Eulo to Windorah 

Sitting on top of the world at Stonehenge. Yes, Australia does have a Stonehenge, albeit with no giant stones, but lots of smaller stones including the never-ending gibber.  

We crossed the Cooper Creek near Windorah this morning after staying on its banks about ten kilometres out of town. They don’t call this flat, plain, channel country for nothing. Travelling over numerous flood plains with some water in quite a few of the channels we have landed here on what is classified as a Jump-Up. 

Sturt was the first explorer to name the Cooper Creek and decided because it had no flow to it, a creek it had to be and not a river. Much of the Cooper is a series of billabongs which flow only after good rainfall. Eventually making its way down through Innamincka and onto Lake Eyre.  

Before continuing on our journey, let me take you back to where the last Blog post left off. On the hunt for dinosaurs and opals. 

Eulo, our first stop. An interesting man at the Opal shop gave us all the low-down on some fascinating conspiracies of today’s world. A smoker, with only one leg and an old opal miner from way back. I’m sure you have the picture. Beside his conspiracies he was a very helpful bloke on opals, and rocks within his store. The store, quite old, but kept in good condition for an old place. Hubby saw an old double-decker bus in the backyard and asked “does it still work”? 

Boulder Opal

“Yep” came the reply without hesitation, “she keeps the north-westerly wind from hittin’ the house”. Typical outback response. Priceless! Well, he was so nice I had to buy some opal (as I’m afraid that might be the closest, I get to the real thing). Plus, some attractive cut rocks, not exactly opals but appealing all the same. Oh, and a necklace: stone with small purple opal, hung by barb-wire! 

After this short stop it was onto Thargomindah. A quaint town on the banks of the Bulloo River.

I love the outback names; how they roll off the tongue. Here we stayed in our first van park for the couple of weeks away, so far. Washing and general clean up, the aim of the stay. The bird life was amazing, as being so close to the river we had Fairy-Martens darting and diving outside out windows most of the day. Colourful parrots, galahs, corellas, and of course the cheeky Willy-Wagtail. (More about him later). Thargomindah is not a large town but had a good size supermarket. Prices were expensive, but in the out-back you need to allow for this and not complain. If this town is not here, where do you get your supplies? Onto the Info Centre where we met up with another couple previously at the Biddegolly NP. (A large natural inland lake system, where we’d stopped for lunch). After talking with a lovely young lady about what to do in the town. She suggested a tour of the Old Power Station (first electric lights in town outside London and Paris); followed by the Old Hospital (with resident ghost) and ending with the Old Police Station. 

The power station and hospital were brilliant. Videos and holograms explaining how and what and where and when. You entered with a swipe key and waited (patiently) for the blinds to be drawn and the drama to commence. Alas, the police station was too much to take as nothing worked in here. The girl at the info centre did comment that people didn’t like getting locked in the cell. I wonder why? 

Pelican Point is a point of interest and is one of the locals favourite watering holes. Situated on the Bulloo River a natural weir provides a catchment for a swimming pool. BBQs, picnic tables and chairs are well situated below some magnificent Red Gum trees. 

Hubby even rescued a Yabby net from under a rock, someone had left. With some ingenuity and a tent peg, he had it sitting on the bank ready for the owner to collect. 

Leaving Thargomindah, the next morning we headed west before taking a northly diversion. We were still yet to find dinosaurs and reading the local tourist magazine, I’d picked up in the info centre, thought Eromanga might be a remarkable place. I was right! 

But let me take a moment to indulge in a fantasy of mine while walking around a camp site about seventy kilometres from Eromanga. To make it even more thought-provoking, we were the only ones there. 

I love rocks! Colours, texture, shapes, sizes. All intrigue me. Where did they come from? What are they made of? Every place I stop at (camp wise), I have my head to the ground and wander, in search of … anything that takes my fancy. On wandering this particular camp-site a small willy-wagtail followed me. Everywhere I went here he is dancing and twittering in front of me. While there was shrub protection he was fluttering up and down in front, to my side, back to the front, around the back.

WWT in flight. look closely!

 

As much as I was paying attention to him, I stumbled onto a strange shaped black piece of stone?, in the middle of a sandy coloured floor. I took a picture and wandered back to camp, excited to show hubby. He looked at it and said “there is another weird structure over there you need to look at. It’s just under the tree and is round.” Meanwhile the WWT is doing his calling and bantering in this particular tree Hubby pointed out. I walked over and found the very distinctive rock???, in the ground as described. I just finished a book from Nora Roberts called ‘The Awakening’ and I swear this black rock formation looked like a portal to another world, if ever I saw it! (or the backbone of a dragon)! WWT thought so too as he flew off and we didn’t see him again that day. 

Wierd black 'portal' with dragon backbone

Now enough with the imagination, onwards with the real story. 

Maybe petrified wood

Corey doing somme scraping.

 

Eromanga didn’t disappoint. In fact, I didn’t really know what to expect when we drove up to a magnificent building that could have passed for five-star accommodation. The Eromanga Natural History Museum is something to behold. A multimillion-dollar complex with theatrette, coffee shop, souvenirs and so forth, which has only been open for nine weeks. Didn’t we feel special! And a great big bone in the middle! A mind-blowing tour of the factory with all the dinosaur bones, casts, machinery for cleaning bones and a lecture of how the discoveries are made, had us both enthralled and overwhelmed. So much information, so many questions to ask. Corey, our guide, rattled off the names of prehistoric monsters as if it was his mother’s name. 

An hour and a half past before we traced our steps back to the administration building with our minds racing and a new appreciation of our earth’s ancestry. Oh, and I did show Corey my pictures of the weird stuff back at our camp. He was extremely interested and suggested my first picture might be petrified wood. He had no explanation for the ‘dragons back’, but liked the name! He asked me to email the pictures to the Centre, where a more experienced person will take a look. I have done this and await with some anticipation of my (our – hubby and my) find. 

Dinosaur leg bone (cast on outside. Brown bit bone)

In the meantime, heading out of Eromanga we headed to Quilpie. Another of those remote outback towns that have always captivated me. The only other time I was on Quilpie’s soil was back several years ago (7) as I touched down in an aeroplane on my way home from Birdsville. 

Being told to “get out of the outback, it’s too remote for you” (as I did have a medical issue), hubby and I had to leave our vehicle in Birdsville and fly, bus and train it back to East Gippsland. Well, I’m giving the outback another shot and hopefully this time, I can behave myself. And as for Quilpie, I didn’t find that much to do there, so moved on. 

Windorah was next on our list as another town I touched down in seven years back. Another disappointment! Not much here to attract the visitor beside the Cooper Creek a few kilometres down the track. Milk in the service station - out of date. Very little on the shelves and few people in the township. I’m not sure how these little places survive, or why? 

Jundah was the best little place we found in the Barcoo Shire. A near new service station provided much needed sustenance before heading out towards Longreach. 

View from our camp site at Stonehenge

I’m not sure which road we will take from here. Winton or Longreach is on the cards. I can see more dinosaurs are in sight and perhaps the odd opal as well. Oh, my goodness there’s the WWT again. I wonder where he will lead me this time; as I can see rocks too!