Caravanning Camping Touring
Let me share some of our stories with you. I'll try to keep it fun and interesting, with heaps of photos, hints, tips and reviews all relating to life on the road.
Before I start this post, I want to thank Rae and Les for their help in identifying some of the birds from my last post, it’s great to have the feedback.
The Darling River Run begins with the Barwon River at Walgett (the Darling starts at Bourke) and goes through to Wentworth. The entire run is about 950 kilometres. It was a last-minute decision to drive the Darling River Run, but we are pleased that we did. We joined the Run about 40 kilometres south of Bourke, where we once again hit dirt road for our trip through Gundabooka (previous post).
We covered about 250kms of corrugated dirt and noisy corrugated gravel road. It’s a bit rough on the old innards and I can see why these are called ‘hunting roads’ – you go from left to right and centre, and often off the road altogether hunting for a smoother section. Anyway, it’s fun, and you do get to see more of the countryside, including fields of tiny wildflowers; ok, maybe they are only weeds; I don’t care, they were pretty. This section took us through Louth and Tilpa, and as per my previous post, don’t expect to get supplies from either of these towns.
By this time, we were pretty desperate for water. We still had a few dry crackers to eat, and some mouldy cheese, but our tanks were dry. I checked good old Wiki Camps and saw one of the three farm stays on route had water. So, Dunlop Station was to be our next stop. Problem solved. I have to learn to read the fine print. 😊
We stopped at Dunlop Station, and what a lovely spot it was, and they said “Sure, we have water. Bore water that is.”
So, here’s the thing. For those of you who have never drank bore water, and it is perfectly safe to drink, you must be aware that it is heavily mineralised. What type of minerals, how dense, and how strong the flavour depends on the area. Let’s just say if I had had any potatoes to boil, I wouldn’t have needed to salt the water.
But as I said, we were desperate and we gratefully half-filled our tanks, settled down on the banks of the river and enjoyed a well-earned, salted coffee. Hey, it’s good enough for caramel. 😊
It was quite tranquil sitting beside the river, with a raging fire to keep us warm, firewood courtesy of the owner, all chopped up and ready to go. To add to the atmosphere, come sundown a small mob (ok a flock) of sheep dropped by for a chat. Not sure why but the didn’t stay for coffee. We were also visited by a stack of goats… alright already – a trip of goats and a couple of rabbits hopped to the river for a drink. What more could we ask for? How about a few birds?
Dunlop was once a major sheep station of a million acres, but now it’s down to a little over two-thousand acres and while we were there they carried just a hundred sheep and several thousand goats. The goats are basically wild but are herded up occasionally and selectively sent off as a valuable by-product.
We only stayed here one night, the following day we stopped at the Tilpa Weir. Yet another great spot for a night or two. As we drove down to the weir we had the option to turn left or right. There were already quite a few travellers to the right, so we went left and found a great spot for the night. I left Peter to start the fire while I went for a walk, with my camera of course, and saw…wait for it. Birds! What a surprise, but the real surprise was this prickly fellow, or lady. He really made my day.
We continued on south-west believing that Wilcannia would be a good town to resupply. We couldn’t have been more wrong, virtually everything was boarded up. We managed to go through town, refuel and leave without seeing a local (just one trucky refuelling), even the servo was unmanned with an auto-pay facility. Although we went through there before the region started reporting Covid-19 cases, given that over ten percent of the town now has Covid-19, it’s probably a good thing that nothing was available to us.
So on we went to Broken Hill in search of food and unsalted coffee.
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
Ok, I mentioned the birds here at Gundabooka a couple of times, but apart from the Emus, I haven’t shown you any. Well, I spent many, many hours stalking these tiny, little, flighty, annoyingly fast birds who would appear in a flash, only to disappear as soon as I lifted my camera to my eye. But I eventually wore them out (I got lucky more to the point) and I was able to get some decent shots. I also saw a few birds here that I had never seen before so that was a bonus.
I’ve numbered the images 1 – 44 and have ID’d those that I could. There are multiple images of the birds, they’re just so cute I couldn’t pick one of each, and I think I have the correct females after the males. Feel free to correct me if I got any identifications wrong, and to ID the birds I couldn’t.
So, for all of you bird lovers out there, make yourselves a cuppa, sit back and enjoy my slideshow of the Birds of Gundabooka (minus the Emus).
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
Gundabooka is a remote park south-west of Bourke, the first National Park on ‘The Darling River Run’. Driving on dirt roads is not always smooth but we enjoyed it. We took our time and enjoyed the scenery, avoided wildlife and missed most of the washouts and rough patches of road, but it was impossible to avoid the corrugations.
We drove into the Dry Tank Camp site, which is slap-bang in the middle of the park, not knowing what to expect and hoping for a pleasant overnight spot. We left eight days later and only then because we ran out of supplies. We had planned on topping up supplies from the little towns we passed through, but we couldn’t. The shops were not out of supplies; the towns were out of shops! So, by the time we left we were nearly out of water, almost our of food and reduced to eating gourmet meals such as, tinned chicken soup with pasta spirals, rice with tinned tuna, kidney beans on toast (minus the toast) and powdered milk, you get the picture. But worse than that, we had run out of beer, wine, scotch and…wait for it…chocolate. I know, third world stuff. Still we survived.
The landscape here was dead flat, except for Gundabooka Mountain, which stood out of the landscape like a pimple on a pumpkin. We didn’t realise just how big an area Gundabooka was, nor how flat, until Peter took the drone for a flight.
The camp site itself is a huge area and it’s easy to lose your bearing. We walked into the Mulga scrub, turned around three times and I was lost. Luckily Peter has a much better sense of direction than I do and after a bit of bush bashing, we made it back home to Chunky Bum. After that we made sure we had the two-way radios switched on if either of us went off on our own.
This is a dry place. There are a lot of dead trees, no water to be seen and as the red dust eddies in the wind, it’s hard to believe that anything could survive out here. But the abundant birdlife proves that there’s plenty of food and water, if you’re little enough. And trust me, some of these birds are tiny. My next post will be all about the birds of Gundabooka.
We also took the opportunity to take the scooters out for a run. The ground was a bit rugged in places, and to be honest, I got off and walked in a few areas, but it was fun. We rode along the Little Mountain walking track which would lead us to the Gundabooka Mountain lookout. We had to leave the scooters before the climb up to the lookout, they don’t do stairs, and finished the walk on foot.
A couple of days after that (we had to have a rest) we drove to another walking track; this one was at Mulgowan. From the car park it was an easy walk to an area displaying Aboriginal Rock art. I’m so pleased we went there. The Rock Art was clearly visible all through a series of small “home” caves. The ones on the ceiling were exceptionally well preserved, the others on the walls facing out were still clear to see, but those more exposed to the weather, were understandably faded.
The beginning of the walk was nothing to write home about, but as we went farther in, the scenery changed. From dry outback conditions to more lush green flora. The yellow wattle trees in full bloom adding a burst of vibrant colour and stood out in stark contrast to the reds and ochres of the rock formations which festooned the area. There was water here too, not a lot but enough to support this little oasis in the bush and an abundance of birdlife. The area close to the caves was a picturesque gorge. It had an almost fairy tale feel to it, and we both found it enchanting. I didn’t see the Seven Dwarves, but I’m pretty sure I found Sleeping Beauty.
The only other trips we took after that were for wood gathering. Even though there was an abundance of dead wood lying around in the National Park, we were not allowed to use it. So, we made a couple of three-hour round trips out of the National Park to collect our firewood, and of course to do a bit more exploring.
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
Peter has had a bit of a craving for scones for a while now, so I thought, why not try them in the camp oven. Never done it before, but we’ll give it a go. If they work out, all well and good, if they don’t…well, we could both do with losing a bit of weight. So, this was a win-win situation.
First came the prep work, as I’ve mentioned before, the more prep you do the easier it is to cook in the camp oven.
I fancied a cheese scone, and Peter a plain, but that would be far too many scones for two little fat people. So, I’d only bake half of each dough batch and the rest would go in the fridge for another day, and do you know what? It worked a treat. In fact, they were by far the best scones I have ever made, and Peter says they’re the best he’s ever tasted. Mind you, he is biased.
Each time we use the camp oven we learn something. This time it was that it’s sometimes better not to place the oven in your actual fire pit. If you preheat the camp oven on the fire, then shovel a small (and I do mean small) layer of coals on the ground a bit away from the fire you can avoid the sporadic heat fluctuations of the fire pit and get better control over temperature.
Place the camp oven on the layer of coals and feel free to ‘load the lid’ with all the coals you can fit on (scones like a lot of heat).
Oh, by the way, the batches that were in the fridge were just as good two days later, except I forgot to put some coals on the ground, and they took a lot longer to cook, even with replacing the hot coals on top three times. Rookie mistake, won’t do it again.
I want to make these a couple more times, and when I get the recipe right (I fudged it this time so need to repeat it and take note of what I did) then I’ll post it in full.
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
Picture this. You’re pottering around the camp, cleaning up after breakfast when you look up and right there in front of you, not more than ten metres away, is an Emu.
How cool is that? When we first saw it, we froze, not wanting to startle it, then slowly, ever so slowly I reached for my camera (it’s never far away) while reaching, I hoped that Emu’s do not interpret a show of teeth as sign of aggression, because I was grinning from ear to ear.
That grin only got wider as another three Emu’s strolled into our camp and had good look around. After a while they moved off about their business and poor Peter was stuck with me exclaiming every five minutes,
“There were Emu’s in our camp!”
Through the course of the morning another smaller group of three strolled by and then later, towards evening a group of six followed by a single male. We ended up staying in Gundabooka for nine days, and during that time there were only three days when we were not paid a visit by our long legged, shaggy feathered friends.
What could top that? How about Old Man Emu and half a dozen chicks? A few days into our visit, while Peter and I were sitting on the shady side of Chunky Bum, Old Man Emu led his family around the sunny side of the van. I didn’t realize he was there until I nearly walked into him. Not sure who got the biggest fright. He took off pretty quickly with the little ones following close behind. After that he was too cautious to bring the chicks through camp and skirted along the road. We saw him and his family another three times during our stay, never too close but I didn’t mind. After all, he was just being a good dad and who wouldn’t want to protect those little cuties?
As the days rolled by it seemed as though we had made our home in the middle of an Emu highway. I for one am not complaining. I have never seen so many Emus at the same time. Nor so close, or on such a regular basis and I loved getting to know them. Most of them were adolescents, and it was easy to pick/guess at their personalities. From the shy to the cheeky to the curious. My favourite was Sid, a punk rocker in the making.
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
What can I say about Bourke? Hmm, not a lot actually. We stayed in Bourke for seven days, out of necessity really; admin, cleaning, washing that sort of thing, but overall we found Bourke to be uninspiring. Don’t get me wrong the people were friendly, we were in a nice park, but we found that there really is not a lot to do or see there.
We spent quite a few hours in the Back O’ Bourke visitor and Exhibition Center, which was very well done and well worth a look-see. We also enjoyed a brief, one-hour paddle steamer boat trip on the Darling River. But other than that, the only thing of interest to us was Mount Oxley.
Mount Oxley sits on private property, so you must get permission from the owners and pay for access, which is easily done from the visitor information centre. Once you have permission you can drive up to the top of Mount Oxley and enjoy the view.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time up there, the owners provide a large undercover BBQ area complete with, water, gas, utensils in fact everything you need to feed yourself. We took advantage of that and made ourselves a yummy lamb burger, accompanied by a couple of cold beers, then after roaming the top of Mount Oxley we settled down to enjoy the sunset.
In short, our time in Bourke was well used but I would have to say it is a good place to visit but not a destination in itself.
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
