Gismo Queen and her King

Cordillo Downs Station to Burke & Wills Dig Tree

What a day of driving today! We feel very much like the intrepid Burke & Wills whose depot camp we are at tonight. We've travelled through creeks, over rocks, through sand, up and down hills etc today. Along the way, we listened to the audio book of the Burke & Wills expedition so it was very fitting that we turned onto the road that takes us the last 14km to their dig tree, just at the point in the story when they returned back here after their successful mission to the gulf of carpentaria only to find their remaining party members had left earlier the same day. However, they had left a message in the tree to dig here for some more food. Hence, the dig tree! We discovered in the night that we had a faulty gas bottle after only 3 days which left us with no gas (we had tried to refill our empty bottle in Birdsville but they ran out of gas). Thankfully the nights are cool so we figured the fridge would keep cold overnight. However, we did crank up the generator this morning to make sure it was cold. A fry up breakfast had been planned so that took care of the morning meal in a very yummy fashion this morning. We were still on the road just after 10am - with clean dishes thanks to the billy boiled on the fire. First stop was Cordillo Downs Station homestead for a look at the largest shearing shed in the world. Not that this station runs sheep anymore but back in the day - even in the heat of out here - a good shearer could do 187 sheep a day. Through several variations of road conditions, we finally got to the intersection where we had heard that the road to the right was closed and we had to go the slightly longer road to the left. There were no signs but we followed the advice we had been given and went left. We stopped for lunch a while later but suffice to say, the afternoon's driving was a bit of everything! So was the scenery - we had flat plains with no tall vegetation, then there was sandy or rocky creek beds - some with wide water bodies, there were even hills, curves and very red sand dunes. It was 5pm before we pulled in here. We quickly set up camp, got dinner underway, fired up the generator to keep the fridge going (we haven't been anywhere near a service station or anyplace that might sell gas) and enjoyed another great meal around a roaring campfire washed down with red wine!

posted by Tracey @ 7:42 pm