20190516 Qld Kyabra Creek to Windorah

20190516 After leaving Toompine we headed to Quilpie where we fuelled up before our long journey to Windorah and after 300ks I’d had enough, I really don’t like driving long distance anymore, then we saw a camp ground on the creek, that's us for the night.

To our surprise the weather hasn’t turned cold so the flies and mosquitoes just about carry you away and we're restricted to the van, day and night when all we want to do is sit around a camp fire and cook a camp oven.

We camped at Kyabre Creek rest area for the night which would have been a great spot to camp for a few days right on the creek and no one in site.

17-05-2019 We hit the bitumen again heading to Windorah, one of the three towns in the Barcoo Shire, and named after the local aboriginal word “Big Fish”, although according to an account of the Durack settlers, the name means high, stony place.

I assume the signs means calves ahead only we didn't see any.

Crossing over into the Barcoo Shire, the Heart of the Channel Country. The Channel Country is made of arid landscape with a series of ancient flood plains from rivers which only flow intermittently in outback Australia and mostly in Queensland. The name comes from the numerous intertwined rivulets that cross the region, which covers 150,000 km. The most significant rainfall event occurred in 2010 when Cyclone Olga created a period of exceptional rainfall.

I managed a decent fly by shot of the old windmill against the reach red backdrop of this rugged outback.

On the road to Windorah this strip of road is also used as an airstrip, god you'd certainly crap yourself if a plane landing in front of you.

From the rich red outback to the lush green surroundings of the outback, now that’s different.

Just out of town is the Windorah Sola Farm, the first solar farm trial using five concentrated solar dish or reflectors which is expected to save up to 100,000 litres of diesel per year.

After driving through flat planes for hours its a nice change to see this quirky road side old truck with the caged pigs and farmer at the wheel.

Ya gotta lover the classy outback road sign.

We finally arrived in Windorah and I must say I was expecting a slightly larger town. Is this it, I said to Des, why would anyone drive all this way, you must be crazy.

The Western Star Hotel is the only pub in Windorah and I must say the meals are a bit over prised.

The roads that lead to the outback towns.

This private residence was once the court house. It was located in the Police Station yard and moved to its present location in the 1960s, where it was used as a truck parts shed by Channel Country Transport. It is now Tarpot’s ‘little house on the corner’.

Once we finished our town walk, we head back to Coopers Creek to camp the night.

The bridge over Coopers Creek, it's most famous as the river where explorers Burke and Wills died in 1861 while returning from their successful expedition from Melbourne to the Golf of Carpentaria.

Des started chatting to some old farmers fishing off the bank of the river who recons you’d certainly get yabbies, well let’s just see.

Now to sit back a wait for the big catch, it sure looks like yabby country but when he returned later in the afternoon the pots were empty.

This was once the track that Cobb & Co used. I read that the coaches lumbered over arid sun scorched and seemingly endless plains finding enough feed and water for the horses at remote change stations was often a challenge.

Love the location on the creek but the dam fly’s and mosquitos spoiled our stay but it's still very pretty