Birdsville Bound, Qld

After another freezing night, we left the town of Mitchell on Tuesday the 28th of August at about 8:30am, via the Local bakery for a coffee, and via a random breath test -  Richard's second in as many days.

We continued on until we reached the town of Charleville. 

Charleville welcome sign, as lovely as the town itself

You may have heard of the town through a Slim Dusty song named after it, its also the place where Slim was married.

The town was quaint and steeped in history, with restored old pubs on every street corner. We stopped to stock up on our groceries and to get some lunch.

We had heard the day before on ABC local radio, that people were paying $6.50 for a loaf of bread in Birdsville, so we thought we'd stock up on supplies, sooner rather than later.

We left Charleville after having a chat to the local Nissan dealer, who Richard knew. 

At Charleville we also left the bumpy Warrego Highway and got onto the Diamantina Developmental Road.  I now know why they use the word "developmental"...There's
only half a road.... They must be working on it, or not!

A strip of bitumen road

 It meant that every time  we came across a road train, we'd have to pull off the road or be blown off the road. It made for slow going...

Making way for a road train

We were amazed at how  much road kill there was, with dead animals of every description, every 50 metres or so. 

There were emus, kangaroos, wild pigs, foxes, rabbits, dingoes, goats, bilby's ... and the road toll was getting thicker, while the towns were getting thinner - the more outback we ventured.

We didn't need a sign now to tell us that we were in the  outback, there wasn't much to see anymore apart  from the odd family of Emus jolting across the road. Yes! There were living animals too. 

We were only too happy for any scenery at this stage, so we'd blow the horn everytime we saw emus to ensure they kept away from our tiny strip of bitumen road.
We also saw a few wild pigs....

A couple of wild pigs

... and it wasn't until later in the afternoon we saw a kangaroo - alive, by then we were starting to wonder if they'd all become road toll statistics.

We finally arrived in Quilpie which was more lively than expected, with a pub full of happy drinkers. The night before, Quilpie had played host to a street party for all the Birdsville bound traffic.

We contined on and on... Richard spotted a dead dingo hanging over a fence and the only other remnants that there had once been human life, was the odd blown tyre hanging over a tree branch.

We finally arrived around 5ish at a free camp called Coopers Creek, where we would stay the night.... about 10 kilometers before Windorah.....

Nina on the Coopers Creek sign

Coopers Creek

The story behind Cooper's Creek

 

The boys took no time getting their fishing rods rigged up and in the creek. No luck there, but a search of the bush and we had enough firewood for a camp fire... Perfect!

The boys fishing in the Creek

                                                   

Nina ready to light the campfire

We were lucky enough to meet a real outback drover called Lachy, who called by for a chat. He/she was breaking in some horses who were following him/her without leads. 

Me with Lachy the drover

As he/she wandered away, we wondered where else in the world would we see a drover breaking in horses without any sign of  a lead. I suppose the horses just know there's nowhere to go out here. 

The footnote to that story is Lachy was once a woman and decided to jump the drovers fence (if you get my drift).

Dinner was rosted veggies and crumbed steak around the campfire.

It was while we were all staring up at the stars that the kids started asking questions about God and where you go when you die. It's always the time when Richard finds something else to busy himself with while I field the questions.

We all laughed when Nina said "when it rains is that when all the dead people up in heaven are doing a wee," it was priceless! Richard and I sat around the campfire well after the kids had gone to bed.

Wednesday morning the 29th of August  we packed up and headed into Windorah, via another Random Breath Test, the third in as many days...

3 out of 3 ain't bad

The local cop was a nice chatty fella who said we should definitely stay in Windorah  for the annual International Yabby Races at the local pub, again - part of entertaining the Birdsville bound convoy.

So we set up camp at the local caravan park, I washed some of the red dust from  inside of the van and did some washing while the kids played and Richard pottered. There's no mobile service in the town, so Richard went in search of a public phone to check in with respective parents, I also made a call to organise Mum's birthday present for the following day...

The phone booth was a bit of a novelty

Around 4ish we set off for a walk around town... It was tiny and what you'd imagine in an outback town with a pub a little general store and information centre a few fibro homes and thats about it....

Richard outside the Windorah Pub

We then set up at the pub and watched as the crowd grew, lining the streets which had been closed off for the yabby races.

The main street of Windora, ready for the International Yabby Races

Around 7 o'clock the first yabby auction began around the race ring, they ranged in price from $300 - $500.

The yabby ring

It was funny watching people inspect each yabby as it was taken around the ring, as if they knew what they were looking for. The names of some of them said it all, about what lay ahead for the night...

People inspect the tabbies up for auction

Yabby's sold!! They were then put into a sectioned ring and let go...

The yabby's go into their stalls

And racing......

They went in all directions and people were yelling and shouting at their respective yabby's... It would be enough for any yabby to roll over and play dead and some did.

By the second race the 600 strong crowd was getting into it and in good spirits.. We decided we'd go into a syndicate with some people we'd met and buy a yabby, after all what's a yabby race without your own stable, we ended up bidding for Ah Far Kitt... Needless to say this yabby who came from good stock... apparently... felt it a better option to play dead....

This is to certify we have a pure bred racing yabby

Ah Far Kitt... go go go, or just play dead!

In between yabby  races we sang and danced to the one lady band....

Richard finds some dancing partners

At this stage the crowd was getting happier and the bidding was getting higher... With yabby's being auctioned off for up to $1000.... Amazing!

In the fourth and final race we decided we'd have another go at auction with a yabby.  A  man we were standing beside was happy to go halves in a yabby called Brow Knee.

The kids hold the certificate to certify we now own Brow Knee

Anyway, we worked out in the end why Brow Knee was cheap... It turns out he was a choker. He came out strong and as he approached the finish line he got nervous  and did an about turn (He'd make a good Docker) and  headed back to the starting circle.

Brow Knee chokes and turns around, just before the finish line

At this stage we were all yelling and screaming at him. He must have heard us because he contined to the other side of the ring in the direction of the finish line at a rapid yabby pace. Only then to get close enough to play dead for a while, it had been a long trek from one side of the ring to the other, he had in effect run two races... This wasn't helping us though or our dreams of having a yabby Cup winner.
In the end Brow Knee did start moving again but it was too late, the race had been won.
Dreams dashed but with big smiles on our faces after a very different night, we headed back to the caravan.

This town of 60 was now overflowing with campervans, caravans and campsites lining the streets and what's amazing about the country, is that a crowd gets drunk and happy not drunk and angry.

We were in bed by 10, ready for an early start in the morning.

Thursday the 30th of August,  we were up before the sun, packing up camp and hoping to get a head start on the Birdsville bound convoy. Richard dropped something heavy on his big toe while trying to pack up, so  he wasn't feeling great and we watched as his big toe changed colour before our eyes.

I drove the first 100 kilometers,  other than nursing a throbbing big toe, Richard was slightly worried we may come across a fourth RBT in as many days - and he wasn't too sure how  he'd go after last nights yabby races.

It was a long trip and after the first 100 kilometers, the strip of bitument became gravel road and the terrain went from looking like the Nullarbor with plenty of trees, to looking like the desert.. The Simpson Desert.

The Simpson Desert

At about the half way mark, we had some  torurists call us on the CB to let us know that we had a leak... Oh no, it didn't sound good, especially given that we had a week of free camping ahead of us. 

It didn't look good either! The pipes on our water tanks had all be smashed by pebbles, rocks whatever, and we had spilled 270 liters  of water along the Simpson Desert.

The rest of the trip to Birdsville was pretty uneventful and quiet, as we both thought of what we would do next. I knew though that if anyone could solve this problem, Richard could.

We arrived in Birdsville around 12:30... The racetrack was like a dry, barren field...

The Birdsville Track, nothing fancy!

... driving into town and what would you know... Off to the opposite side of the track was an RBT... This would have to be a record, four RBT's  in four days.

Take #4

As we continued into Birdsville we passed the Diamantina River and there were campers everywhere heading into town.

Campers everywhere

When we reached town there were people and queues everywhere, the biggest queue was for fuel, the second biggest was at the tyre shop. No wonder, after that road!
We filled up the car and Richard set about trying to fix our water problems while I took the kids to the information centre to buy some tickets for the races and wander the street stalls.
It was like a buzzing, party atmosphere and it hadn't even begun. When we returned, Richard had managed to plug up the water tank with a piece of rag and a zip lock sandwich  bag surrounded by a cable tie - which would do for now.

We headed back out of town towards the racetrack and found a campsite beside the Diamantina river and beside a West Australian fella from Dongara.

Our campsite

We opened the van to find red dust in every nook and cranny and assess the damage caused by the 200km's of rugged gravel road... Our step into the van was broken along with one of the stands that holds the caravan up.
 It would be remiss if I didn't tell you I had a slight meltdown moment (Jan you have rubbed off on me - haha!!) 

I have since moved on.. Cleaned up the red dust, painted my toe nails purple (to match Richard's big toe) and  am sitting by the campfire overlooking the Diamantina River, writing the blog and drinking a glass of white, suddenly its all good again. Tomorrow - let the races begin...