a few areas there are natural springs and seeps which form puddles and small wetland areas, essential for the survival of birds and mammals in this area. When the water emerges the temperature ranges from 30-100 degrees centigrade.

This area is closed to travellers in the summer months, when temperatures have been measured to reach 49.5 degrees centigrade in the shade. Phew! Temperatures are only getting hotter, with Birdsville, our next destination, breaking records only last year with more than 10 days on the trot over 45 degrees centigrade – and that was November, which is still classified as spring!

We pulled over for lunch at one of these bore sites, an area where the water comes out warm. An enterprising station owner had put in a large plastic basin and a huge tap, calling it an Artesian bath. As we arrived there were several people sat in the bath wearing fly nets, enjoying the warm water. I meanwhile had less glamorous tasks to do – using the naturally warm water to do some hand washing!

Hand washing in the desert!

Fly nets are absolutely essential out here – you cannot leave your car without looking like an odd bee-keeper, but without it you would have flies in literally every orafice. They are incredibly annoying. Without insect repellant your arms and legs are black with little insects. The only thing in their favour is that they don’t bite, just annoy!

After lunch we had a look around the nearby wetland area to see what bird life was about. I was very excited to see a lone Budgie munching on seeds. He was very friendly and sat on a low branch chatting to me and seemed quite tame (more photos on our Instagram feed).

Black-faced Woodswallow, White-plumed Honeyeater and Budgerigar

We continued on our way, taking a look at a couple of other locations before deciding to stop for the evening at the Mungeranie Hotel. After checking in at the bar and paying our $20 and were told to pick ourselves a spot along the tree line. We found ourselves a suitable space, and went to level up. It was at this stage I noticed an awful metallic scraping sound coming from underneath the caravan – never a good sign.

I looked and spotted one of our water tanks hanging down at an uncomfortable angle, with one of the two brackets completely missing. The second tank was hanging down and leaning on the wheel axel, one of its brackets hanging by a single bolt, the remainder scraping through the stones on the ground. Nightmare!

The damage to the underside of the van

It surprised us to see this, given the road surface had not been that bad at all. Talking to other caravanners, they weren’t surprised with many saying it just takes one rock to hit a bolt or for it to weaken over time due to vibrations. Either way, we were in the situation we were in and clearly could not continue.

The majority of the Birdsville Track has no mobile signal, and we suspected this would be the same. Yup, checking our Telstra phones, not a single bar. We went into the hotel to ask there and they let us know they had Optus signal. This was hopeful.

We are carrying two mi-fis with us (mobile wifi units), one of which has a UK Vodafone sim card, the remainder of a plan we had signed up to last year while travelling in England and Wales. It has free roaming in Australia, but to be honest, has been pretty useless…until now. We turned it on and amazingly, full signal! Hurrah! We were able to make phone calls, do internet searches, and share our situation with fellow Zone owners on the Facebook group.

Over the next couple of days, our caravan insurance company (CIL) agreed to foot the bill for towing out our van and repairs to the brackets, and we had managed to book a guy called Blake to drive down from Birdsville to collect us.

Once all that was organised, we had some time to try and enjoy our surroundings. It was fly-central so the insect repellant and fly nets were essential ingredients to being outside, but we managed to have a look around. Mungeranie Hotel is located beside a small wetland, and being surrounded by arid lands, the area is teeming with birds, with flocks of Zebra finches and Budgerigars frequently seen flying from the trees and bushes.

We saw a lot of water birds too, many first time viewings for us.

Black-fronted Dotterels poking around in the mud for larvae and aquatic insects
These are Black-tailed Native Hens and are really well adapted to living in arid lands. They have a sixth sense enabling them to find a pool of water in a desert – nobody is quite sure how they do it.
This Willie-wagtail Flycatcher should be obese with the number of flies on offer here!
A Lesser-Wanderer Butterfly – only tend to live in semi-arid areas and tropics
Masked Woodswallow
Huge flocks of Little Corellas nibbling flowers on the trees
A White-faced Heron up on top of a tree
Collared Sparrowhawk
Look at that gorgeous colouring! Collared Sparrowhawks are partial to a bit of Budgerigar which explains why I couldn’t spot any of those around!

Of course it was impossible to be living 200 metres from a pub and not venture in. The Mungeranie Hotel is typical of Australian outback pubs – absolutely chock full of quirky character. The exterior is quite neatly kept, with a row of rusty old trucks on parade as you arrive up the driveway. Then there are the traffic lights and the ‘McDonald’s opening soon’ sign to give you a chuckle.

There has been a hotel at this location since the mid 1800s when the road was established as a stock route. At one stage there were also stables, a blacksmith, store and a police station, and drovers would let their cattle drink at the waterhole here. Everything was closed by the 1920s and this hotel as it stands was not licensed again until 1989. Today it is a roadhouse, offering very basic rooms, fuel, hot dinners and drinks, as well as space for camping.

Welcome to Mungerannie Station

Once inside the pub, the walls and ceilings are literally covered in souvenirs of previous visitors. Hats are the main decor, then there are the strange dangling pieces of hair, which we then learn are rats-tails from old mullet hairstyles and beards!! A little bit gross, and very bizarre.

All the drinks are bottled, nothing on tap given the distance from anywhere. They ran out of red wine while we were there (not our fault) and I had the last bottle of soda water with my vodka, followed by the last nip of Jamison’s Whisky!

Patient service with a smile and a story

On our second night, Mr A had got chatting to a young couple on their way over to the east coast of Australia to work on a mango farm. We invited them to join us at the pub for some drinks, brought our own music and soon a party was happening. We were joined by a road-train driver who had pulled up for the night after driving 1,200km that day (he insisted no drugs were involved). We had a great night, ending at 1am when the bar started running out of drinks we wanted!

Drinking, laughter, singing and dancing with two travellers from Western Australia and a road-train driver!

The following day we got ready for Blake’s arrival with great anticipation. Although we had made the most of our couple of days at the Mungeranie Hotel, we were not keen to make it our forever home!

To our relief he finally arrived around 3pm, his drive down the rough track made all the slower by the long empty truck. It had taken him 7 hours in total to reach us, doing a couple of jobs on the way. And after loading our home, he was going to have to do the same trip again in reverse. We looked on in awe of this tenacity and attitude, and hoped our Zone would make it to Birdsville without further misadventure.

Mr A looking on nervously as Blake gets ready to load the van
The truck from the Birdsville Roadhouse ready to give out Zone a lift

We left Blake to continue with the finishing touches, knowing we would be much faster on the track than him. We farewelled our faithful home and looked forward to seeing it tomorrow in Queensland, our fourth state of the trip.

We would like to thank and acknowledge the Yawarawarrka and Ngamini First Nation people, throughout whose traditional land we travelled on this journey.

21-23 May: Northern Flinders up to Marree

Author: Mr A

Location: Northern Flinders and Marree, Northern South Australia

Australia has this brand of being populated with outdoorsy and Crocodile Dundee outback types, but in fact is one of the most urbanised nations in the world, with two thirds of Aussies living in a capital city, and 90 per cent of them clustering into just 0.22 per cent of the country’s land area. So when you are away from the urban areas, as we mainly are, it sure isn’t busy! And we are about to head into one of the least populated areas of the country, the vast expanse of the far northern end of South Australia.

Leaving behind the relative comforts of the campsite at Rawnsley Park Station in the southern Flinders, we headed north for the drive up to our next destination of the small settlement of Maree. Catherine had spotted that on the way there was a “self-guided drive” along an area of outstanding geological significance. As a geographer by education she was keen. Me, I know whats good for me, I go where I’m told 🙂

Lookout over the Flinders as we leave
Rolling hills

It was actually a very interesting drive, a little rougher than I expected, but the information boards told a fascinating story of this ancient landscape. When you read that something you’re looking at is 610 million years old, it really puts in perspective the impact we homo sapiens have had in such a microcosm of time, so much so we have our own geological period unofficially named for us – the Anthropocene.

We also saw stromatolites, which are some of the earliest life forms we have found evidence of (the oldest being the ones we saw in WA dated to around 3,500 million years old!), and as the ozone layer built up over hundreds of millions of years (and that we put at risk in a decades, thanks to strong global action, now seems to be repairing) it created the first known complex life forms of Ediacara Fauna (soft bodied sea dwellers).

Fossilised stromatolites
Hoping we don’t meet another vehicle coming around the blind bend and hill
Magnificent scenery
Our view for lunch
More dramatic geology
Following a dry creek bed which clearly occasionally floods judging by the logs piled up
A geographer’s dream – just look at this uplifted ancient sea bed dwarfing our car and home

So with our heads stuffed full of this geological wonder, we emerged back on to the tarmac again and set course for the small mining town of Leigh Creek. Well, it was a mining town until the coal mine closed in 2015, and it may become one again if the plan goes ahead to create a key ingredient for fertiliser by heating the underground coal seams. We were relieved to see that not only was the local supermarket still open (the town has dwindled to around 120 people now) but was really well stocked with fresh fruit and veg. This is most unusual, and we were very grateful, as the next supermarket on our route north would be 1,201km away!

When you look at the health stats on rural Australians, they have lower life expectancies, and suffer from more preventable diseases. It just isn’t healthy in the (remote) country. It really doesn’t surprise us looking at the contents of most of these remote stores, and as for exercise opportunities, well there’s certainly a dearth of walking or cycling routes, and a climate that for much of the year would make using them pretty uncomfortable.

We pulled off for the night a 100km short of Marree, by Clarrie’s Waterhole. Nothing there, just a flattish piece of gravel, and with full water tanks and fridges that is all we needed. We were treated to a big outback sunset, then settled in for what was a very peaceful night.

Tassie has a short explore before demanding one of her servants open the door for her
This is big sky country
Emu footprints and giant paws…what beast prowls these parts I wonder…?
We are rewarded with a fabulous sunset

The morning saw us make the short run into Marree, a small (150 people and still dropping) service centre for the large sheep and cattle farms in this remote area of far north South Australia. It also lies at the junction of two inconic outback travel routes the Oodnadatta Track (which runs for over 600km up to the north west) and the Birdsville Track, that we will be taking.

The Ghan railway passed through here at one stage…the tracks are now quiet…and a painted water tank shows wild horses, camels, dingos, kangaroos and emus racing around…
Mr A checks out the Marree Hotel…it is closed and nobody is there to take a booking for dinner (though after the food poisoning incident a few weeks ago Mrs A is still understandably nervous of pub dinners!)

I noticed the roadhouse operates scenic flights from here over Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre. A bit of bucket list item for us, particularly as it has water from the Queensland floods now reaching it – a particularly rare occurrence. So off we went for our 90 minute ride around the skies above this massive natural wonder.

We thank the Arabunna people as, since 2012, the recognised traditional owners of the land we flew over. What an incredible landscape these people have lived on for thousands of years, before the Europeans arrived and claimed the land as their own in order to graze their sheep and cattle on.

Our little chariot for the afternoon…note the fly nets – our first use of these in years, and a necessity in Marree

In those rare flood years, it fills 960 sq kilometres of lake – for comparison, Sydney Harbour is 55 sq km. When it is dry and the salt is hard, it’s big and solid enough for Donald Campbell to have set a world land speed record on, averaging 649kph! It also is home to the lowest natural point on the Australian mainland, at 15 metres below sea level.

Our flight traversed 427km in just under 2 hours
Look carefully and you will see the Dog Fence (Dingo Fence) built to prevent wild dingos and dogs from killing sheep
Some of the views from our plane – the dry salt and the mud flats and islands
The patterns in the salt are like modern artworks
The edge of the floodwaters below – that white dot is another little plane far below us!
The floodwaters from the recent rains in Queensland are lapping on the shores
The very front edge of the floodwaters
The south-east corner of the lake where the salt takes on a pink hue

The area also has its fair share of mysteries, such as how do birds who are thousands of kilometres away know that the lake has flooded and fly there? In the 1998/99 flood apparently around 80% of Australia’s total pelican population turned up there! Just one of the mysteries surrounding bird navigation. If it is a subject that interests you, like it does us, check out the Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year in 2019 “Incredible Journeys’. It collects all that we know currently about how animals (including us) navigate, and highlights by implication so much of what still remains a mystery.

Back on solid ground (to the relief of Mrs A!)

Another mystery in the area is the so called “Marree Man”, a modern geoglyph (large design you can only really appreciate from the air), but unlike the famous ones in the UK and South America, this was created, by persons unknown in the winter of 1998. Thanks to NASA for enabling the timeframe for its creation to be nailed down, but nobody since has owned up to being the artist, despite Dick Smith even offering a $5,000 reward! You can’t beat an outback mystery…

With a 28km long outline and being 4km long top to bottom it is quite a feat!

Today we are heading off up the Birdsville Track. We are unlikely to have any internet for the next few days (or possibly longer if we linger!), so all going well we will post next from the Birdsville Pub in state number four for this trip – Queensland!

16-21 May: Hiking some of the Ikara-Flinders Ranges

Author: Mrs A

Location: Rawnsley Station, Ikara Flinders Ranges, South Australia

We reluctantly pulled away from Quorn, wishing we had booked for longer and explored the region around this little friendly town in more depth, but unfortunately had little choice. Firstly, the campsite in Quorn was fully booked for the upcoming week, and secondly we had booked in to stay at Rawnsley Station, on the border of the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park.

A short drive from Quorn is the little settlement of Hawker. It has an art gallery that is quite well known for featuring some of the region’s most prominent artists, but sadly that was closed on this Sunday morning. Fortunately for us though, the other key attraction, Flinders Food Co, a cafe serving excellent food, was open for business. We called on in and ordered some delicious lunch from the interesting menu – well deserving of its great reputation.

Fine food in an unexpected location

As we drove up towards our home for the next few days we noticed quite a few vintage cars towing camper trailers. Apparently they had just come down the Birdsville Track, the route we are intending to take over the next couple of weeks into southern Queensland. Seeing the skinny wheels, most of the vehicles without air conditioning, heating or electric windows, made us feel more comfortable that we won’t struggle too much on our trip north. Punctures will be our greatest fear – we have changed a few tyres in our years travelling Australia, and it’s hard work with these heavy chunky wheels! Our fingers are crossed our tyres stay inflated. Changing a vintage car tyre would be much simpler!

One of the vintage cars that had traversed the outback track – most of the drivers/enthusiasts are mechanics so do repairs on the go

Our destination was Rawnsley Park Station which was initially settled as a sheep station in the mid 1800s, originally part of Arkarba Station. Previous to this it was the domain of the Adnaymathanha Aboriginal people. Arkarba Station was split up , and in 1951 Rawnsley Park Station was purchased by Clem Smith and his family.

Rawnsley Park Station turned to tourism in 1968 to supplement its sheep business and has not looked back. It’s a pretty well set up operation, with many marked walking and mountain biking trails, and a short drive to the Ikara-Flinders Ranges national park. Scenic flights and helicopter trips offer another way to see the region. Mr A asked about the Aboriginal history, but nobody seemed to know anything.

A bit of online searching suggests that when the sheep station was initially settled there was conflict between the First Nation Adnaymathanha people and the white farmers. Aboriginal people were shot in retribution for hunting sheep to feed their families.

I liken the situation to aliens landing and taking over our water supplies, farms cathedrals, theatres, opera houses and supermarkets and restricting our access to them all. Thirsty and hungry we are then driven to trying to dash in and get some food, and are killed for our trouble. A pretty nasty situation, and one that completely changed the way First Nations people had to live their lives. They gradually adapted to become workers on the stations, stepping away from thousands of years of sustainable living.

Today, the Adnaymathanha people are integral in their work as rangers in the national park, helping to restore the land to its former sustainable state. We thank and acknowledge these communities and their ancestors for their connection to these lands for thousands of years.

The rocky walls tower over us as we start our hike

Once we had settled into our site we pulled on our boots and set off for an afternoon hike. Rawnsley Park Station has a number of signed hikes ranging from 2 to 12 kilometres in length. We picked a 6.5km one named after one of the early station owners, Clem’s Corner. Clem is also the name of Mark’s fondly remembered late father, so the name was particularly poignant.

Remembering Clem Anderson at Clem’s Corner
A narrow rocky path picks along the hillside – you have to stop watching your feet to enjoy the view

We are approaching the end of autumn now, so the sun is setting earlier and especially where there are mountains (hills) towering above you. Rawnsley Bluff is the highest peak on the property at 943 metres (3093 ft). As we reached the lookout the light was incredible – the shadows long across the land and the colours incredibly vivid, the pinks, blues, mauves, purples and oranges a feast for the eyes.

The Station is home to many birds, including the beautiful Red-capped Robin. We had never seen one of these before, and were delighted with this little chap emerged from the native cypress pines surrounded by his multitude of girlfriends.

The Cypress Pines are covered in lichens – you could almost imagine it’s snow or frost
Red-capped Robin – looking vibrant in the approaching dusk

Early the following morning we set off on another walk through the Station, rewarded for our prompt start with many more robins, Mulga Parrots, Mallee Ringneck Parrots, huge Wedge-tailed Eagles and Emus.

The Red-capped Robin is startlingly crimson
The female Red-capped Robin has a faint orange forehead
Singing Honeyeaters live here too
A Grey Kangaroo bounds off as we appear
Mulga Parrots – the males are brightly coloured in comparison to the females – new to us too
Finishing our walk by climbing up to another lookout

We took a drive out to nearby Arkaroo Rock, a significant cultural site for the Adnaymathanha people of the Flinders Ranges. ‘Arkaroo’ comes from the name given to the petrified serpents which later became the mountains of Ikara.

Without interpretation we can only guess what the drawings depict – we can see trees or leaves…

Unfortunately the National Park folk have neglected to share any interpretive information about the charcoal and ochre paintings. The paintings depict the Yura Muda or Dreaming (creation story) of Ikara.

Watching the walls change colour as the sun sets
Mulga Parrots at Arkaroo Rock
Drinking moisture from the tin roof – as the temperature drops at the end of the day, condensation appears

A warm camp fire concluded our day with a nice glass of Malbec. With the nights dropping to between 2 and 6 degrees, we certainly appreciate all the warmth we can get!

The temperature here warms up to the late teens or early 20s during the day, starting to drop as soon as the sun dips behind the hills. It is a perfect time of year to be here. Mark and I last visited the Flinders in January 2004 (17 years ago), when day time temperatures were in the high 30s and we had to start our walks before sunrise to get the cool of the day and minimise flies. There are virtually no flies here currently, which definitely helps the situation. Walking without fly nets over your hat is impossible in the hotter months.

Another walk around the property revealed more bird and wild life including, of course, more adorable robins.

Male robins are constantly on the lookout for competition
Sitting in a native Cypress Pine tree – these are common around the property and take 100 years to grow 6 feet
Mallee Ring Neck Parrot
The Ringneck Parrots like corrugated iron roofs too

Walking back to the van we stumbled across another guest travelling with a cat. This cat is just 18 months old and huge, like a small lion – he is a Maine Coon – they can reach more than 8kg in weight – double Tassie!

Meet Inspector Gadget…

We regularly encourage Tassie to be active and get outside, but being 17 she’s mostly keen to sit in the sunshine and sleep! One one short walk from the caravan she decided to mark her territory…while a dog might do this by urinating, Tassie’s choice was to find a big dust bowl and have a good roll – rubbing her cheeks and therefore her scent on the rocks and ground. One very orange cat emerged – she needed a good brush and wipe down with a damp cloth afterwards! She was not impressed, but forgave us after another nap in the sunshine!

Solar cat in her element, if slightly tangerine

We paid a visit to the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, just under half an hour’s drive away. There are a range of walks available to do there, ranging from the easy 8km hike we did up to Ikara (Wilpena Pound) up to a couple of multi day (multi week even) hikes.

Ikara was a place of initiation ceremonies and corroborees (gatherings and rituals) until it was designated as farming land in the 1850s and farmers from Adelaide arrived with thousands of sheep. Needless to say, the climate of long droughts followed by flood meant the farm did not survive.

The area was designated as a national park in 1945 though it took until 2016 for the name Ikara to be included in the National Park’s name, in recognition of the significance of this place. Ikara features in traditional Aboriginal songs across Australia, showing just how important this location is to First Nation groups from right across the country.

The Adnaymathanha rangers have worked hard to rid the park of pests, including wild cats, rabbits and goats, though there is some work to do still as we saw both goats and a rabbit on our visit. Still, the Yellow-footed Wallaby is now stabilised there, after being driven to near extinction previously.

Check out those yellow feet and striped tail 🤍

It’s a beautiful area and it pays to take the walk slowly, enjoying the sights and sounds, and for us, appreciate the novelty of tall trees after our time on the Eyre Peninsular where they are few and far between.

Not too busy on this walk
Laughing Kookaburra
Laughing Kookaburra
Inland Thornbill hunting for grubs and insects on a fallen tree
A Euro looks up at us from the path below

We climbed to the lookout and admired the view. The Flinders are the highest mountains in South Australia, Ikara stretching out before us filled with native pine and eucalypts.

Ikara – formerly known as Wilpena Pound

The Woolshed Restaurant was our evening treat – located on Rawnsley Park Station itself. As we are on a sheep station, the menu was no surprise – specialising in lamb, with fish, kangaroo and vegetarian options for those preferring something different. We decided to share a lamb tasting platter, including chops, sausages and rump. Delicious, but a whole lot of meat! Somehow we managed to find space for dessert – a vegan panacotta for me and an affrogato for Mr A.

A delicious feast and break from cooking for ourselves

On our final day we took a walk up towards Rawnsley Bluff, the highest point on the range surrounding the sheep station. Magnificent views were our reward, plus more wildlife – Euros (stocky, hairy kangaroos!), Emus and more Mulga Parrots nesting in the hollow branches of a dead tree. A fitting end to a brilliant few days here.

A group of emus strut across the plains
Magnificent views as we hike up
Can you spot the Euros amongst the spinifex grasses?
Mr A hiking up the hill
More views and no other people on our walk
Mulga Parrots flying to their night’s roost
Mulga Parrots
Euro
We stood really still and this curious Emu came over to check us out! Too close for my camera!
Sunset Emu

We will never forget our time here, it has been truly magical. But it is time for us to continue our journey north, we have some exciting things to see over the coming few days!

Farewell Rawnsley Park Station