Home Again

Did all sorts of things for the last time today. The packup has become quite routine, but now I get home and look at all of the stuff which has been secreted away I’m quite amazed at what has come home.

Our delightful hosts provided us with breakfast and some more timber, this time some beefwood and some offcuts from their brigalow floor. Yet more stuff to carefully consider before I commit to a sawcut.

The road from Chinchilla, through Dalby, Toowoomba and into Brisbane is well travelled, and there was little traffic, so all went smoothly. Did the round of the rellies on the way home, arriving finally around 7:15pm, so we certainly made the most of our time.

Will probably do a summary in the next few days, but for those of you that have been dutifully following all through, thanks, and I hope you have enjoyed it. 100 days. Hard to believe, but now all over.

Party Time

Our last night on the road and perhaps the perfect end. Lucy was generous enough to turn one and was having a birthday party. We dropped enough hints to earn an invitation, so tonight finds us on a farm between Miles and Chinchilla.

That was enough incentive to have us on the road early this morning. We spent a minute showing the kids where her cousins lived when they were young in Charleville, then we were on our way. A quick stop in Roma for some supplies and lunch, then off to our farm.

We hadn’t seen Greg, Sally and Lucy since Fremantle. They are now camped on the family property between Miles and Chinchilla. On arrival, the boys were happy to find Lucy’s cousins were all boys of the right age, and so we didn’t see them for the afternoon except for when there was food on. Isabel was just happy to have Lucy back, even if only briefly.

Lucy turned one with all of the spirit you would expect from such an occasion. Many don’t cope with being the centre of attention, but that was no problem for our guest of honour. The duck cake was dismembered in traditional style.

Sally’s father has spent many years collecting native timbers from the 3000 acre property. The house has been constructed entirely of timber harvested on the property and shows the timbers featured in polished floors, exposed beams and feature walls. The tragedy of it all is that the property has been sold, and while the new owner will no doubt appreciate the house, the personal connection of the house construction and the local timber probably won’t be appreciated for what it is. I will treasure the gift of a piece of thread-barked oak and some emu-apple. Neither species was known to me, although others such as brigalow, beefwood and cypress are known as boutique arid or desert timbers.

The last three months has been a bit of a blur really. We have been talking about the places we’ve been with Sally, and trying to get the places married with the photos and the pictures in our mind. It is really hard to keep it all in order while we have been comparing notes and photos. No doubt we will get home and go back through the photos, and that will cement it in our minds.

Closing the Loop

Today we passed another milestone. We completed our loop of the west and came back along roads we went out on. It hardly seems like more than three months ago, and how the country has changed. What a difference water makes in arid regions.

We completed our peaceful night accompanied only by the buzzing of mozzies itching to get in at us. Our three road trains were apparently our only visitors in the night and so, once we had reduced the buzzing inside the tent to to a pile of compost we had a warm night. In the morning, we had a little peace after dawn before the hoards descended again, so a quick packup was called for and off we went.

Eromanga was the cause of our route of choice. Not sure why I wanted to go there, just because it was the turnoff on the way to Windorah that we have never taken. Once there, it proudly proclaimed for itself the title of the Australian town further from the ocean than any other. Surprisingly it is only 860km from the Coral Sea.

Once there we found out that Eromanga has other claims to fame. It had a pastoral beginning with high hopes that the coming of the railway would build its future. The railway never came and so its star began to fade. Opal mining gave another brief flare, but opal miners are a rare breed, and so apart from generating the nickname “Opalopolis” for the town it did little but keep it ticking along. In the 1980s the coming of the oil business assured the short term future of the town. Eromanga is in the centre of one of Australia’s richest oil fields, providing feedstock for distillate, kerosene and naphtha production. Unlike Ballera and Moomba further west, Eromanga can actually sustain a town population of oil workers, so some of the value stays in the area. Most of this information came from a presentation in the local hall put together with a Q150 grant.

From Eromanga it was only 100km back to Quilpie, on the way joining the road we travelled on the way out over three months ago. To appreciate the changed landscape, we again climbed Baldy Top outside Quilpie. Instead of being early morning in June, it was now lunchtime in October – much hotter, but equally much greener. All of the trees on top now had leaves and so the unimpeded view of then was now rather more patchy.

The road from Quilpie back to Charleville again was lined by flowers. Our local council worker in Eromanga was proud of how pretty his town was looking, but he could have been equally proud of the entire west. There was still much water beside the roads, and all of the creeks had water, but there was no problem with the roads fortunately for us.

Tonight we made Charleville. Lynne pointed out that of all of the times we have been to Charleville, this is the first time we have had to find accommodation. Previously we have always stayed with Lynne’s sister, or been passing through on our way somewhere. We took advantage of this fact by going to a twilight session at the cosmos centre. Fickle cloud actually worked to our advantage, as the operators raced from object to object between the clouds.

Only two more sleeps – getting close now!