Corner To Gulf

Cameron Corner to Karumba
 May-June 2008


 

We actually made it out of bed and on the road by 9.00a.m. from Burren Junction......yeah....I Know...but it's true I tell you....

Today we wanted to get away from the bitumen roads and while a lot of people think of Bourke as remote....well...it's just a leisurely drive from the coast....so "Keep on Rollin' Westward Ho"....hey that would make a good song.....

So with the Security Barred Buildings of Walgett, Brewarrina and Bourke behind us, we headed for Corner Country. We left North Bourke and when the bitumen ran out we found ourselves on one of the worst pieces of road we have ever experienced....and we have experienced a lot of rough outback roads.

We were to find later that the folks local to the Wanaaring region didn't have a lot of kind words to say about the Bourke Shire's Maintenance Program. The road was corrugated......deeply.....the road had not seen a grader for yonks as there were large exposed rocks the size of footballs and lots of them..........and........ the full width sand holes were so deep I thought we'd been transported to Fraser Island and had us down to 20k's per hour for a lot of the time. All this meant that we didn't make it to Wanaaring by nightfall and we found ourselves looking for a roadside camp about mid way between the 2 towns.

We love bush camping...and why not when you have all the comforts of home with you, so a nice flat clay pan was found off the road and a great spot with plenty of firewood.


Clay pans are great to camp on.....nice and flat


Ahhh the Serenity
.........

When we pulled up at this camp the sun went down and there was a half moon following the sun.....what a sight.....however as the evening progressed the moonlight was replaced by the brightest star shine.....as if you need a good reason to travel these remote roads........Ahhhh.


Half Moon Twilight

How much more can we take????

We tried to tear ourselves away from here the next morning, but bacon and eggs by the campfire...well, we do have 6 weeks to get to Rockhampton after all......

So on to Wanaaring for lunch and then into Tibooburra on a far better road than the Bourke-Wanaaring stretch. We camped at Dead Horse Gully just North of Tibooburra as the sun was pretty low when we got there......Tomorrow, instead of heading West to Cameron Corner, we take a diversion South to Milparinka and search for gold on the old fields at Mt Browne.