Badger Galore
Staying ‘Up Over’ for a while.
Min Min Adventure - Day 9 - Longreach to Charleville.
So...as I mentioned yesterday when we arrived at the Caravan Park at Longreach, the manager warned us of a stormy forecast. He gave us the opportunity to pitch our tent under a shelter. We did look at the weather forecast ourselves. It said '70% chance of 1 to 5 mm' and when it says that, where we live, we usually get nothing. So we pitched the tent on grass out in the open but in the shade of some trees.
Big mistake!
First the wind started, and this wind was worse than the wind we endured down at Betoota, Our poor little $50 Aldi tent was buffeted terrible. Will went out to peg down the guy ropes and then the rain began. There were two storms that passed over us last night and there was way more than 5 mms!
The first storm lasted about an hour from 12 midnight until 1.00am and after that our bedding was damp. I awoke about 4.00 am in the middle of the second and wilder storm. The lightning was like strobe lighting and the thunder rumbled loudly all around us. The strong wind was blowing a gale and was pushing the outer tent onto the inner and the rain was just coming straight through. By morning the bottom of our bedding was sodden but we had survived the night. We just packed up straight away, had breakfast in Longreach and then set off for Charleville.
I drove for the bit first and the road was flooded in three places but we got through OK.
Our first stop was Barcaldine to see the Tree of Knowledge, a dead ghost gum, that once proudly stood on the same site and it was the site of the reading of the Labour Party Manifesto in 1892 that lead to the formation of the Australian Labour Party.
The tree was poisoned and killed in 2006. They never found the culprits, but cuttings and a few clones still survive and we saw one of them at the Australian Heritage Workers Museum nearby, called 'The Young Un'.
After Barcaldine Will drove us to Balckall , where we saw The Roly Poly, a steel tumbleweed and the Black Stump.
We stopped in Tambo for a pie then I drove us on past Auguthella to Charleville. We drove over 500 kms today.
We have set up our tent again. The bedding has dried but the mattress is still a bit damp but not too bad now.
We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and then headed on out to the Cosmos Centre here in Charleville. We spent nearly an hour there. Our guide was Matthew, from Stoke on Trent. He took us into a large shed and we were directed to sit on the spaced chairs before the roof opened up and the open sky was above us. We had the chance to look through two telescopes at Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Butterfly Cluster near Scorpio. It was great apart from the fact that Will and I were feasted upon by mosquitoes!
So far there is no wind and no rain is forecast tonight here but we have seen on the rain radar that Longreach is copping it again.
Our little road trip is coming to an end but we still have one more day and night before we get back to Frogknot.
Min Min Adventure - Day 8 - Winton to Longreach.
So...there was no unusual wake up call this morning but I did hear some weird grunting noises, in the night, from the guy sleeping out under the awning of the caravan next door. He sounded like a feral pig having a nightmare.
We noticed this morning that we had pitched our tent underneath the nest of a pair of Black Headed Cuckoo Shrikes. It didn't seem to put them off though.
We had to kill a bit of time this morning as our dinosaur tour was not until 11.00 am. So we went to see Winton's Musical Fence. I was underwhelmed.
The Australian Age of the Dinosaurs Museum is about 26 kms out of town. We got there te required 15 minutes before our tour began.
We didn't know what to expect but the tickets were $55 each, which seemed a bit steep, but the tour apparently took 3 hours.
The Museum is atop a 'Jump Up' , a large flat topped hill that rises up from the endless plains below. It was certainly a spectacular setting with a breath taking view.
First we had to head over for a tour of the Laboratory across the top of the rocky plateau. This bit was very much like the tour we had out at Eromanga but not quite as good though our guide was lovely and knowledgeable. This Museum all began after a local farmer discovered some unusual rocks o his property. Guess what they turned out to be? Yes Dinosaur fossils. That first find ended up in a museum in Brisbane but the farmer and his wife, following subsequent excavations, wanted their finds to stay locally and attract people to the area and help the town and so the Museum was born.
Here in the Laboratory we saw the same kinds of plaster encased fossil finds waiting to be properly freed from their mud casings and works in progress the partially excavated remains of various recent finds. We also saw the remains of the first Pterosaur found in Australia.
Our next session was back where we came in and there in 'The Collection' we saw the remains of four dinosaurs recovered in the Winton region. The most important was 'Banjo' a carnivorous Terrasaur, the first found in Australia. They had found the complete bones of one of his legs, claws and his lower jaw. He was found in the same spot as Matilda, a large plant eating sauropod. There was much speculation about how they both died.
it was lovely and cool in The Collection but outside the temperatures must have been knocking 40 degrees. The final part of our tour was very 'Jurassic Park' with a trip on a mini bus down to Dinosaur Canyon. I was not looking forward to it in the heat at all.
Our guide for this part was the best yet. After a short drive we came to another area of the plateau where two new buildings were going up. One was to be a kind of Planetarium as the whole area had recently been named as a Dark Sky Reserve. The other building was to house a sixty metre set of dinosaur tracks that had been brought to this spot from a flood plain and the new building was going up around it. Both should be open by the middle of next year.
We sat in 'The Outpost' before heading along the walkway to Dinosaur Canyon and our guide told us that the whole plateau/ 'Jump Up' had been donated to the museum by a local landowning family. Now, I said I had been thinking the entrance fee seemed a bit steep before but, now, even if I only had had the chance to walk along the Dinosaur Canyon, I would have said it was worth it. I've said it before but the whole setting of the place was out of this world ,,as you will see in the pictures and it is not finished yet with plans to extend the walkway in future.
We would definitely go back in a few years to see how things have progressed.
It was 2.00 pm so we headed on towards Longreach. There was heavy traffic today. We overtook two vehicles! The other difference was we started to see clouds in the sky and then just before we arrived in Longreach our phones finally had signal again after 5 days.
We are camping in the Longreach Tourist Park. The guy who checked us in seemed concerned that we were camping because storms had been forecast.
'Oh, we'll be fine we' we said.
We had a dip in the pool because the temperatures are in the high 30's and we went into town and had dinner in the towns only Indian restaurant. The food was very nice even if the surroundings were a bit tired and the ambient music awful!
Back at the tent the wind has picked up considerably. It is even windier than that awful night at Betoota. We can't, surely, blow away but the poor tent is being buffeted terribly. Another night of very little sleep ahead I think.
Min Min Adventure - Day 7 - Boulia to Winton.
So…this morning the thing I least expected was to be awakened by camels chewing outside our tent, but there they were.
We were breakfasted (bacon), packed and off by 9.30 am after finding that the Stone House Museum in Boulia was not opening today because the woman who works there on Saturday couldn’t get in today.
We set off to Winton, 360 kms away to the East. Today I was driving.
I have learned on this trip that Zooey has ‘cruise drive’, which at the press of a button and the push of a lever, means I can lock her into a set speed and take my foot off the accelerator. It’s been so great for these long journeys.
I soon caught up with a White Toyota but they pulled over and let us pass, however a few kilometres further on we saw a sign for ‘A Point of Interest’ so pulled over to look. It was the first of the Min Min Horse Rider signs (see pics below). The White Toyota didn’t stop and headed straight on past.
After we again set off, I soon caught the White Toyota once more. Now, don’t think I was speeding because I wasn’t. I was sticking to the speed limit of 100 kph with Zooey in ‘cruise’ mode. The White Toyota was obviously sticking at a lower speed.
Anyway they pulled over again and let us pass and we headed on out to Winton. The land we were driving through was again very flat as far as the eye could see with very few landmarks for differentiation. After about 160 kms it did change and hills appeared. Some were cone shaped while others had sloping sides leading up to flat rocky outcrops on the tops. It looked a bit ‘Nevada-ish’ to me but it was unlike anything we had passed though before.
We came to the Cawnpore Lookout so stopped and climbed up to take in the view. I loved the scenery around here so, sorry I took lots of photos it. While we were up there we saw the White Toyota approaching but they steamed on past onwards to Winton. We climbed up one of the ‘Mesa’ hills to get an even better view before finally setting off again.
Halfway between Boulia and Winton is the Middleton Hotel, they must have got excited when they saw us approaching down the road at lunchtime, but sadly we just continued straight on past and left the to cover the table with dust sheets again.
It must have been at least another hour before we caught up with the White Toyota again. This flippin’ car was ruining my day. For days we have driven for hundreds of kilometers and not seen a soul. I jus wanted the road to myself! Is that too much to ask?
This time they didn’t pull over they kept on going but did drive further to the left so I could pass as the road suddenly widened a bit. I put my foot down to overtake but nothing happened…if Zooey is in ‘cruise’ mode, it would seem you can slow her down by braking but you can’t speed her up without switching off flippin’ ‘cruise’ mode. I was learning all this while heading down the road at 100 kph and could see I was running out of wider road. The White Toyota occupants must have been wondering what was going on as I was way over on the right but not going past them. I was frantically pressing and flicking buttons and levers and uttering a few choice phrases before finally I got past them.
“We are not stopping again, no matter how interesting the point is or how spectacular the lookout view!” I said.
Finally we got to Winton at about 2.00 pm. It had felt like an endless journey today and I was glad our travlling was over for the day.
Winton is the self titled Dinosaur Capiatal of Australia. Methinks that Eromanga might disagree with that!
We went to the newly rebuilt Waltzing Matilda Information Centre, the previous one had burnt down in 2015. This new one was very swish indeed. We went to look for information on the two dinosaur exhibits locally that we (well, I wanted to visit) but reading the leaflets on them we (I) were/ was disappointed to see that the latest entry for today (Saturday) was 2.00 pmand that they both were not open on Sundays!
What a disaster! I wished I had planned ahead more and looked into that but since we set off we have hardly known or bothered what day it was. However I overheard an American Woman speaking to the woman behind the desk.
I discovered that, wait a minute, the dinosaur exhibits were not closed tomorrow after all! Despite what the brochure said, they were open on Sundays! The woman behind the counter booked the American Woman and her husband onto a tour tomorrow. I got in line and when the woman behind the counter asked how she could help I said “Can we book a dinosaur tour tomorrow too?”
So… we are booked on to the 11.00 am dinosaur tour ‘Winton, Age of the Dinosaurs’ tomorrow. There is a downside though, firstly, as we won’t be finished until 2.00 pm we won’t have time to get to the other dinosaur exhibit 100 kms away that has real dinosaur footprints preserved in mud.
‘We shall have to come back and do that again,’ said Will. I don’t think he meant it.
We had a drive round Winton to see which of the two available caravan parks we liked best. Both looked dry, dusty and hot but we did manage to get a shady-ish spot at one.
After putting the tent up we went for a wander down the high street hoping to find somewhere where we could get some food other than pub grub, like a Thai or Chinese Restaurant…but no there were just four pubs to choose from. We had a drink in one and used the public WiFi for a bit. Their menu looked OK but we later found out that they were only doing pizzas that night. The barman recommended the pub next door so after some hot (even though we only turned on the cold taps) and stinky artesian showers at the campsite we went back into town for dinner.
I haven’t mentioned that the temperatures today have been in the mid 30’s so we sat outside and braved the flies that wanted some of our meals too. Will had a Thai Chicken Stir Fry, but despite everything that I said previously I stuck with the Seafood Basket, good old pub grub!
Min Min Adventure - Day 6 - Birdsville to Boulia.
So…we had a good night’s sleep in our room at the Birdsville Hotel. Will said there was a mossie in the room but it didn’t bother me for a change. There was no cacophony of bushland birds to welcome this day but there were two fellas loudly discussing business issues and complaining about bosses right outside our door.
We saw Trigger and Helen flying off to Broken Hill and we were off again just after 9.00. We stopped to look at the Artesian bore water being pumped out of the ground into cooling ponds on the edge of the town. The creek that flowed away was still steaming.
Our next stop was a grove of Waddi trees about 12 kilometres down the road. These trees are very rare and supposedly were between 500 and 1000 years old. The wood is very hard, difficult to burn and has been known to break axes.
Our next stop was the Carcoory Ruins, an old farmstead on land once owned by Sir Sidney Kidman. 5000 cattle had to die ia a terrible drought before they decided that the land was not suitable.
The land was once again very flat, but seemed to be even more sparsely populated by trees. We saw a couple of emus but apart from that only a few cattle dotted about here and there
Bedourie was the first town we came to after 180 kms. We stopped at the Road House to get petrol but nothing came out of the pump. There was a bit of fencing around the front of the building but a sign on the door said it was open and to use the side door. I went round and opened the door. The floor was covered with piles of tools and various materials but there was not a soul to be seen. It most definitely was not open. I was just backing out when I spotted a figure standing to to my left. It made me jump but on closer inspection I saw that it was, Elvis Presley, well, a full size model of him, singing with his guitar.
There was no other petrol in Bedourie and even the Information Centre was closed. We looked at an old Mud Hut and a Dust Storm sculpture and then quickly left. We had brought a can of petrol with us just in case so if we started to get low we could always rely on that to top up the tank.
It was another 190 kms to Boulia, our destination for the day.
Our next stop was the Vaughn Johnson Lookout. The view was spectacular and so flat way out to the horizon. There was a family from Western Australia in their swish camper truck up there too. They were headed to Adelaide via Coober Pedy. It sounded like they were having a great trip.
We came to a place where there were a few more Waddi Trees before we got to Boulia.
Boulia is the Land of the Min Min Lights.
The Min Min Lights are strange lights that people have reported seeing around these parts for years. They are only seen at night and appear to hover and even follow people.
We went straight to the Min Min Experience at the Boulia Visitor centre. The show was on every hour and I could see that the 4.00 pm one was booked out.
“Are we too late to see the show today?” I asked the lady at the counter.
“It’s very quiet,” she said, “I can fit you in now.”.
Will and I had the 3.00 pm Min Min Experience all to ourselves for $25 each. The woman introduced it as a unique state of the art laser and animatronic show. We were handed a torch for Health and Safety reasons because it was dark inside and the show began. Firstly some robotic chap, sat in a rocking chair outside the ‘Min Min’ pub, welcomed us and said if we wanted to know more about the Min Min lights we should go inside. These animatronic models had rubber faces moulded from real faces and looked quite alarming and creepy as their eyes moved, and mouths opened and closed. I thought they looked like the talking dead.
Inside we walked through various different, but beautifully created, dioramas where we heard of people’s Min Min encounters accompanied by spooky low lighting and ominous music. Finally we were told to get on the bus and we entered a room with rows of seats. We sat down and a screen showed the bus driver turning around to speak to us and welcome us onboard. Then we set off through the desert, (but not really). I suddenly noticed the seats next to me appeared to be moving and then realised all the seats were moving slowly around. We were on a revolving floor. Moody music played and lightning flashed and there was distant thunder as the scenery slid past in front of us before strange floating lights appeared (projections) dancing around us.
In the end the Bus driver said “ If you go looking for the Min Min you won’t see them. The Min Min chose when and where and to whom they will appear. They come looking for you.”
The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes and it was certainly different and great that we had it to ourselves.
Boulia also had the best town shop we had seen in days, though I did nearly tread on a huge, ginger cat lying across one of the aisles.
We went and pitched our tent at the Boulia Caravan Park by the bone dry Burke River. The site we chose seemed perfect and then after we had actually set everything up we noticed that the nearby tree made a sound like a circus clown car horn as two branches rubbed together in the wind. There was also a pony wandering about as well as a goat, a calf and a baby kangaroo.
We went back into town to explore on foot. We saw the Red Stump, Australia’s first 3d crossing at the school, a Corroboree tree (which was another Waddi Tree) and three actual live Brolgas! (A large Crane).
We had ‘ Camel Hump’ burgers for dinner at the pub, but I don’t think they were made from camel hump. I think the name was to distinguish them from the other Camel Burger on the menu which didn’t have a Cajun dressing or onion rings. After dinner we headed out of town to view the 360 degree , horizon to horizon, night sky which was amazing! I saw three shooting stars and made three wishes.
As we were driving back, we saw two bright lights away to the right they were moving closer to each other and then apart and then one of them disappeared and we could only see one of them for quite some time.
Were they the actual Min Min lights?
Min Min Adventure - Day 5 - Betoota to Birdsville.
So…we had a dreadful night bush camping. We had not bothered to put the flysheet up and just had the tent inner because it had a lot of netting, we thought, to allow in any available breeze.
It was still 38 degrees at 10.00 pm! We were sweltering with no breeze at all. It’s a wonder I fell asleep but I did, I suppose because the previous nights sleep had been so broken. I awoke just after midnight to find the wind had picked up and it was now very windy indeed, in fact it seemed to be constant gale force.
I was worried about being smothered by the dust that you cold feel crunching between your teeth or that the tree we had pitched the tent under, for shade , would fall on us. I retired to sit inside the car for a few hours but eventually decided the fumes from the petrol canister, we had brought with us, was probably doing me more damage, so got back in the tent. I did fall asleep again for about two hours before being woken by the dawn cacophony! It sounded like every bird for miles around had landed in the tree above our tent and was screaming, panic stricken, about the terrible wind which was still blowing!
We just got up and battled to stuff everything in the car without it blowing away first and we left as fast as we could.
Will drove again and we headed towards Birdsville. There was more dirt road than sealed on this leg of the trip so again that was tiring.
Our first stop was to look at The Dreamtime Serpent on the side of a hill beside the road made from rocks collected locally.
The scenery was again flat and sparse and at times reminded me of the vast empty moorlands of the pennines. It was about a good two hour drive from Betoota to Birdsville so we got there pretty early on in the day.
We had a drive around (it’s not very big), went to the Information Centre, got a few supplies and then decided, beacuse the wind was still blowing and the caravan park had very little shade, to book a room at the Birdsville Hotel for the night. After all Birdsville is as far west as we are going on this trip and from tomorrow we will, in a round about way, starting to head back home again.
We visited the local Burke and Wills tree, took a peek at the Diamantina River and the billabongs at Pelican Point before finally being able to check into our hotel room.
“Are you going to Big Red later?” asked the receptionist. Big Red is the first sand dune of the Simpson Desert and is about 38 kilometres west of Birdsville.
“We are.” I said.
“Could I ask a favour?” she asked. “We have two guests staying from the Flying Doctor service who flew in today. Would you be able to fit them in?”
Zooey was packed with all our stuff but unpacked a lot of it and the upshot was we went out to Big Red in the evening to see the Sun set with Dr Helen and ‘Trigger’ the pilot.
Big Red was amazing. We had it all to ourselves and the dunes looked pristine with no other footprints. (Obviously the wind had helped with that). I did feel a little guilty to disturb the rippled sand scape with my footprints but we had to explore. It was the slowest sun set ever and I think it was because we had to be back at the hotel for dinner at 7.30.
We saw a flock of budgies and a hawk with a snake in its beak and a beautiful sunset on the very edge of the Simpson Desert.
Helen and Trigger were interesting companions. He flew for the Flying Doctor service now and Helen was over from the UK on a two year contract to work for the Flying Doctor service. They were on holiday and Trigger had borrowed a friends plane to fly Helen on an Outback Tour of Australia, as you do! They had flown in from Alice Springs and Birdsville was their last stop before heading back to work. Previously Trigger had flown company jets and had flown former Australian Prime Ministers on trips.
Helen had been all over the world and was an emergency trauma doctor. She had been the emergency doctor on various different car rallies around the World and now she had her own aerial chauffeur taking her on a whirlwind trip of the Outback. They were both lovely and I hope Trigger gets his gal.
