SA - Week 4

Day 19 - Montecollina Bore -> Innamincka

Off again across the desert. While the track and surrounding countryside is interesting, there's not too much variation...

... until you get to the Moomba oil and gas fields. In the clear desert air, we could see the black smoke plume from about 80 kms away.

From here it's only a (relatively) short drive to Innamincka. As Coopers Creek was running (all that water was still coming down from the Qld rains), we decided to camp by its banks on the Town Common.

Not a bad decision! Looking upstream...

...and downstream. It's difficult to believe you're in the middle of a desert.

There were Galahs and Corellas in the trees making a huge noise as they settled down for the night, ...

... and this Grass Parrot was proving particularly difficult to photograph.

Day 20 - Innamincka (Coongie Lakes)

Today was a day trip out from Innamincka. About 100 kms North of Innamincka are a series of lakes. The main lake is permanent (only dried out once since European settlement) but the others rely on flood waters. As we were experiencing these floods down the Cooper, we expected there to be quite a bit of water in the lakes.

We forded Coopers Creek and set off for the day.

When we got to the lakes, we realised we should have towed the trailers up here and set up camp.

The lake was full of water.

There was enough bird life to keep the spotters happy, ...

... Pelicans peacefully swimming with the dunes as a background, ...

... Aboriginal middens with chipped stones for cutting up food and other things, and of course, ...

... Australia's favourite annoying insect, Louis the fly. Sandy looking particularly unimpressed with them. :-)

On our return to Innamincka, we found a small rivalry going on between the Galahs and the Corellas for the use of a small stick that was poking out of the river.

One or the other species would try to have a drink. As soon as their head went down, they would promptly be dived on by the other species of parrot and forced to fly off.

Without getting into a long dissertation about the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860~61, this section of Coopers Creek has a lot of historic interest. Both Burke and Wills died in this area and of the party of 4 that made the trek from here to the Gulf of Carpentaria, only King survived, due to the ministrations of the local Aborigines. We'll come across more of Burke and Wills tomorrow, but for a longer discussion on the expedition, see http://www.burkeandwills.net.au

This is where King was found by the rescue party.

Day 21 - Innamincka -> Noccundra

Another longish leg without fuel. Note the raindrops on the windscreen!

Wouldn't like to be on these roads if it really started to pour. Thankfully it didn't.

Back in Queensland! Only another 1400kms to go to get home!

Another 'history' day today. After leaving Innamincka in a light drizzle (the first shower since we left Brisbane 3 weeks ago), the weather cleared and we turned left off the Adventure Way to visit The Dig Tree on Nappa Merrie Station.

Bullah Bullah Waterhole on Coopers Creek - site of The Dig Tree

Burke and Wills reached this place on the banks of Coopers Creek in Nov 1860 and set up a staging camp. In Dec 1860, Burke, Wills Grey and King set out for the Gulf of Carpentaria leaving Brahe and 3 others to wait for four months. After significant hardships in their trip, and the death of Grey, the 3 men arrived back at the depot on the evening of 11th Apr 1861 only to find that Brahe and the others had left that morning. Burke & Co were too exhausted to give pursuit.

While the original blazes on the tree are no longer visible, this is a plaque of the markers left for Burke by Brahe when they left the depot to return South. It was to tell Burke where to dig for the supplies they'd left.

In 1898, John Dick of Nappa Merrie Station carved this portrait of Burke in another tree 30m downstream of the Dig Tree.

On the edge of the red dune country. Still overcast and looking a bit threatening.

The pub at Noccundra. This is one third of the total number of buildings in the 'town'.

This plaque is at the rear of the Noccundra pub.

A lot of expeditions have passed this way in the 19th century, some more successfully than others. This was the last of three expeditions to find what happened to Ludwig Leichhardt's expedition of 1848. Leichhardt's disappearance still remains a mystery. One wonders if piano tuning was a survival trait...

We camped at the waterhole on the Wilson River about 400 yds from the pub.

This Black Swan was making the most of the duck weed on the surface.

Day 22 - Noccundra -> Yowah

Back on the bitumen today after about 2000kms of dirt. Ahhhh...

We refuelled and got a few more provisions at Thargomindah.

They have a neat way of returning empty road trains from the oil and gas fields. Just load one on the top of another!

Yowah is an opal mining community off the highway between Thagomindah and Cunnamulla. As John is an avid gem collector, we went in to see what was on offer. We stayed at the free Council Caravan Park. It was nice and clean (and had HOT SHOWERS for a gold coin donation to the Royal Flying Doctor Service!)

We wondered which of the 'No Dogs' had to be restrained.

An upstanding example of one of Mr Nissan's finest in Yowah's Never Left Park. Never found the meaning of the name. It got here and Never Left??

Waiting for dinner. Our last night around a camp fire.

Day 23 - Yowah -> St George

We left John and Sandy at Yowah as they were spending more time there looking at the opal fields, after which they were heading South back to Victoria.

As there are no rail connections in South-Western Qld, everything has to come by road. Here are a couple of Road Trains of the types we met around Cunnamulla.

In the bottom photo, the last trailer is hidden behind the prime mover and other 2 trailers.

In a decision based on comfort and the inability to refuse a comfy double bed, we succumbed to a motel in St George. This was also aided by the news that South-East Qld was having floods and driving rain and we didn't know how far West it extended.

Day 24 - St George -> HOME!

Boy, did we make the right decision about the motel! We woke up to find it pouring. A lot easier to just hop into the car for the last leg home, rather than have to pack up our camper-trailer in the rain.

Having arrived safely home, all I had to do was to wash off 6250 kms (3800 miles) of red dust and mud. The trailer had performed flawlessly and certainly fulfilled our expectations.

We hope you enjoyed joining us on our trip through South Australia and SW Qld.

Return to SA/Qld Travels -> Apr/May 09 - Nth SA/West Qld