Went out early from Birdsville yesterday to catch the dawn from the top of a sand dune. Great colours in the land and sky. We are heading north to Bedourie today. The mornings are quite cool but the skies are blue and the sun warms things up nicely. #BigRed #Birdsville #Simpson #RedDirt
Last Night’s Sunset
Beside Cooper Creek in south west Queensland about 10km east of Windorah. Lots of quiet camp sites spread along a few kilometres along the creek. We are getting plenty of solar power and if we need to we can get more supplies in Windorah.
Here’s one from our recent trip in New Zealand.
We are now in the heart of the Channel Country and we are camped beside Cooper Creek for a few nights … arrived yesterday around 2pm and found a great spot south of the bridge above a bend in the creek. Looks more like a river at the moment 😉
The track we are on runs through the bush all the way around to Windorah … about 10km away.
It rained a smidge last night … less than 1mm and we had a bbq sitting looking at the river. The cloud cleared later and the stars were pretty good.
This is our view this morning and a satellite view of the area.
and a satellite view of the area.
More about the Channel Country here
Leaving Quilpie today after three nights here. Nice little town with a couple of good grocery stores, very good butcher, chemist, pub etc.
Had a meal at the pub one night which has been done up and is a popular place for a meal and a drink. The Information Centre was very good and we were able to pick some herbs from their garden. The water here is bore water and is potable but it doesn’t smell too good.
So, we are all stocked up and heading west towards Birdsville. Next stop is a camp beside Cooper’s Creek about 10km short of Windorah and I think we will be there for a few nights. Cooper’s Creek, named after a judge in South Australia, flows in to Lake Eyre and there should be quite a bit of water in it at the moment. It might have been called Cooper’s River but the bloke who named it said he called it a creek because there was no flow when he saw it. That would be most of the time.
With the recent rains we should see some green around the Channel Country.
8:30 AM, Monday 29 Apr 2024
Thargomindah, QLD, Australia
Had a great 190km drive yesterday on some beautiful red outback roads from Carrawinya NP, down to the NSW border and then back up to Thargomindah. A warm day and a warm night although it looks like cooler weather is on the way.
We were going to stock up on supplies and then keep heading due west to Noccundra but the Foodworks store in town burnt down and they are rebuilding it. So we are heading to Quilpie today to shop there and do our laundry.
The good news is that the main road west to Birdsville is now open again although the roads north from there are still closed. Plan is to head out there and spend some time camping in the bush outside Birdsville and do some trips in the area.
This was our sunset last night and the other is the old shearing shed at Ourimperee a few hundred metres from our camp site at the waterhole there.
We arrived in Tilpa yesterday afternoon and we are camped behind the levee as per the instructions on the sign near the pub which is about 100m away. We had a counter meal at the pub last night … steak was the safe option and it was pretty good.
We are doing part of the Darling River Run from Wilcannia to Bourke. The total length of this drive, from Walgett to Wentworth is 2740km but this section is only about 310km. Shortly after we left Wilcannia we dropped our tyre pressures down which gave us a much more comfortable ride on the gravel road, some of which had broken up a bit after the recent rains.
We’ll be camping tonight right next to the Darling River at Tilpa Wier just a few kilometres from here. It has recently started raining very lightly but if it carries on things might get a bit sticky!
The Darling River itself is about 1472 km long and is Australia’s third longest river. If you include its tributaries it is 2740km long. That doesn’t mean there’s a lot of water though.
The Darling River at Bourke stopped flowing over the weir in August 2018 and ceased flowing for 142 days which is the second longest period recorded since 1944. The longest recorded period from available records is 196 days from 20th September 2006.
Shallow-draught paddle steamers used to go all the way up to Bourke, which is only 106m above sea level and 1463km from the junction with the Murray River at Wentworth, but if the river level fell they would sometimes get stranded for up to a year.
We travelled about 200km yesterday from just south of Ivanhoe to Wilcannia and we are camped beside the Darling River on the edge of town. Big difference today was a couple of very low hills but nothing very exciting. More trees though and so many emus and unfortunately even more feral goats!
We asked around town to try and find out about the road conditions on the Darling River Run between here and Bourke and ended up getting some very solid information from a woman at the Darling Shire Council. We’ll take the West Tilpa Road as far as Tilpa and then cross the Darling River and travel to Bourke from there. Looking forward to some time in the bush if we can manage it. There’s a couple of old Outback Pubs at Tilpa and Louth that may get a visit.
We’ll be asking about road conditions as we go so things may change a bit but the next real town will be Bourke.
Here’s a shot from the banks of the Darling River.
Farm Tracks
It’s dead flat out here so when it rains, as it did recently, the water doesn’t really have anywhere to go. If the track gets too chewed up then just make another one.
Taken a short way off the Cobb Highway south of Ivanhoe. Great sunset last night and clear blue skies again this morning.
Safe travels everyone.
Hi there
We are staying about 8km south of Ivanhoe on the Cobb Highway tonight. After over two weeks in a caravan park in Hay, NSW, while we got over flu/covid, we are very happy to be back on the road.
The delay to our travels does mean that a lot of the flooding after the recent rain event has subsided… which means that we can head to the north west of NSW. Not sure after that because the map is still showing a lot of closed roads in the south west of Queensland.
We saw a few emus today and a few mobs of sheep. Other than that the road was pretty quiet … and VERY flat.
This is our view east from our camp tonight. Looking forward to a good sunset.
Cheers for now.
Julie and Paul
Footnote: We did stop posting in 2020 when Covid hit but, other than a few months we spent in lockdown in Geraldton we haven’t really stopped travelling. I will try and post a few short stories about what we have been doing at some stage. Almost all of that time has been spent in Australia … but not quite all. I had a short trip to South Africa last year to sell our Landcruiser and we have just got back from 5 months in a campervan in New Zealand so I’ll have to write that up for sure.
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