8.7.15 – Tuen Creek to Louth.

Slept warm last night, woke once during the night, and heard an owl hooting a bit. Fire pit was still nice and warm, the wood we got made fantastic coals, great for the roast last night, and good still this am for berry pancakes for me and a banana pancake for Dad.

Slow pack up and heading south again on the Mitchell Highway, crossed back into NSW, a chance to catch up on some blogs as we travelled, arrived at Bourke, 

did a touch of shopping and fuelled again, before stopping off the cemetery to see Fred Hollows memorial grave site – he sure was an amazing man, so to his family for returning him to Bourke, where he did some of his great work in returning sight to people. There were some other interesting graves as well, lots dating back many years, some interesting Afghani ones, from the early cameleer days, lots of kids – far too young.

From there we stopped off at a lovely rest area for lunch – leftover roast lamb and vegies (in a wrap for me) Some great colours there, with the red sandy soil, grey gidgee and great clouds. There were lots of cool clouds today, hence a number of cloud shots.

We have been debating which way to head home, trying not to travel the same route twice. We are a bit ahead of schedule, so swung off the highway to look at Gundabooka NP, here we determined, we could head through the NP and out the other end to Louth and consider our options from here.

We had heard a great story about Louth, at Bourke – with our Poetry on a Plate guy, evidently there was a bloke who lost his wife, Mary Matthews early – and he was devastated, so he arranged for a huge granite monolith to be delivered by paddleboat up the Darling, to be erected in her honour. But more than that, he had aligned the granite column to catch the sun rays upon sunset and reflect back to the homestead, where she lived. We managed to get to Louth in time to see some reflection, an amazing feat and there is more to the story, but I can’t recall it all and internet is almost non existent here tonight.  

We had stopped between Gundabooka and Louth for wood, so needed a free camp again to light a fire to make good use of the wood. We stopped and Shandy’s Inn in Louth to ask about camping and to ascertain where you viewed the sunset on Mary’s grave.

 (for those interested in more of Mary Matthews story http://www.brolgahealingjourneys.com/?p=63 )

We found a camp just over the bridge outside town, beside the Darling River, a bit late in the day, but we were set up and Dad had a line in, just on dark. After obligatory nibbles and drinks, we ate an easy tea of leftover curried mince on toast and relaxed in front of fire.

Another tale for today, is the toilet tent tale. This morning we just couldn’t get the bugger to fold back into its cover, so we through it on the bed in the camper until we could get some service to check YouTube for some guidance. Anyway during our lunch stop we finally conquered it. The toilet tent is again standing tonight, so will be interesting to see if Dad still has the magic touch in the morning. Funny thing is, on one of the blogs about toilet tents, people basically said they gave up, and it is always stored on the bed in the camper, the last thing thrown in at every campsite.

Some further deliberations about route to take home, we have decided that through Wilcannia and Ivanhoe, Hay and home sounds good. A lot more dirt tracks for the first half, but it will be new country for me.