Betoota 26th August

Hi folks.
While travelling from Quilpie (where emu's were the only pedestrians), over this way we called into the Windorah Info centre, there was a flyer there asking for Volunteers at the Betoota Races, we thought ' why not'.
We went via Haddens Corner where Kath got a couple of lessons on driving over sand dunes, awesome country out there. Found a new desert flower on the sand dune there, any one identify it ? The seed pod is definitely a pea style.
Checked out the photo, hmm looking a tad scruffy there, the beard is a tad grey now.
Unfortunately the new road has bypassed the Betoota Pub for some unknown reason by 7k's and travellers will have to detour to sample their hospitality now, not an ideal situation for the new owners.
Arrived in Betoota and went to the race track, spent the next couple of days helping put the finishing touches to fences, erecting marquee tents etc etc and on Friday and Saturday we did the gate for the Race Club.
What a fantastic crew of volunteers and committee people there! The hospitality, friendship and just plain old fashioned fun and festivities was unbelievable. The attendance over the 2 days would have been around the 5-600 mark, country people forgetting the drought etc and just socialising, it was fantastic to see. Traditional bush race carnival if ever there was one and Australian to the core.
The band both nights was Geezup, 3 young fellas who could really belt out the songs, mainly the older type with a couple of others thrown in for good measure, Two lovely young ladies from Winton called The Crack up Girls also entertained the crowd with jokes, gigs and whip cracking displays. Kath just had to get a photo with them, can't blame her.
The Police and Ambo's had a cruisey time, no injuries, no DD or drugs all weekend. The Police did an educational program at the Betoota Pub on the Friday and it was a great PR exercise by all accounts.
Back to the Races, we were given a few tips by owners etc but the one most of them advised must have tail lights to find it's way home in the dark ! No Kath and I didn't have a bet.
In the main event the Ambo's missed a place by a long bonnet.
The Auction for the Calcutta was just a warm up for the auction on Saturday night, all sorts of items went under the hammer and believe me, political correctness was the last thing on their minds 😄 it was hilarious.
Not that anyone minded as all proceeds went to good causes, the drought relief being one. An Aussie icon 'overnighted' at the races - Fred Brophy of the boxing tent fame, pretty serious sort of a bloke.
I got a little adventurous with the camera and tried a few night shots of the surrounds using the moonlight, pretty happy with the results to. See if you can spot the Southern Cross.
We had to leave Sunday morning to travel to Birdsville as we were booked in there for the 10 days of the Races and events , the first 70k's was really ordinary but after that the other 120 or so was pretty good as the graders had been busy levelling a few corrugations and leaving plenty of bull dust to go round, heard a bloke complaining about it on the VHF so I just suggested that it was God's own country out here but the Devil owns the roads. Didn't hear anything after that.
We have been walking around Birdsville today and hell has this place changed, I will describe the changes in the next blog.
Any I will leave you with a few photo's of the adventure and the Opal we found.
Stay healthy
Bob n Kath

Kath new 'bling'

Quilpie pedestrians 

tad scruffy

new flower

night sky 

Chook with the Auctioneer

Ambo's by a bonnet 

Fred Trophy 'on right'

we have a winner ! 

Kath and the girls

Quilpie 20th August

Hi folks,
YOWAH, we found a beauty !!!!!  while specking about in the public area I walked around behind the truck towards a tree for obvious boy reasons and --- YOWAH, this beautiful blue spark gleamed back at me from about 20 meters away! I had it polished yesterday and ended up with a triangular shaped solid blue and green opal 10mm long x 8mm thick.  They valued it at about $400 to $500, nice little bonus.
It was hard to bid farewell to Yowah this morning after 9 days and start the leg towards Birdsville, we have both developed a soft spot for this little place, the people and the life style here. I thought we had a laid back life style up home but it has nothing on this town. We will definitely be coming back next year. There are a couple of pics of the school - loved the sig on the gate 😀
Stopped at the Toompine Pub for lunch, that was different as it is a Pub without a Town, out in the middle of nowhere with a checkered history dating back to the late 1800's, it is built with small corrugated iron and cypress pine with wide verandah around it. Interesting sign on the front fence too - see the pic.
We are travelling via Quilpie for a stock up on food then on to Haddens Corner, we should be at the Corner tomorrow night and spend a few days looking around before the last few hundred K's to Birdsville and arrive there on the 26th.
Camped tonight beside the Bull River before we explore the town with the various Museums, the air port where Amy Johnston  landed on her epic flight from England to Australia, history we learned school but didn't understand nor fully appreciate, her navigation skills whilst flying solo over this vast outback are incredible.
Oh and the boulder Opal fields - of course.
Sampled a new food tonight, local butchers speciality, beef, bacon and herb sausage, they are really tasty.  👍
 We are going back to get a few more before departure as they are that good.
Well as everything is functioning as it should be and we have had no problems, I will sign off for tonight.
I will do another entry before we leave here as it will be Satellite Phone only until civilisation next Sunday.
Nite all, stay safe.

Yowah 14th August

Hi all,
Everything is going well, we are currently camped I a small town called Yowah, near Eulo and Quilpie. Founded in the late 1890's, Population of 150, artesian spa pools and a great progress association. Camping is for a gold coin donation and includes the hot showers etc. Eric is the town caretaker and recently won the RFDS  Hero Award for his work both for the RFDS and within this community. Crime level is zero, the locals take care of any 'interruptions' to their quiet way of life as the average age out here is around the late 60's and 70's. It is a really open, friendly little town.
It is also home of the Yowah Nut boulder opal, the brilliance of this to me anyway is way superior to Lightening Ridge or Opalton. The vibrant greens, reds, blues and gold are really something to see. So far we have only found a few specimen pieces and a few chips but as Kathy said " it's early days yet" she has the 'bug' in a big way. The school ran for at least 2 years with only 1 student ! then his family left so the school is still open with no enrolments or staff.
Saturday night is the local pub grub night at the local hall, there is no Pub here so they do a dinner and have a bar permit, Thursday night is the duck races down the local bore drain with proceeds going to the RFDS followed by a meal. There is something nearly every day of the week from darts to quilting and indoor bowls etc, like I said, really vibrant little town.
Drove up to the Bluff Lookout where there is a plaque stating Cairns is 1221.3K's as the crow flies, wide open country with the jumpers on the horizon.
We will be here for another 4 or 5 days, hopefully we will get a decent Opal for Kath.
Just a pic to tantalise her with, oh I wish.
Stay healthy

Thargomindah 10/9/18

Hi all,
Well it has been time all spent since leaving the Lakes, back to Broken Hill for a day then up and away to Tibooburra and the Sturt National Park. They had around 10mls of rain 6 weeks previously so there was a sprinkling of green around with a few yellow daisy like flowers, made a change from the drought conditions we have been seeing. We spent a couple of days exploring the area.
We noticed that none of the female kangaroo's have joey's or young in the pouch all the way round, some of the dams out there had dozens of roo carcasses in them, we spoke with a Ranger and he told us they didn't have the energy to climb back up the steep sides so they just died there, bloody awful sight.
To see the country that the explorer Sturt crossed with horses and camels was astounding, our history teachers had absolutely no idea as to these conditions. I am totally in awe of these blokes, their resilience and endurance, Mitchell grass and gibber plains that stretch to the horizon, dry creeks and then steep breakaway type ranges.It must have seemed endless to them. It has given me a far better understanding of just what they achieved with numerous expeditions around the area that were never mentioned in our classes,and respect those who followed in their foot steps to settle out here, it must have extremely hard for the women folk, imagine giving birth out here as the only mid wife around were the aboriginal ladies and medical help was weeks on horse back away. Astoundingly strong  ladies.
We drove the Jump Up Loop to the Breakaways which were breath taking, the Ranger said it was even better after rain when all the wild flowers are out, still trying ti imagine that !. that track lead us to the middle road across to Fort Grey (overnight camp) where Sturt camped up for some time before returning to Tibooburra where he abandoned the 27' whale boat they had been carting around as he was the one who thought there was an inland sea out there somewhere because of flight paths of birds.
Then on to the dingo fence at Warra Gate, it certainly earns it's place as an Aussie icon, then on to Cameron's Corner for the mandatory photo's. The pub there has great hours - 7.30am to 2.30 am next day - 19hrs per day! but they also had great coffee. We got yarning to Larry, he is one of the blokes (3rd generation)  who maintain the fence, his patch is 80klm long, the 'Shiela' next door has 100klm of fence to maintain and he was saying that even the dingo's are not breeding this year. If the dingo we say just north of there is anything to go by, I don't doubt it.
That dingo was in a terrible state, I would have thought with the amount of dead roos around they would be in fair nick however the lack of water has put paid to that.
The road from the Corner to Innaminka is stuff that nightmares are made of ! corrugations and bull dust for miles however the vistas from the crest of the dunes made it worth while, needless to say we didn't see any vans on the road. $5 a night for the camp on the banks of the Cooper River was OK. Population of 55-60, huge town there.
On to the Burke and Wills dig tree, more Aussie history where we got only a sketchy idea from the Social Studies books. The trials by attacking aboriginal tribes, tribulations of the land they crossed and then to return hours after the others had left, and then to die from scurvy to was the ultimate tragedy. If only they had watched/listened to the aboriginals it would never have happened.
I showed Kath the Moomba Gas plant and the 'noddy' pumps for pumping oil to the Jackson Field, did a bit of work there quite awhile ago, hey are different power now, used to run on the gas which came up with the oil using an Arrow single cylinder motor, now it is diesel motor running on crude oil connected to an alternator  so the pump is now driven by the electric motor.
Any way, we are now in Thargo and heading for Yowah tomorrow to see if we can find an Opal or two.
Stay happy.

t

Menindee Lakes. 2nd August

Welcome folks,
After some enjoyable days exploring Broken Hill we decided to have a look at the Menindee Lakes, we have had conflicting reports about water levels, conservation, polution etc so out we went.
Lake Menindee its self is dry but Lake Pamamaroo and others are low but have water. The huge problem out here is Cotton Growing, Tandou had a 72 Gigalitre, yes, Gigalitre licence and they are only one farm. The NSW Gov bought that one back for environmental purposes for $78 million. Not a bad little earner.
There are thousands of hectares absolutely flat and as bare as concrete all the way out and east of here, the sides of the road are white with cotton blown from the transport for hundreds of kilometres, you can see water turbidity from tailwater silt all along the Darling River, rising salinity levels from run off has killed a lot of farms and businesses, the vineyard at Menindee it self has closed as the vines couldn't survive the salt, they had 400 hectares of vines. Blue green algae is thriving in the fertiliser run off.
Needless to say tensions are very high around here between locals and the 'blow in' cotton growers.
After all that we camped at Main Weir free bee and did an evening river cruise down the river, a very pleasant afternoon with excellent hosts and fellow tourists. Fantastic sun rises and sunsets here for the shutter bugs, thought of you Jim. We went to the old Cobb & Co bridge made from river red gum, it was a staging post on the Adelaide to Bourke route.
Feed of camp oven stew, cold beer and zip to do except enjoy the vista. Happy wife got a night off cooking. Well worth while if you ever down this way.
Took a few hours out and visited the old Kinchega Shearing shed, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with a 64 stand board, average of 75,000 sheep per year and a total of over 6 million before closing down, all the wool was taken by bullock dray to the Darling river for transport to Adelaide. Some thought provoking memorabilia there with the old steam traction engines, hand shears, the timber tinkers with red gum wheels and wheel wool presses etc. It is a pity there is practically nothing left of the original home stead, just a few brick borders of the veggie gardens and a fire place. The aboriginal heritage takes precedent and not open to us as visitors.
 After a couple of days we decided to go to another lake camp site, right on the water edge, thousands of dead trees between us and the sun set, over night the weather gods got cranky, strong wind warning with gusts to 45 knots with scattered showers so we woke this morning to an overcast sky, howling winds and scuds of rain, the Bundatop is rock solid, no leaks and wind proof - bonus, just enough rain to be annoying and not enough to be of benefit to the land, just cold and miserable, up side is we are being serenaded by some butcher birds while we have breakfast, we will shift camp later to a more sheltered spot from the wind.
The river red gums here are absolutely magnificent, huge trunks and just starting to flower, small yellow bunches with a delicate perfume, there was a 27megalitre flow recently for environmental purposes so the water level rose about a metre, the little honeyeaters and bees are busy so just being able to watch this out weighs any discomfort.
A couple of days here and back through Broken Hill on Sunday to re-provision and then up towards Tibaburrough Monday, hope the wind improves, it is still blowing 30+ knots so we are hiding behind some trees and the fire is going.
Stay safe