To Eulo and Thargomindah - 26 June

It was a very cold start to the day. At 7am it was 2.6 degrees inside the van and 1.2 on the grass. A little chilly.

Eulo is not far from Cunnamulla. It is only 67 kms. The road was pretty good. Sections of it have been redone fairly recently. At the same time they put in rubble drains (with rocks rather than stones) along the side of the road, no doubt for times of flood.

The vegetation out this far west has surprised us. I expected hardly any vegetation, but there are quite a few trees, although nowhere near as tall as further east. There is also a lot of grass cover, even though it is not green.

Bruce had been looking forward to trying the Date Wine at Eulo. Before we left Brisbane, we had heard from a couple of people that it was very nice. Unfortunately that part of the business has closed and they have gone solely into mud spring baths. It doesn't appeal to me to have a mud bath but the lady we did the tour with in Cunnamulla said they were great.

Eulo is only a very small town. There is a pub, The Eulo Queen Hotel, a General Store which is also a café, a hall, a gift shop/gallery/opals, police station ..... and a patchwork shop/leather shop! It is the first patchwork shop we have seen on our trip so far so of course we went in to have a look. There wasn't much to choose from but I bought a little piece to leave a bit of money in the town. We also went to have morning tea at the General Store. We did our little bit to help the town.

Glad we didn't need petrol as it was $1.88.9.

In 2011 a large fossilised Diprotodon was discovered at Eulo, among other fossils. It lived between 2.3 million and 30,000 years ago and weighed as much as 2.8 tonnes. They called the one they found Kenny. Modern day relatives are the koala and wombat.

We had a look through the gift shop/gallery. They had some beautiful paintings by a Melanie Hava. Her father is Austrian and her mother Aboriginal from North Queensland. They were just lovely.

Leaving Eulo, we crossed the Paroo River.

It was about 135-140 kms to Thargomindah and we were there early afternoon. As you come into town, you cross the Bulloo River but the river comprises about 6-8 channels so you go across 5-6 bridges. We pulled into the Toyota dealership to fill up with fuel. There were 2 bowsers. One was $1.80.9 but had a padlock on it. The other was $1.84.9 which is the one we had to use. We figured the locked one was for locals and the dearer one was for tourists. Not much you can do about it.

We booked into the Explorers Caravan Park, which is a Council park and run by an Irish lady. She was lovely and friendly. It was $25/night and the facilities were very good. Plenty of showers and toilets and a great camp kitchen and on the edge of town.

We parked the van and decided to walk to all the things we wanted to see. Our first stop was the brand new Information Centre. You could still smell the paint. We found out that the last stretch of gravel road to Burke and Wills Dig Tree, which is about 300 kms from Thargomindah, is going to be sealed on Monday. It would be great to see but not this time. Maybe when we do the trip to Birdsville. I have to rein myself in. I just want to go to the next place just to see what's there!

From the Information Centre, we walked on to the Old Hospital, built in 1888. The bricks were made from the black soil on the banks of the Bulloo River and laid out to dry. Some of the animals roaming about left their mark on the bricks. It was an 8 bed hospital until the 1920's when they built a women's ward.

There is an old Hydro Power Plant in Thargomindah. Thargomindah was the 3rd place in the world to have street lighting powered by hydro power. That was in 1898. London was 2 years before, then Paris was the day before. Sydney and Brisbane weren't interested so Thargomindah thought they had the wherewithal to do it, and did. They used the bore water from the Great Artesian Basin. Every afternoon at 4.30, the Pelton Wheel is started up by opening the bore, which runs the water through the wheel and lights up the light globes in the room. When the Hydro Plant was operating it provided the street lights for the town from 5.30-11.30 at night and also the water for the town. Unfortunately it couldn't do both at the same time. So from 5.30pm there was no water to the houses. Luckily the water comes out of the bore very hot (84 deg C) and the baths used to be filled during the afternoon and by the time they were needed the water had cooled down sufficiently for everyone to have their baths.

From the Hydro Plant we headed back towards town and the Caravan Park. There is an old house, Leahy House, which was built around 1885, for John and Patrick Leahy of mud bricks like the Old Hospital. The house was sold to Sir Sydney Kidman in 1912. By the time we got there it was about 5.30 so figured it would be closed. As we walked past it, we saw a sign on the door to say it is open 24 hours and just close the door and turn the lights off after you leave! There is an honesty box inside for a donation to help maintain the building. A lovely building and well looked after.