Bedourie |
We hit the road around midday heading towards Bedourie which is another small outback town about 190 kms north. The road from Birdsville to Bedourie is a mix of bitumen stretches and good quality gravel/dust. It was such luxury after both the Oodnadatta Track (which seemed ages ago) and the sand of the desert. Tim was delighted to see three kangaroos sitting erectly in the scrub back from the road watching us as we moved along.
We passed a Council worker picking up rubbish along the highway – all three boys were surprised that someone was prepared to do that as a job. Seemed sad that the local council had to put their limited finances into financing collection of rubbish which travellers should not be throwing out on to the sides of the roads.
I-pads, I-phones and I-pods have definitely been a feature of our travels and can be either documented as a benefit or a pain! One person was threatened with removal of their item for a day if they couldn’t answer a simple quiz question. We have had round robins of quiz questions everyday covering the geography and general knowledge of the areas we have travelled through and then Australia in general – this trip is all about the experience and learning from it. The quizzes have been a fun time and it has been amazing some of the questions asked and the recall from signage etc – well done boys. So back to technology. Keeping all the gadgets charged has been challenging with me constantly have a line-up waiting on one of the two chargers in the car. Still they have kept the boys entertained during many hours of travel and so have been very beneficial as well. I think Peter woke most mornings to “Grandad, can I have the I-pad?”.
So about seventy kilometres into our trip towards Bedourie
one of the boys asked after a certain item which turned out not to be in the
car but with after a process of elimination was determined to have been left at
the bakery. So although far from
impressed, we had to make a U-turn and return for another visit to Birdsville
and found the item.
So we made another start on our journey – somewhat a little
quieter for a few kilometres! Mid-afternoon
we arrived at Bedourie which is a small (142 residents in the town and
surrounding area according to the 2006 census) outback town with a roadhouse, a
very small school and local council buildings.
Apparently there is an artesian spa at the small caravan park but
unfortunately we didn’t have time to stay overnight – our only stop was at the
lovely and clean public toilets.
We continued north making a constant watch out for cattle on
the road. The roads are unfenced so the
cattle wander across the road – the Brahman (or Brahma) cattle are widely
farmed in Queensland and the Northern Territory and are quite different from
the cattle seen in New
Zealand and Victoria. The breed has a
distinct large hump over the top of the shoulder and neck and a loose flap of
skin hanging from its neck. It also has
long floppy ears. They are farmed as
they have greater capacity to withstand the hot conditions.
As we drove we saw signage about horses and as we went
around a corner we passed the only farm workers we had seen during our travels
and they were herding a large group of horses.
But a surprise was in store for us all, as we saw a camel wandering
off. We had no idea if it was wild or
farmed, but assumed that it was wild and had been mustered in with the
horses. We were all pretty excited to
see the camel.
We finally reached Boulia (380 kms from Birdsville but we
had the additional 140 kms return trip also) by after 6.30 p.m. and it was
dark. Boulia was bigger than we expected
(has a population of 230 in the 2011 census) but did have a motel and a caravan
park. We decided that as it was only a
quick overnight stop and everyone was tired we would forget tenting and stay in
the motel with the luxury of a proper bed.
Unfortunately the motel did not have any cooking facilities so to avoid
unpacking too much gear and with the roadhouse offering some takeaways (a real
luxury) we had a really easy night. The
aboriginal children we met at the roadhouse were really friendly and loved
chatting to us.
There was a large road train parked up in the town overnight
– they travel huge distances across Australia every day and it is unusual to
see them actually parked up.The housing in Boulia was newer Queensland style – reasonably basic homes built on stilts. We avoided taking any photos of the more run down homes as it would not have been culturally sensitive.
Jake our then two hatted friend just a travelling along there to see the dinosaurs |
As we left Birdsville |
A shoe tree between Birdsville and Bedourie |
Camel with the horses |
Crane Bird |
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