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.
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