Days 15 - 19 (30/4 - 5/5): Sturt National Park (Wangkumara and Maljangapa country)

 DAY 15: This morning basically started with a grocery and water top-up in Tibooburra, a bit of Tibooburra 'sightseeing', and a coffee in town.  Tibooburra, it seems, is having water problems too (having heard about Walgett's problems early on in our trip). Apparently water filtering infrastructure is broken and hasn't been replaced.  Signs in some of the public toilets urged visitors to contact local members and request that drinking water at least be trucked in. The water we filled up with was just for washing etc. not for drinking.

A little park has been set up on the north side of Tibooburra celebrating the early pastoralists of the area. It also has a sculpture which is an upside down replica of the whaling boat that Sturt decided to take on his expedition to find the inland sea.  Apparently, down near Broken Hill there are places where the Aboriginal people of his time drew the boat being hauled into the centre.  What must they have thought? At Milparinka there was a little diorama depicting the boat being carried by a bullock team.

The pastoral history of this area is fascinating. In the Mt Wood homestead part of the Sturt National Park, there is an outdoor pastoral museum setup where there used to be wool-scouring facilities. National Parks has excavated some of the ruins. A shed houses numerous bits of old machinery. 

The wool was scoured (washed) here in the hope that it might yield better money because of the amount of contamination that was common in the wool grown here. Not hard to imagine.  Every type of burr and prickle seems to thrive in this country.  The pastoralists we were speaking to in White Cliffs still have major problems some years with Noogoora and Bathurst Burrs.  Horrible things. The last two photos are of the burrs.

 

 

I have felt nearly every one of these at some stage or other in the last few days.  One of the tyres on Pete's bike fell victim to the burr in the second photo!  Three patches later ...

Mt. Wood camping area is only about 30 km east of Tibooburra so a short drive took us there. We are camped by a lovely little dam and were entertained by many galahs today.  After lunch we rode our bikes to the Outdoor Pastoral Museum, the Woolshed and the Shearer's Quarters (that is now set up as an alternative to camping). The Woolsehd was wonderful. I love these sort of buildings where form is everything about function.  

For the rest of the afternoon, we read, I wandered and we generally had an easy time of it. After the recent rains there are a few little flowers about. I was delighted to find what is known as a Wilcannia (or Yellow Garland) Lily flowering.

Dusk over the dam was beautiful.

I set up a moth watch and got soooo many caddisflies as I had predicted, being this close to a dam.  Didn't last for long. A couple attractive ones came though.

Some of you must wonder what Pete gets up to while I'm doing my wandering around.  Well, from today you are about to learn.  Today, Pete started his autobiography.

DAY 16: Last night was cold!  With a wind blowing and clear skies, the temperature got down low enough for winter pyjamas and two light doonas. Getting up this morning was a bit hard. We're going to have to get used to this I guess.

Our first walk for the day was a circumnavigation of Mt. Wood Homestead, now available as a more up-market alternative to camping within the National Park. Unfortunately, because we hadn't paid to be guests, we couldn't wander around the buildings to inspect them more closely and there was nothing of the homestead from the track that was particularly noteworthy.  However, there is a path that goes around and leads you to the major dam (or ground tank as they are known) here.  This particular one was built using a horse-drawn plough, then a horse-drawn scoop to scoop the loosened soil out.  How long must it have taken?!

Both the sort of plough they used and a scoop like this needed teams of six horses to pull them.

I later went on a walk down the bed of the creek near here.  I had hoped to walk as far as the road (we had crossed the creek on our way here) but it was hard-going on the soft sand of the creek bed. I managed about 3 kms down before I turned back.  Lucky I turned back because on getting back to camp and looking at the map where I'd been, I'd only reached halfway!  The creek runs almost parallel to the road for at least a couple of kms. The trees along the way were beautiful.  I have no way of knowing what they all are, although Red River Gums are certainly amongst them.

The contrasts are stark.  Near watercourses there are beautiful trees like this.  Turn 180 degrees and this is what you'll see.

Tonight doesn't seem as cold as last night maybe because there is a bit of cloud cover. There was a large cloud towards sunset that was fanning out like the sun's rays. By 9pm it had moved across the sky leaving a huge fan shape in its wake.  Amazing.

Today Pete painted the truck tyres black.

DAY 17: Destination Olive Grove Campground in Sturt NP.  A day of seeing absolutely no-one. The drive started out on the ‘downs’ of the national park, what I call ‘big sky country’. A lot of crossings of ephemeral creeks, all of which are dry.  However, rain has obviously been about recently because we saw one creek around which were lots of Darling Lilies.  Very pretty.

We crossed over one lot of ranges (bear in mind these ranges are probably only 100 m high) and had a look down into a broad gorge.  I’m not sure what defines a gorge but conceivably this was one.  The views from lookouts such as the one we drove up to are magnificent. 

There is something about these vast vistas and the landscape that is anything but boring.  Even the ‘downs’ are up and down and who can be bored when the only company you have all day (other than each other) are the countless emus and kangaroos attempting not to be run over!

After enjoying morning tea, we set off to climb Mt. Wood, all of 150 m high, but a significant hill in the area and the hill after which the old station that Sturt NP now occupies was named. 

                                        

A very rocky walk but well worth the effort for the 360 degree views at the top.  There were even a few flowers flowering out of season.

I also got to see my first desert ‘dragon’. I think it is a Long-Tailed Earless Dragon.

Two interesting finds today – one a small but not tiny ant with spots on its abdomen.  Another, what appears to be a minute scorpion – only about 5 or so mm long.  Scorpion baby?

We stopped at various ground tanks (aka dams), ruins and at one bird hide where we watched swans and a little Yellow-faced Honeyeater.  We saw emus come down for a drink, but they were a long way from where we were and we didn’t want to go closer and scare them off.

                             

After arriving at Olive Grove Campground, I wandered around for a bit looking at the fascinating rocks around the place.  I think Olive Grove must be named for the silvery Mulga trees around.  I can imagine how people would have thought they looked like olive trees.

Olive Grove Campground is in ‘jump-up’ country, where mesas have formed over the last 25 million or so years. We drove to a lookout where we enjoyed brief phone reception and the wonderful views.  As the campground was only 2km away, we decided that we would come back on our bikes to the lookout to watch sunset. Pete’s puncture repairs on his bike seem to have done the trick as we rode up the rocky road to the lookout and back again with no more damage.  Sunset was muted but beautiful.

We are on our own again at this campsite. It is hard to believe that there are so few people around. Two days, and the only people we have seen were a couple leaving the Mt Wood Campground early yesterday morning.

What did Pete do today while I was out wandering?  He practised the banjo.

DAY 18: A sunrise walk was in order today so we got out of bed, in the cold, to meet sunrise at the top of the nearest mesa.  My yoga teachers would be pleased to know that we greeted the sun yoga fashion!  Perfect!

After a couple of lazy hours over breakfast and books we headed off for the Mesa loop walk which, done in its entirety, is actually a figure of 8 walk. Once again, amazing views rewarded us.  Pete tried to scare me …

At one stage we passed an old fence line with just the pickets remaining.  Stretching for a long way next to the line were bundles of old timber.  Apparently, the first fences around here were brush fences!  Most of the old Mulga (a type of Acacia) was felled for building and fences.  The brush fences were eventually replaced by wire ones and the brush just left by the side of the fence where it remains to this day.  What a waste!  It is hard to imagine how many trees must have existed in this landscape.  There are patches where there are still lots, but I wonder if the treeless downs once were treed …

The rest of the walk yielded other discoveries. I found my second desert dragon, this time a Central Bearded Dragon and I also disturbed a couple of centipedes when lifting rocks. Neither were keen on being discovered and escaped rather quickly – thankfully not towards me!

This is real gibber country – rocks absolutely everywhere. There must be gazillions of fossils around here, considering that it was all once under the sea.  I had to explore more, which I did, taking twice as long to do the loop walk as previously. I wish I had had a geologist/fossilologist(?) with me today.  I am sure I found fossils but I have no way of knowing whether they are or whether they are just intriguing patterns in the rocks. 

My curiosity about the place cannot be sated without a bit more information. Geological information about the area is barely available on the information boards that National Parks have provided.  I will have to wait until I get more Internet coverage.

The views were wonderful.

Kangaroos, plants and a few bugs captured the rest of my attention. I find it amazing that in such dry place (albeit one that has a little bit of rain recently) that I can find dragonflies, fungi and ferns!  There is no water lying around here – anywhere.

There is a red-backed spider in the toilet here … echoes of a song from my childhood …

I have said g’day to three people today and we have two other couples set up in the campground tonight.

Today, Pete polished the cutlery.

DAY 19: The day started off well. We packed and left to travel on the so-called Middle Road to the far corner of the national park, Fort Grey Campground.  We passed various ruins and ground tanks. Pete found me a renovator's special not long after leaving Olive Grove.

The drive passed through a range of country yet again – gibber desert, then sandy dune country.   Even in the dune country, the dunes are red sand, but between them minerals have leached from the soil making it much lighter in colour. You then get to Lake Pinaroo which is a silty sand. Without water it is full of plants.

                             

It is interesting to watch how the flora changes too.  I found a pea flower on the top of only two dunes.  Near Lake Pinaroo, which unfortunately now is completely dry, a hakea tree emerged for the first time. 

Lake Pinaroo was interesting. Although there was no water in it, where the water had been was a lovely green and there were many emus browsing and for some time I watched a Wedge-tailed Eagle and some ravens sharing a kangaroo picnic.  

At one end of the lake there are many dead Coolibah trees.  Apparently they were ‘drowned’ in the big flood of 1974.  That meant that their roots were saturated for too long.

Then - the fun bit of travelling around the country started.  We arrived at our campground, only to find that oil inside the gas strut that helps open our camper had leaked, leaving the strut useless.  The roof is just too heavy to lift with just the two of us, since the mattress is attached to it!  Bugger!!  Without having anything to sleep on, there was nothing to do but return to Tibooburra where we had phone reception and could ring our camper manufacturer to find out what we can do.

The drive back to Tibooburra, the main Tibooburra to Cameron Corner road, is well-graded and a much quicker drive than the way we had come. It passes mostly through private property rather than the National Park. The contrast is stark – barely a tree to be seen. I wonder whether it is just the grazing or whether the soil is different here too.  Closer to Tibooburra, even the gibbers change – to white ones.  It looks as if the ground is covered by a light sprinkling of snow.

Once back in Tibooburra we found out our options. Long story short, we can drive to Dubbo to possibly have the strut reconditioned, we can possibly have a new one sent to Dubbo to be fitted, or we can drive to Newcastle to have a new one put in.  No-one in Broken Hill, the closest major town to here, will recondition struts apparently.  So … a somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 km detour to add to our trip!  Tibooburra, Pete discovered, is closer to Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane than it is to Sydney.  The distances are mind-boggling.

Tonight therefore, we have ended back at Milparinka (41km closer to help) and are staying in the prison-cell like accommodation at the Milparinka Hotel.  The people running the pub are lovely though and we enjoyed a delicious hamburger here for dinner.

Today, Pete darned socks to help ease his disappointment.