1. July 3 2000 - Broken Hill, NSW - Trip Starts!!
We joined the "Great Divide" Tag-a-long tour at Broken Hill. There were 13 vehicles plus 2 fearless tour leaders, David (D.B.) and Tony. Here we see
all vehicles clean, fuelled, packed up and ready to leave the Broken Hill
Caravan Park. Most people were from Sydney, with one from ACT, and two from Qld.
From Broken Hill we travelled up the "Silver City" highway through
Milparinka and Tibooburra, and up through "Olive Downs" before
stopping for our first "bush" camp on a red clay pan close to the
Qld/NSW border.
2. Camerons Corner
Cars and planes vie for road space and parks outside the store at Camerons
Corner - the intersection of Qld, SA and NSW.
3. The Dog Fence
Past Camerons Corner and into the red dirt alongside the Dog Fence - 6000 kms
of fence still maintained and designed to stop dingoes crossing.
4. Collecting Firewood
From Camerons Corner we drove to Merty Merty and up the old Strezlecki track
through the Moomba Oil and Gas fields to Innamincka on Cooper Creek.
We stopped en route to collect wood to make sure we had a good camp fire in the National
Park at the large and beautiful Cullyamurra waterhole on Cooper Creek near
Innamincka. 5. Dinner at the Innamincka Pub
Innamincka
is on Cooper Creek and caters for the tourist - we enjoyed a $2 hot-warm-cold shower, and a
good meal at the friendly Pub. A highlight of Innamincka was a 2hour boat trip
on Cooper Creek - huge numbers of water birds - egrets, pacific heron, white
faced heron, nankeen night kestrel, ducks, corellas, ibis, fairy martins etc !! We
also visited the spot where King was discovered living with the Aboriginals -
the lone survivior of Burke and Wills expedition in 1861. 6. Cooper
Creek This
photo is taken from the Burke and Wills bridge over Cooper Creek. The
Cooper flooded to 7.1 metres at Innamincka this year, whereas in 1990 it rose to 11 metres. Lake Eyre was
only 40% full this year, with 80% surface coverage, but, contrary to media reports,
Cooper Creek will NOT flow into Lake Eyre in 2000. 7.
The Dig Tree, July 6 2000
The Dig Tree, where
stores were buried for the fateful Burke and Wills expedition to the Gulf in
1861. Gray died returning from the Gulf. Burke's grave is about 10km downstream
from the Dig Tree and Wills died a further 15km
downstream. We visited
Arabury Station in the middle of Sturts Stony Desert, and saw the spot where
Burke and Wills lost their camels while searching for water. What a torturous
trip it must have been walking back across Sturts miserable! Stony Desert
to Cooper Creek! Also en route was the historic Cordillo Downs Woolshed, a
massive sandstone shearing shed which had 38 shearing stands in the 1880's.
More please! |