A Short Trip to Louth

This morning we set out to drive 99 km to Louth, which is on the Darling River.    I have mentioned the Darling River many times, an important river that eventually connects to the Murray River, which of course ends up in Goolwa, not far from where we live.

So far we have visited most towns on the river; Walgett, Bourke, Wilcannia, Menindee Lakes, Pooncarie, and finally Wentworth where the river meets the Murray River.   We have not visited Brewarrina and Tilpa.   Quite good going really as the distance from Walgett to Wentworth is 1089 km.

Up until 1920 the river was a major transport system for moving wool and provisions for the towns.   Paddle steamers were used to transport goods, and often they were left stranded in pools of muddy water when the rivers dried up during droughts.

Information about the Darling River Run.   You may need to enlarge the photo to read the print.

                                         

Louth was established by Europeans in 1859 when an Irish immigrant, Thomas Andrew Matthews, named it after his home county in Ireland.    He built the original pub, now Shindy's Inn Louth.

We sat outside the pub and drank zero alcohol beer, and ate delicious bacon and egg rolls.

                                        

The fire waiting to be lit for the evening drinks at the pub.   I think they have quite a social gathering at night.   The road from Tilpa to Bourke is a popular road for 4WD vehicles.   I think it is quite muddy from Tilpa to Louth.   At this time of year they would have a constant stream of people visiting the pub.

The dead tree painted blue outside the pub.    A symbol of mental health, which started in Western Australia, and is now a world symbol, apparently.    Mental health issues can be quite a problem in the outback, with the constant worry about stock, prices, floods and droughts.

The substantial bridge over the Darling River.   There is a road 'track' on both sides of the river.  Dunlop Station is 14 km from Louth on the eastern side of the river.    The historic 1 million acre property became the first sheep station in the world to adopt mechanical shearing in 1888.

At its peak during the late 19th century, Louth supported three hotels, three bakeries, a cordial factory, a police station and a population of nearly 4000 people.

Now I think there are about 25 to 74 people (depending on the time of year) who live in Louth, with not many of the original buildings left there.    There is a small school.    Plus two small camping grounds.

This was once the local church, I think.

I am not sure what sort of domestic birds these are?   They were very keen for me to feed them, and Piper was very keen to chase after them.

Our car, parked in the shade, and in front of a small park, toilets and the Royal Flying Doctor Service building.    It was staffed today, perhaps they call in once a week so people can get health checks.   Walter forgot to ask, however they said they were based in Broken Hill.

This substantial house was once the post office, now a private residence.

The RFDS plane which brought the staff to Louth, waiting to be used to transport patients, or take the staff members back to Broken Hill.  A sealed runway too.

A lovely white sign, in front of a well kept cricket ground.   Their tennis courts were also well maintained as well.   

Once a year 5000 people visit for the annual race meeting.  We have realised on this trip that you need to check up on the local events, otherwise you can find yourself without a place to stay, no fuel, no bread and in Burke, no non alcoholic beer.   People travelling through to the Mundi Mundi bash in Broken Hill bought it all.

Wild goats everywhere.   They are very canny as you rarely see a dead goat on the road.   Some enterprising property owners have rounded them up, sent them to a specialised meat works who export the meat to the Middle East.

The road was sealed in some places and gravel on the rest, although the gravel was well graded and not too bumpy.

The countryside was very green, almost park like.    Obviously there has been a lot of rain this winter.

One more day in Bourke, and a visit to the 'Back o' Bourke' exhibition.   

A short trip to Eulo

We are now in Bourke, New South Wales, 260 km south of Cunnamulla, Queensland.    That was 260 km without fuel pumps, but we had filled up in Cunnamulla, so not a problem for us.    It is so important in Australia to make sure you have enough fuel before you travel anywhere in the country.    

We did not travel to Thargomindah, 200 km west of Cunnamulla.   Our original intention was to travel west to Quilpie from Charleville and then down to Thargomindah but we could see we were running out of time to attempt that loop.    However to travel 200 km to Thargomindah, stay the night, and then travel back to Cunnamulla seemed a bit wasteful of fuel.   

So we compromised and travelled 67 km west to Eulo, and spent a few hours there.   It is now a very small town, but with heaps of character.

It probably started off as a pastoral town, with a bit of opal mining as well.  It was also situated near a water hole on the Paroo River, and was on the road to far west Queensland.

The Diprotodon, not a real one thank goodness.   Diprotodons are giant wombat like marsupials and lived in Queensland about 1.6 million years ago.   Skulls and skeletons, plus hair and foot impressions have been found near Eulo.    They were donated to one of the museums in Australia.

The Paroo River, which in times of drought is a series of muddy pools of water.    Someone built a weir here so it looks like a very large muddy river.    This is the last river in west Queensland that runs into the Darling River.

The main street of Eulo, which was full of caravans and motor homes when we arrived there.

The old Post Office, which is now a store plus opal place.    I bought a bottle of locally produced honey.  There was also a leather shop in the town, so I purchased a leather belt, at great cost, I might add.   But it is a lovely belt.

An air raid shelter, about 83 years old.    Not that anyone during World War II expected the Japanese army to arrive in Eulo, however the town was underneath the flight path from Sydney to Darwin.

This high wheeled truck was used to travel across shallow rivers and was only recently replaced by a modern truck.

One of the original churches.

The old prison.

There were other places of note in the town.    The Eulo Queen Hotel which was named after a very fiesty woman who was one of the early owners of the hotel.   The hotel also runs the motel and caravan park next door.

There is an artesian mud bath establishment on the edge of the town, which is very popular and expensive, no doubt.

We drove for a few more kilometres until we came to an artesian mud spring.   This mud spring is one of the release valves for the Great Artesian Basin.   As the underground pressure grows, mud is forced up through fissures in the ground.   The mounds have jelly-like tops.    

The mud spring mounds lie on the edge of the Great Arterial Basin, which is much shallower than the centre of the basin.   

Some of the water on the edge of the basin also filters into rivers.    The deepest parts are in the centre of the basin, which is where the water is the hottest.    The water in the basin filters through sand and sandstone which purifies it, however it still smells of sulfur and can be salty.

On Sunday afternoon, I visited the old railway station, which showed a documentary film about the building and the running of the railway to Cunnamulla.   Passenger trains stopped running here in 1994 although freight trains continued until 2011.    The line ran from Brisbane, via Ipswich, Toowoomba, Roma, Charleville and terminated in Cunnamulla.     It was a crucial link for people living in here.

The railway station.

Metal sculptures depicting the local band which met the trains on important occasions.

The Paroo Progress Association organised the 'Cunnamulla off the rails 3D light and sound spectacular' through fund raising plus applications for funding from the Queensland Government.    A huge shed was built beside the railway station, which was fitted out with a very wide screen, and comfortable lay back armchairs.   It was quite an experience.

 One thing I will not miss, is the smell of sulphur every time I turn on the hot water tap, and sometimes even the cold water tap.      

A very cold morning out here in lower Queensland, but the sky was clear and the sun was rising above the horizon.    We knew it was going to be a brilliant day, even before looking at the weather forecast.

A good day for washing too.    One of the machines was a card machine, great, no feeding it with $1 coins.   Still cost $5 though.    Everything went in: whites, colours and dark blue, except Walter's new track pants which were designed to put fluff on everything else in the machine.

The A & P Show is on here, so the shops are closed, and no diesel fuel is available in the service station.  Luckily we still have half a tank but we will not be going far with that amount, seeing as the next service station is probably two hundred kilometres away.

As the bakery was closed, the small supermarket, open only in the morning, did not have any bread.   Luckily Walter asked the owner of the store, and she went out the back and got a loaf of bread for us.   That is great customer service.

However, one would think that there would be extra stock of bread in the shop, and another delivery of diesel arranged beforehand.    Most people involved in the show would have diesel vehicles.

But not so.    And we have been caught before in country towns at the weekend.    Luckily we are not planning on driving anywhere until Monday.

We thought about going to the show today, but as we wanted to visit the Tourist Centre we gave it a miss.

I took Piper for a very pleasant walk on the footpaths that ran alongside the river.

Cunnamulla Hot Springs.    I know, it is a bit difficult to see the sign in the setting sun.   The thermal baths are the biggest in Queensland, I think.    Unfortunately I did not bring my swim suit with me, although I have done a fair bit of sitting around in thermal pools in New Zealand so the novelty has worn off.

The water in Cunnamulla comes from five bores, and the thermal water that comes from the taps is excellent for the skin and hair (according to the notices in the ablution blocks in the camping ground).   It is 100 percent pure so good for drinking, if you don't mind the taste of course.   

When we are in the caravan and are anywhere north of Adelaide we drink water that we buy from the shop.   Piper drinks this as well, as she has suffered from tummy issues in the past.    We have a filter on the tap but still bore water, and tank water, can be a bit off.   

And at some campsites you are now told not to drink the water, due to contamination.

Normally we buy water that is in a bag, in a box, which has been costing more than $10 for 10 litres.   I noticed that increasingly the supermarkets were selling the water in plastic containers, which I ignored, thinking they would be too difficult to gain easy access to the water.  I discovered today that they have the same taps as the boxed water.    

The plastic containers of water are half the price at $5 as the boxed type.

The boxed water, with the tap at the bottom.

And I know you are wondering about the disposal part of all the left over containers.  The footprint for the plastic containers is much larger than the boxed variety, as the boxes go into the yellow bins for recycling.   Hopefully someone will come up with an answer soon regarding the plastic containers.

When we arrived at the Visitors Centre there were caravans and motor homes lining the street, it was extra busy.   

It was an excellent centre, with a time tunnel, a video about the Great Artesian Basin, a museum and an art gallery.   The cost - $10 each.

The display outside the lift to the time tunnel.    It was not a real lift just a box that shook and a voice telling you about how many years you were going back in time.   

Then the door opened on the other side and you walked down a narrow corridor with displays on either side.     There were dinosaur bones, and explanations about the forming of the area over millions of years.  This part was very well done.

The shearing shed.

The museum.

I remember using a computer like this.

I owned a typewriter like this one.    Talk about feeling your age here.

The video about the great arterial basin was excellent and I think I finally understand how it works.  The basin covers one quarter of Australia (most of Queensland, and the top of New South Wales and South Australia).   It is all underground, except where it bubbles  up in springs and small ponds, often in the middle of deserts.   

The base of the arterial basin is hard rock, and was formed millions of years ago when this part of Australia was under the sea.   The base was lower than the rest of Australia which is why the sea covered it.   Then as the sea levels fell, a sandstone top formed which is porous.   This resulted in a huge cavern between the hard rock and the sandstone.  Eventually the cavern filled with water.   It is still being fed from the run off from the Great Diving range which runs along the eastern coast of Australia.   

The Aboriginal people cared for the land and the water that bubbled up, but when the European settlers came, they realised that the land was viable for sheep grazing due to the bores that were installed on their properties.   Towns were built, and the population grew, and so did the bores.   In recent times they have found that the high water usage (and much wastage) has caused the natural springs to stop running, which causes a loss of native animals and fish.

Luckily the government has clamped down on the number of bores, and have given subsidies to property owners to put effective taps on their bores and to run the water in pipes rather than in channels on their properties.    The water in the channels evaporates quickly.   The situation with the natural springs has improved considerably apparently.

But it is still a finite resource as more water is being taken out, than being put back in from the run off from the Great Dividing Range.   

The water is very hot when it comes out of the ground, hence the large number of thermal pools in Queensland and northern New South Wales.

And on to my pet hate, the cotton farms!  

Now where do the cotton farmers get all their water from?   The rivers? or The Great Arterial Basin?  And they still use channels to move the water around, even with the knowledge about evaporation.  

Those cotton farms worry me, and most other people, except for the people who are making huge profits from growing it.

The old bores looked like this fountain, with water constantly flowing but not being used.  This fountain recycles its water!    

I have just heard the sound of fireworks.   The A & P Show has finished.    Piper heard them too, and she was not impressed. 

Cunnamulla - a small town on the Warrego River

I am not sure how to describe Cunnamulla, except that it is beside the Warrego River, and is a pleasant little town.    Nothing flash.   Some poverty.    But their pride shows in the well looked after town centre.

Today the shops were closed.   It was a public holiday.    Show day apparently.   I am not sure where the show grounds are, but tonight I could hear announcements being made so somewhere close by.

The 200 kilometre drive today went very fast.   I do not think there was one bend in the road, and we only passed through one little settlement called Wyandra.    No fuel available there.   I am not sure how the people who live there manage without a fuel pump.

Most of the road was fairly rough, although a bitumen road.   It was busy, mainly people towing caravans.

And plenty of red dirt.

The Warrego River, with more water here.   Perhaps there is a weir close by or perhaps it has been fed with water from creeks.

There is no cotton farming out this way, nor was there at Charleville.   No crops either.  Too dry?

The lovely sunset showing behind the trees.    Not a bright red one, but just a pleasant glow in the skies.

The Post Office is situated in a lovely old building.

The Cunnamulla Fella statue.    It was commissioned in 2004 to personify the 'Cunnamulla Fella' in the famous Slim Dusty song.    It has become an icon of the town.

The Visitor Centre which was closed but thankfully will be open tomorrow.   It has some fantastic displays in it, which we have seen when we came here four years ago.     The building is an old secondary school buildings.

Looking forward to a pleasant day in Cunnamulla.

Sunshine again in Charleville

The brief misty rain that was here yesterday has now gone, and there is blue sky again.    A successful washing day with nothing acquiring extra bits of fluff.

We visited an historic house on the main street, which started life as a bank in the 1890s, with the walk in safe still in the front room.    After that it became a large residence for different families.

The house and sheds were packed with old things.   I think every family in the district must have donated items for this museum.   It was difficult to look at everything closely.   Just too much stuff.

 

A display behind glass.

An old curved fridge.   Not ever seen one of these before.

One of the bedrooms.

An old kitchen,

and an even older kitchen out in the side back room.   It had a pantry room next to it.

This is an old rail ambulance, which was built for Charleville.    Due to the difficulty in getting people from outlying areas to Charleville it was apparent that the best way was to use the railway.    The unsealed roads were often impassable because of rain.  The rail ambulance contained the patient/s, an ambulance attendant and a driver.    They stopped using them in the 1950s.

The rabbit poison machine which planted bits of poison into the ground in a way that stock could not eat them.    

The old car.

Afterwards we found a lovely cafe, in the old hotel which is now closed, that had pea and ham soup with sour dough bread as its special for the day.    We could not resist such delicious fare.   It was superb, although Walter looks like he is not enjoying the soup.   I think I caught him by surprise.   There is nothing worse than people taking a photograph without first warning the person.

It was definitely the  best pea and ham soup, even better than the Dutch pea soup.

The Warrego river, and the narrow bridge, with the very high flood bank on the town side.

The Warrego River is a 1380 km river in the Darling-Murray Basin.   It flows through Charleville and Cunnemulla before it joins the Darling in New South Wales.

There are many different places to visit in Charleville, as there are in most towns up this way.   One of them is the Royal Flying Doctor Visitor Centre.   We visited one of the centres in Alice Springs so decided not to go to this one.   

However, Walter had his own Royal Flying Doctor experience a couple of weeks ago, when he flew in an air ambulance from Cobar to Dubbo.    This was due to his bowel problem when in Cobar, and the Dubbo hospital wanted to check him out there so the quickest way was via the Royal Flying Doctor Service.    

For people that do not live in Australia the Royal Flying Doctor Service is a major not-for-profit aeromedical and primary health care organisation in Australia.  It covers 7.69 million square kilometres.  They provide 24 hour medical services to people in rural, regional and remote areas.   And it is free for patients.

Walter standing beside the plane that flew him from Cobar to Dubbo.  It contained stretchers and seats.  

An ambulance attendant was with him on the plane. 

This is certainly an improvement to the railway ambulance shown in one of the photos above.

Tomorrow we start to head south again.   The next town will be Cunnamulla.