Decided to take a hit and spend a long day in the car with not a lot worth stopping for between Charleville and Bourke. Having arrived in Bourke we agreed driving 450+km listening to kiddie music and whinging is not such a good idea and we would stick to 3 hour drives where possible for the rest of our trip.
We did stop in Cunnamulla, home of Slim Dusty’s “Cunnamulla fella” song. We saw the statue to commemorate this as we lunched in a park, but as usual, Lachie cracked it and we packed up and left amidst crazy behavior having refused to allow the boy on the “kiddie” swing.
We chose to pay a little more for our campsite for the night and stop at “Kidmans Camp” about 8 kms out of Bourke. Nick had heard it was along the same lines as Wilcannia, with a lot of boarded up buildings, so I was happy to go with this.
With camp set up Nick headed to town for beer while I took the kids for a walk in search of the Darling River, not seen since we left Wentworth all those months ago. It is beginning to feel like we have gone full circle in outback NSW, with the tourist information offices having the same “Darling River Run” brochures that convinced us Wilcannia would be a beautiful heritage town.
At the Darling we spotted the Jandra paddle steamer that we would be crusing as we take to the waters in the morning. Also I was in awe of the birdlife – and this was truly a birdwatchers paradise ….til the kids started screaming. We saw a corella take flight rather poorly and land wings outspread in the river. We watched on as he fought to free his wings from the water, and was very fortunate the flow brought him back to the side. Em and Lachie wanted to bring him home (as was done in the book “Bird with the Broken Wing”), but I convinced them we would leave him for the night and check in the morning to see if she was still in need of aid. Em named her “Dragon the Ballerina” – very suitable for a crippled bird J
Another freezing night, and no port…..what were we thinking?
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