6.7.15 - Roadside stop between Windorah and Quilpie to Paroo River at Eulo

Slept really well last night, a bit more rugged up against the cold as there was no electric heater to take the chill off. So thermals under the jarmies and sleeping back zipped, with rug over the top. All toasty, slept soundly, till 3ish, when I heard the bleating of a goat? – I assumed a goat, it may have been a sheep, anyway the story in my head was that a kid/lamb was lost and bleating for mum, quite close to camp. Then I heard another bigger bleat in the distance – Mum…anyway the little guy toddled off and his/her bleats moved into the distance, a happy reunion – in my story anyway. Straight back to sleep, and awoke about 6.50 – to vehicle sounds, thinking it was the other guy camped near the river, I got out to wee, only to find a truck pulled up checking his load. Time to get up anyway. A quick breaky, had a look at the river and took some picks in that amazing sun rising golden light, a tree of galahs and other stuff. Packed up and underway by 9.00.

First stop was Quilpie and pretty little town, with animal sculptures down the main street, it is home of the boulder opal, and I had read that the Catholic Church – St Finnbar’s had an opal alter, and some other bits, so we popped in for a look and a photo. Fueled up and headed towards Eulo.

A short hop out of Quilpie was Baldy Hill lookout, so we took a short detour to check out these rocky outcrops rising from the surrounding sandy/rocky flat land.

Then onto Toompine. I had read that it has the ‘pub without a town’, so a stop here was required also. The population of Toompine is 2 – the lady at the pub and her husband. She was good for a chat while we had our drinks. Tuenpine was an aboriginal word for leech, hence the ‘town’ got it’s name Toompine. It is gazetted as a town, despite only the pub and a tennis court there. They had two backpackers working there currently, the girl I spoke to from Lincolnshire, England, had been in Toompine for 3months and was loving it!!!!

We crossed a great looking river, so stopped for a look on the floodway. Today we have travelled through many, many floodways –in fact the whole trip has been floodway. There is quite a bit of water lying around, and encroaching slightly onto the road in places, so easy to see that it could flood. The flood markers along the way are scary, as it is impossible to picture the water everywhere, the land is pretty flat, so it must spread for kilometres and kilometres.

We plan to camp outside of Eulo by the river, so needed wood for the fire, a stop 70kms out, saw the T Van loaded with wood again.

Then we neared Eulo, we drove into look at the natural Artesian Mud nature reserve, this is where the mud bubbles up to surface and occasionally exploded loudly enough to be heard for kilometres. We saw a couple of hillocks (that look like dam banks) that were where mud has previously percolated to the surface and created it’s own little hill. I thought you could have a bath in them, but turns out that is in town and a tad more civilised.

We found the campsite by the Paroo River just before entering town and bagsed ourselves a possie, before heading in to check out the town. It was a little disappointing compared to what I had read, so we don’t think it’s a two night stop as we were planning.

This area is home to some fossil finds, including for the dinosaur nuts the Diprotodon optatum.

We stopped at the general store, in the hope of buying a roast for the camp oven – no luck, so mince curry in the camp oven instead. Checked out the pub to see if showers were available, yep $5 bucks, so that’s a plan on departure tomorrow.

Back to camp to set up properly. When we first arrived we were the second camp on our side of the river, more have arrived since.

Prepared the vegies etc for tea and got the snacks ready for a drink.

Took a walk along the river to see if there was anything worthy of a shot as the sunset and also had a play with some night shots, while Dad was cooking the curry.

No service here, so wishing Sue and Co. all the best on their trip to the US. See you when you get back. Will try and SMS if I get service tomorrow, but may well miss you.

Tomorrow now looks like showers at Eulo, then on to  have a look at Cunnamulla.