Today, is move day. We are travelling from Welford NP to Diamantina NP via Windorah.
It is a big day of driving. Early morning, the wind arrived, a little breezy with a chill. We packed and headed off to Windorah which was about 80 klms away. Again the dirt roads have been fantastic, very smooth and comfortable driving.
On the outskirts of Windorah, a change since our last visit, they have installed a solar farm. None of the discs were facing the sun.
We called into the garage to refuel and noticed that it had been flashed up a bit, especially with a concrete driveway where once there was dirt. I asked the woman who was there did she know what happened to the “old guy” that used to run it and she told me that he had retired to just outside of Toowoomba and was growing fruit trees, and he was doing okay. It used to fascinate us that he was blind and running the servo, how he knew how much fuel you had pumped. I guess he just knew if you were fibbing. I got a laugh out of the cow cocky sitting having a cuppa, when I told her we were regulars we came about every 5 years. He got it – the outback types have very dry humour. It made sense that the old guy would enjoy growing fruit trees, as they certainly aren’t an option in Windorah. We had hoped to upload the blog and catch up, but there is no mobile service in Windorah.
Windorah is the last pub, fuel etc to Birdsville / Bedourie / Boulia . We fuelled the jerry cans as we may need the extra fuel if we have time to do the 171 kilometre park drive.
The road west out of Windorah.
We are still amazed by how many emu we are seeing. We saw a group of 18 and a few other groups of 4 to 6. On previous trips we have only ever seen one or two.
We stopped at some ruins, which I thought was the JC Hotel – it wasn’t but there were wildflowers blooming.
Above is Nulla Nulla, mostly white, I have seen it a very pretty pink further north on other trips.
This one had a hint of pink Button Flowers
Daisy There were quite a few Zebra Finches
The JC Hotel was built on a spot where John Costello – brother in law to Patsy Durack carved his initials into a tree.
They wanted to name the town JC but were refused because the name was too short, so it was named Canterbury.
The hotel operated until 1920 when a local pastoralist bought it and closed it down because he couldn’t get his stockman to work as they spent all their time at the pub. Bearing in the mind that the closest pubs are Windorah or 400 klms to Birdsville they wouldn’t have liked that move.
Believe it or not the dirt roads are smoother than the bitumen.
No it’s not to Devenport, a little typo by Transport, its Davenport.
Our turn to the north to Diamantina Lakes
This was one the most enjoyable scenic drives. We drove almost 200 klms across Mitchell Grass plains, the grass was wheat colour and there were glimpses of the far mountain ranges. Very few trees, it was amazing. Open plains as far as you could see.
The rocks are battering our extra mudflaps to protect the trailer. There is or rather was metal mesh in front of the rubber. Doesn’t see to matter what we use, the rocks destroy them. They are obviously doing their job, but we would like to have them last a little longer.
White Necked Heron - a milestone, we crossed a creek and it had water in it !
We’ve arrived, the road immediately becomes corrugated, no kidding and they have a nice shiny grader parked at NP Head Quarters, obviously don’t have the instruction manual yet. We managed to avoid the worst of it, but lost our Anderson Plug (power recharge to trailer battery) – it wouldn’t have been the vibration of the corrugated road that loosened it, surely? – We have a spare and Glen has replaced it. Luckily we didn’t have any damage to our trailer electrics. Everything was working okay last night.
Budgerigar Bower Bird – in the flowering mistletoe (red flower on the right)
We are camped at Gum Waterhole which has permanent water and lots of birds.
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