An enforced holiday in Broome

 

A postcript to the previous post from Halls
 Creek: This is the truck tyre we blew out
 on the Tanami Track.

We’re having a glorious holiday in Broome, an enforced break in fact as we are waiting for two new batteries to arrive from Sydney . . . and that could take seven to nine days from today, July 28.

We had made a mad dash from Halls Creek last Friday, July 25, as we were determined to get our power problem sorted.

At least the 700+ km was on bitumen roads and we had phoned ahead to secure a place in a rather nice caravan park, where we could plug into 240v power, with the option of extending our three-day stay if repairs took longer. The diagnosis by the auto electrician on Saturday was that one of our two ‘house’ batteries had collapsed, meaning the other needed replacing as well.

We were lucky that near us in the caravan park was an electrical engineer from the Blue Mountains, waiting on repairs to his vehicle transmission, and through lots of informal chat, he provided John with a thorough grounding in matters electrical, particularly concerning batteries.

So today, when John saw the auto electrician again he was much more informed and knew what was needed. The guy concurred, but the new gear had to be ordered from Sydney, and has to come by road transport.

We now know that even when not using the motorhome, it should be kept plugged into 240v power so the batteries do not deteriorate . . . so we’re never too old to learn something new.

One of the giant boab trees in the grounds of the
 courthouse, where weekend markets are held.

On the bright side, there are a lot worse places in which to take an enforced break. We love Broome and its atmosphere, even though it is over run with tourists at present, most of them in caravans or motorhomes, camper trailers or campervans.

All sorts of places have opened up overflow caravan space, including one of the local churches and the local pistol club.

We’ve been exploring with the help of a rental car . . . which we’ve now extended for another period, as we have our stay in the caravan park. It is so busy they will have to move us twice in the next week and a bit, but that’s no real problem.

The almost impossible aqua of the water at Broome's

Town Beach.

 

When I phoned to hire a car, I was met with hollow laughter from most firms as all their cars were spoken for, but one had just one available the next morning, a three-door manual Hyundai Getz. When we got into it we found the passenger-side visor had lost its spring and flopped down all the time. We went back in, reported it and they had a scurry around,  deciding they could substitute the vehicle later that day.

When the call came, they’d upgraded us to a brand-new automatic i30 which is gorgeous, but after a month in the cab of the Isuzu truck, it feels like getting down into a sports car.



The bronze statue of a pearlshell diver,

mostly Japanese, who made Broome famous

until the 1950s, when it provided 80% of

the pearlshell used for the buttons of the

world. Then it gained fame for its cultivated

pearls.

We are eking out our pleasures, making sure we have something new to do each day without getting Broomed out. We’ve been pearl shopping (for my big birthday next January); enjoyed breakfast at the weekend markets, met lots of locals and loved the ambience; learnt about the pearling industry past and present; and will go by seaplane and then fast boat through the horizontal waterfalls north of here on Friday.

We’ve promised ourselves sunset drinks at Cable Beach (a local institution), a walk on the port  wharf, and just generally pottering around. The caravan park has a superb swimming pool so that’s where you’ll find us each afternoon.

After a month of driving more than 5000km, with our only real stop three days at Bedourie, this is proving a real holiday. The weather is hot, the watermelon is icy cold, as is the wine and beer, so what more could we want?

 

Joys and tribulations of the Tanami Track

July 21:

We’ve been sitting outside, watching the stars and tracking satellites as they criss-cross the sky. The reason we can see everything so clearly is that we’re in the middle of the Northern Territory, about one-third of our way across the 1046km Tanami Road.

Beside the Mt Doreen homestead ruins, and just look at
those hills in the background.

We’ve camped the night at the ruins of Mt Doreen station, just off the main road. We had hoped to have it to ourselves, but a posse of 5 Victorian 4WDs arrived almost at the same time as we did.  They’ve kept to themselves, ate early as they have little outside lighting and have retired to bed in their vehicles.

An important section of an Alice Springs
supermarket, with many Aboriginal
 people buying the tails.

We left Alice Springs this morning, a day later than intended. That was because on Saturday afternoon, John was checking everything, including tyre pressures, ready to leave on Sunday, when he found that one of the inside dual tyres on the rear of the Isuzu was dead flat.

He was struggling to get it off when he remembered that the NRMA has reciprocal services with other states, so called AANT and sure enough a chap in a breakdown truck arrived very promptly to help. They wrangled the bad tyre off, as well as the outer one, replaced the flat one with the spare and put the outer one back one. This meant we couldn’t go anywhere until Monday morning when we could get a tyre place to look at the flat tyre which had no external damage.

The three tavern patrons left holding the snake.

So Sunday was a restful day, culminating in a roast meal at the tavern next door, with extra entertainment from a chap from the local reptile park who’d brought some of his lizards and snakes to show off. The major hit was a big python that he set crawling along the backs of volunteers’ necks, leaving the final three to hold the python while he chatted.

We were at Beaurepaires when it opened at 8am, someone tested the tyre and found the inside had shredded, probably as a result of a slightly broken grid John remembers driving over as we returned to the highway from Tower Rock. A replacement was soon stowed in our spare wheel slot, we finally had breakfast, high on Anzac Hill overlooking the town of Alice Springs, and we took off north for the Tanami Road turn-off.

The first 167km were a doddle as it was a bitumen road, but after that things deteriorated. Lots of corrugations, some mud patches from rain a week ago, and it was a pretty bone-

shaking experience. We called at a roadhouse to top up with diesel and went into the Yuendemu Aboriginal community to do the same. As we found in the outback in 2012, all the roadhouses and community stores are being run by backpackers from overseas and the price of diesel at Yuendemu was $2.60 a litre . . . but when you need it, you pay. Water is still dearer, as we saw a 1 litre of water at Alice Springs for close to $4.

We’re carrying four containers of extra fuel as there won’t be any more now for about 500km.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the corrugations and bulldust, with more of the same the next day, but by then we’ll be in WA and almost at Hall’s Creek.

 

July 23 (Halls Creek)

We finally made it to Halls Creek, driving all 1046km of the Tanami Road (commonly known as the Tanami Track, and we can see why). It is a seriously bad road, full of corrugations, bulldust, sharp stones . . . but incredible outback vistas.

We spent our second night on the road camped just on the NT side of the WA border, all on our own. It was lovely, with some recent rain bringing all kinds of small shrubs into flower and the spinifex was looking all green and roly-poly . . . but that’s not to be advised as it’s seriously sharp all over.



Meeting a road train on the track.

On we went into WA this morning, calling after 158km into the Aboriginal community of Billiluna for the first diesel fuel we’d been able to buy since Yuendemu.

We saw our first wild camel beside the road, then we decided we really should leave the main road and drive 20km to see Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater. That 40km return was definitely the worst road we have encountered in Australia but the place was actually quite crowded. There were two groups of 4WDs there, all headed for the Canning Stock Route, accessed south through Billiluna.

I suspect that particular outback track is like a traffic jam at present as every second person we’ve met was heading for it.

 

Just one section of the huge Wolfe Creek crater.

After we’d duly climbed to the lip of the crater and marvelled at the sight we had lunch and set off back to the Tanami road . . . where about 10km further on, one of our inside dual tyres blew out with a dramatic amount of noise.

So we proceeded fairly slowly to the end of the Tanami road . . . finally, bitumen, and white lines! . . . and checked in to the Halls Creek caravan park. It was a blistering hot afternoon so while John researched the various tyre suppliers in this little town, I indulged in the (quite cold) swimming pool.

The tyre will be sorted by tomorrow and we’ll head for Fitzroy Crossing where we’ll stay a couple of nights, visiting some of the local gorges and really getting into the Kimberley experience.

John will be having deep and meaningful discussions tomorrow by phone with auto electricians in Broome, where we should be by Sunday, ready for their services on Monday, as the corrugations seem to have shaken something loose in our electronic/electricity system, fed from four solar panels as well as a relay from the engine when it is going.

We discovered yesterday afternoon near the WA border that something was wrong and opted to turn one bit off, so we only had the occasional beeping from the inverter rather than ear-splitting screeches during the night. Tonight will be much more serene as we’re on full 240v power from the caravan park, so no beeping or screeching.

John, as always, is philosophical about these bits being affected by the horrendous roads we’ve travelled as everything else continues to work well and we live in deep comfort.

The final road sign in 1046km.

We’re pleased to have put the Tanami track behind us . . . and if ever either of us suggests we do it again, the other is sure to call the men from the funny farm.

NT cattle stations and their campgrounds

We’ve done it! We’ve driven more than 800km on the Donohue and Plenty Highways, from Boulia to Alice Springs.

The Burke River at Boulia, just a series of waterholes at
this time of year.

And actually, it was not as bad as we had expected. We’d heard some good reports of these two roads, one from Boulia to the NT border, and the other further west to the junction with the main north-south Stuart Highway.

Those reports turned out to be correct, with more bitumen than we had expected on the Donohue, and the Plenty did not have many bad spots. Some sections were well-gravelled and smooth, and some were full of red bulldust and corrugations, so a sturdy vehicle was certainly needed.

A glorious outback sunset at Boulia.

We took our time, staying at campgrounds at two stations. One was Tobermorey, just over the NT border. It was grassy and well-watered and apart from the station generator running until 10pm, a haven of peace. The next was at Jervois Station, further into the NT. Its campground was just a dusty area away a little from the homestead, but it had a scattering of trees, was right beside the very dry riverbed, and had barbecues but campers needed their own firewood. Close to the homestead is the heritage-listed rocket shelter erected by the Woomera Rocket Range in the late 1960s.

Along the Donohue Highway, near a station entrance.

As it was letting off rockets flying towards Central Australia, Woomera built 19 of these shelters and installed radio telephones to let the station families know when a rocket was to be launched, so they could seek shelter in case in came down on their homestead. There was unconfirmed reports that rather than seeking shelter, families used to stand on the earth roofs of the shelters to watch the rockets. When we bought diesel at Jervois it was $2.30 a litre.



John with the biggest termite mound along
the Plenty Highway.

We had intended going on to another campground called Gem Tree, closer to the junction with the Stuart Highway, but at Jervois got talking to the couple who publish the campers and caravanners ‘bible’, Camps 6 or 7. They had been in WA and the NT researching Camps 8 and told us they’d the day before visited a remote and beautiful campground 75km north of the Plenty Highway.

So we turned off where they had told us and drove to a property called Mt Swan, which runs a  store, mostly for the surrounding Aboriginal communities, as well as an art gallery showing their work. This includes artists from the neighbouring Utopia community so there was some wonderful stuff there . . . and fairly pricey, as they’re pretty famous.

The German and Italian backpackers running the store, and the Polish girl who showed us round the makeshift gallery in former stockmen’s quarters all said the Tower Rock campground was worth visiting, so on we jolted for another 27km over fairly bad dirt roads.

The graves of Mac and Rose Chalmers under Tower Rock.

It was glorious! It was the favourite picnic ground for the Chalmers family, who had settled a station property there in the 1920s, and whose family still own the area. A second-generation Chalmers, who became a top cattleman and advocate for the area's Aborigines, and his wife are buried there in the 474ha reserve given to the NT Govt by the current Chalmers owner in 2011.

We clambered to the top of the rock pile dominating the landscape, taking photos of the limitless landscape, with our motorhome just a dot in the foreground. Nobody else  

came there and it was just us, the stars, and a cold, windy night.

Look closely and you can just see the 6.5tonne Isuzu motorhome.

‘Facilities’ are just two hessian-curtained loos. They could be called Mobil-loos as they are long-drop pits, with Mobil fuel drums wedged in to hold toilet seats. When we called back at the store to buy some bread, Sonya Chalmers, wife of the owner and operator of the gallery, assured us she was hoping to improve them as soon as possible.

One of the loos at Tower Rock.

Basic, but it works.

It was a unique experience and I’m so pleased we ran into the Camps people. They also gave us some helpful hints for places to stay in the Kimberley region as well as north of Tennant Creek.

With just a coffee stop at Gem Tree (a caravan park close to a major fossicking area), we arrived in Alice Springs in the early afternoon, as the dirt road had ended just more than 70km from the junction with the Stuart Highway.

That of course is a major road, with white lines in the centre, something we haven’t seen for weeks. There’s a rather strange structure just north of the town, marking the Tropic of Capricorn. We’d passed it, going north, between Bedourie and Boulia, and here we were, going south through it again.

We’re in a caravan park at the southern end of town, with the gap in the McDonnell Ranges looming above, and will dine at the park’s tavern tonight, do some washing and check the vehicle tomorrow, stock up at the supermarket, then take off on the Tanami Track on Sunday.

Next stop . . . Hall’s Creek in the Kimberley, then the Bungle Bungles.

Oil, dinosaurs and camels

The small refinery at Eromanga

It’s not many times that one can sleep in a caravan park just across the road from an oil refinery, but that’s what we did in Eromanga. We had discovered back in 2012 what a thriving oil centre Eromanga was  . . . and its refinery has its own fuel pumps outside the perimeter fence, selling diesel and unleaded fuel many many cents cheaper than in the nearest town of Quilpie.

We had a delightful night there, exploring the village that afternoon, including an excellent living history centre, with the key available at the local pub, a great old stone building dating from the late 19^th century. Eromanga’s other claim to fame are the dinosaur fossils relatively recently unearthed on a nearby station property. They are deemed to have been the biggest that roamed Australia, and have been called titanosaurus.

In the bed of Cooper's Creek

Then on we went towards Windorah, spending two nights camped at Cooper’s Creek. It was not running as well as when we visited in 2012 so there were not as many waterbirds present, but there were a few pelicans finding small fish. We had a unique experience there, with the 50-ish couple camped just along the creek bed inviting us to share their campfire after dinner.

It was all very pleasant and we all enjoyed a few drinks . . . then while John and her husband were engrossed in some technical discussion about electric appliances (he’s a retired electrician), she confided that they were ‘swingers’ and wondered if we were interested.

I gracefully backed off and she took no offence but told me all about their activities with a swingers’ club in Brisbane. This all happened at night and we had only seen them by firelight. When they pottered over to say goodbye the next morning, they were definitely not the image of sexy, attractive people pursuing a swinging lifestyle, having sex with multiple partners. They were frankly, quite unattractive and we could hardly keep a straight face. Ever since, John has referred to them as the ‘chandeliers’, as in ‘swinging from the chandeliers’.

Back to our journey . . . After looking around Windorah, and fuelling up, we headed west again towards Bedourie, where we found a delightful nook among some trees at the local racecourse, where camping was offered in conjunction with the local camel races.

Don Anesbury walking his camels around the track.

As we were a few days early, there were not many campers, and we met a couple from near Port Augusta, who had brought their string of camels to compete in those races, and then would go on to meetings at Boulia and Winton. They were great folk and we were so pleased for them when their camels not only won the Cup, but also the Plate. Their winning jockey was a young Irish bloke who has been working at Scone and first rode for them at a Forbes camel meeting. He also was fleet of foot, winning the men’s footrace.

The day also featured woodchops (nothing like those at the big shows), using hard blue gum logs from Emerald, the ringers and station managers put their backs into chopping those logs, with one of the most energetic the offduty policeman from Bedourie. One of his colleagues, from Mt Isa, won the men’s camp oven throwing contest later in the day.

A racing camel in full flight is
not a pretty sight



As Bedourie is the home of the Bedourie camp oven, there was also a damper cook-off, with 30  

Judging the dampers was a serious business

competing in three heats, and a gaggle of local blokes did the judging, tapping, breaking open and tasting the dampers, which were simply numbered. All ages took part, and would you believe the best damper was cooked by a nine-year-old boy, who took the first prize of $700, while a girl around the same age won the $300 second prize.

Men and women threw camp ovens, even the women took part in the woodchops, there was an hilarious event for the many kids where they had to chase and catch a six-week-old pig, who dashed all over the grounds, and an even more hilarious auction where people were bidding up to $80 for pink beanie with CAT (for Caterpillar) on it.

We had a ball.  Everyone else did too, including the travelling people in dozens of caravans, camper trailers and motorhomes who attended. The locals settled in for a big night of music and dancing but after we’d bought an evening meal from the catering area (volunteers under the instruction of the caterer, known to all as Dogger), we retired to the motorhome and our third night of a huge campfire, using some of the piles of wood dozed up around the grounds.

The land of the great plains and channels south of Boulia.

On we drove the next day to Boulia, stopping to make coffee at a tremendous lookout atop one of the few hills in those great western plains. There was a freezing wind blowing so we didn’t linger but there was a 360 degree view of the area south of Boulia, on a property known as Marion Downs.

Rain seemed to threaten but no moisture fell. That night, camped at the Boulia Caravan Park we got talking to an Aboriginal man who had pulled into a cabin next door with his grandson. He had just driven for 12 hours from Alice Springs along the road we’ll take in a day or two and reported some parts were a bit slushy after rain but predicted the wind would dry it off.

He’s an interesting character as he’s going to Birdsville for a meeting of his family group, which has shared management of a big area around the SA-NT-Qld borders with the various State governments, National Parks, etc. His sisters are driving up from Adelaide, through Marree, accompanied by the lawyers.

We need to stock up on groceries and essentials of life such as paper towels, chocolate and wine . . . as well as spuds and onion and some steaks . . . before we leave on Tuesday, calling at a station just outside Boulia to see the widow of a cousin of mine. Then it will be the Donohue Highway to the NT border, then the Plenty Highway from the border to the main north-south Stuart Highway from SA to Darwin. Not that the first two are sealed roads, despite being termed highways, so we expect to take a few days, not like the bloke next door who did it in 12 hours. Next stop, Alice Springs.

 

 

 

From Fred Hollows to fossils

This post has been a long time coming, as we moved out of internet reception soon after Bourke. Sorry about that.

 

During our couple of wonderful days in Bourke, John finally achieved an ambition that had eluded him on two previous visits to the town: He visited the grave of Fred Hollows.

Fred's grave.

The famous eye doctor had expressed a wish to be buried in the town, a special place for him for that was where he first became aware of the appalling eye health of Aboriginal people and he meant a lot to the people of the district.

Although a lot of the historic cemetery is fairly parched, Fred’s grave lies under some coolabah trees, topped with a huge polished granite boulder, with a wonderful carved sandstone sculpture nearby. The whole area is surrounded by rocks in the shape of an eye and there is an evocative storyboard from the Fred Hollows Foundation, telling his story.

We also spent quite a long time at the Back O’Bourke exhibition in the fairly new tourist information centre, a series of linked pavilions set in grounds dotted with indigenous trees. As well as an outback show featuring horses and camels, and a splendid restaurant with a large outside area, the centre has this audio-visual exhibition explaining just what ‘Back O’Bourke’ really means.

People such as Henry Lawson and C.E.W Bean are quoted and there are masses of historical photos. It has all been done enormously well.

We topped off one exploring day with a trip on the PV (paddle vessel) Jandra for an hour on the Darling River, passing under the old bridge erected in the 1880s, from segments manufactured in

England and brought to Bourke in pieces aboard one of the many paddle steamers that plied the Darling. The Jandra was made locally as a replica of the original Paddle Steamer (PS) Jandra. But the paddle wheels (now electrically operated) and the whistle came from the PS Nile, a sister ship of the original Jandra.

A highlight of that cruise was the huge old river redgums that line the river, certainly one of the great survivors of the Australian landscape.

The Cunnamulla Fella

Eulo's diprotodon

When we left Bourke we headed north across the Queensland border, passing through the hamlet of Enngonia (that had its annual race meeting that day, but at 10am showed no sign of any such festivities). After stocking up on a few things at a Cunnamulla supermarket, just before it closed at noon, we went west to Eulo, where we spent the night in the grounds of the Eulo Queen Hotel, next to a huge old pepper tree. The village is home to the world lizard-racing titles held each August, and also has a bronze replica of a diprotodon at the eastern end of the main street. It’s the ancestor of the wombat and koala and was among important fossils found nearby as recently as 2011.

That country pub is full of character and has information about the woman known as the Eulo Queen, who ran a pub there in the late 1800s and wore a good deal of opal jewellery from the nearby opal fields.

Off we went to Thargomindah on Sunday, July 6, stopping briefly at its supermarket to buy more instant coffee, in case we ran out in less civilised areas. Would you believe that a 100g bottle of Nescafe Gold was more than $12? We also checked out the meat cabinet, in case we wanted to add to our stock in the freezer. Not bloomin’ likely, with a medium-size leg of pork $54 and a tray of four lamb loin chops $29! So the coffee, some sliced cheese and six bread rolls cost about $24.

The French and British flags
fly beside the Australian one

That little town, population 250, was the third place in the world to have street lights lit by hydro electric power in the 1890s, just one day after Paris and some time after London (see pic).. Those cities presumably used water from the Seine and the Thames, but Thargo (as the locals call it) used artesian water, coming out of the ground at 84C in a great pressurised plume.

The system then switched to diesel, especially after householders also wanted electricity in the 1950s, and now is on the national grid. There’s a replica of the old hydro artesian plant, and they let go some water every afternoon, but we were there in the morning so didn’t see it.

The road west from Thargomindah

The road just kept going west, a thin strip of bitumen going on and on, with John moving the motorhome off it for road trains coming towards us, laden with cattle. Eventually we reached Noccundra, where there is a pub and not much else. Lots of people in campervans, camper trailers and caravans were camping on the banks of the river, where there’s quite a lot of water.

A youngish couple from Adelaide next to us in a camper trailer had driven along the Birdsville Track, then to Innamincka, and planned to visit Cameron’s Corner before returning to Adelaide to work.

Rocks, Greek cafes and plunging temperatures



The glorious old Deepwater Railway station.

We left the balmy coastal climes behind as we headed west from Lismore on June 30. It was rather nippy when we reached Tenterfield, and by the time we stopped at Deepwater for lunch (between Tenterfield and Glen Innes), John was forced to change his cargo shorts for jeans, don even more vests and jackets and put on his ugg boots.

It was 11 C, so our phones told us, and blowing a 35km/h WSW wind. Freezing!

We pulled off the highway to the old Deepwater Railway Station, long unused, but restored with a Bicentennial grant and looking quite smart, apart from the grass growing between the rails next to the platform.

Once we turned west at Glen Innes, we knew we were in for some cold, bright weather. West of Inverell we stopped at Cranky Rock Recreation Reserve, just east of Warialda. It was a glorious bit of bush camping, beside the Cranky Rock jumble of huge rocks and a creek, with a caretaker and only

Just some of the jumbled rocks at Cranky Rock.

 

 

 

about 4 other campers there.  It was about 4C the next morning but our diesel heater took care of that.

We followed the short walking trail to the top of the rocks on the next day, enjoyed the emus and kangaroos who wandered into the camping area, along with four tame peacocks and a flock of king parrots that came every afternoon to be fed at the caretaker’s cottage. We had a glorious campfire on the second night, and when I peeked out the window around 2am it was still glowing red.

 

Emus strolled around Cranky Rock reserve.

On July 2, we woke to 5C inside so it was probably about 2C outside. We set off for Warialda where we restocked some groceries, then headed south to Bingara. On the way we detoured east to the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial.

This is such a sad place, where 28 Aboriginal women, children and old men were massacred by a raiding party of stockmen and a squatter in 1888. But a local landowners and various others insisted that justice be done and seven men were eventually tried and hanged for the crime.

Bingara itself was a delight. We joined a party being taken on a tour of the huge old Roxy Theatre. It was built in 1936 as a art deco cinema by three Greek immigrants who also had the cafe next door and opened a guesthouse behind. They thought the people from the district would come into town to see a movie, stay the night, and need dinner and breakfast.



Our guide at the Roxy Theatre, with the set for a play about
to be performed .

This all worked well until around 1958 when cinema started dying, but the Gwydir Council has managed to get around $1.5 million in grants to restore the theatre, now used once again as a cinema, as well as a performance space (there was a set for a play in situ when we visited); as well as the Greek cafe next door, with booths and freestanding furniture built to match what would have been there in the 1930s. The terrazzo floor is original, as well as one set of furniture. There’s also a museum commemorating the role Greek-run cafes played in Australian history.

Before we reached Narrabri for the night, we visited some landscape etched out of glacial rocks, and then hiked about 1km from the highway to see Sawn Rocks, a fabulous natural volcanic arrangement.

Sawn Rocks

We spent the night at the Narrabri Showgrounds and were fascinated to see dozens of matching tents, slowly being disassembled. The caretaker told us there had been 80 there for a Keith Urban concert the previous weekend and they were now being taken away.

We made it to Bourke the next afternoon, after lunch by the Barwon River at Brewarrina . . . pelicans and whistling kites let us know it was the outback. From Narrabri to Bourke, and particularly around Wee Waa and Burren Junction, there were cotton bolls by the side of the road, where they had fallen from the big trucks carting recently-harvested cotton for processing. It is broadacre farming on an enormous scale, with the ploughed paddocks stretching to the horizon and beyond, and huge dams irrigating it all.

Flocks of emus were the major wildlife we saw in the latter stages of that drive to Bourke, and after the cotton petered out, it was back to sheep and cattle.

More about what we do in Bourke in the next post.