Yowah to Bourke - 28 June 2014

Yowah is certainly an interesting place. A very mini Lightning Ridge in a way, and maybe the opal mining towns all have this same fascination. The characters that live and stay there are no doubt what gives the places this fascination. It would have been good to have a couple more days there but there will be another time.

We managed to get away a bit earlier than we have been doing as we had a longer drive today to Bourke today. Our journey would take us back through Eulo and Cunnamulla before heading across the NSW border and on to Bourke.

Our elderly next door neighbour, Don, had always wanted to see a red kangaroo in the wild, and he and Audrey did quite a bit of travelling and fossicking a few years ago. Bruce and I were hoping to get a good photo of a red kangaroo to send to him, but the only ones we have seen are road kill. There is still time.

As we came in to Eulo we saw a sign advising that Eulo is Lizard Country and that the population is 50 people and 1,500 lizards. Eulo is a nice little place.

We stopped at Cunnamulla for morning tea, fuel and supplies. We paid another visit to the café in the centre of town, which was doing a good business. For anyone travelling through Cunnamulla, it is just across from the fountain memorial to the fallen Diggers. A great little café.

Heading south , we went through some rain about 40 km north of the border. But the worst thing was the wind. As the day went on, the wind was getting stronger and stronger. There was even tumbleweed blowing across the road. We were glad we didn't get hit by this one.

At the border is a little settlement called Barringun. It consists of a roadhouse and a pub. We had heard about the lady who runs the pub, a lady 90+. We wanted to stop and have a chat to her. When we went in she was sitting on a chair with a blanket over her. We were her only customers - Bruce bought a couple of stubbies for tonight. Her name was Mary and she was an interesting character and would no doubt have many stories to tell. She was lovely to chat to and had a lovely smile.

As you can see, it is quite an old pub. Mary follows Queensland in the State of Origin. She reckons NSW are bad sports.

We pulled in to Kidman's Camp, a Caravan Park about 8 km north of Bourke. Quite a few people advised us not to stay in Bourke itself. Apparently there can be a bit of trouble in town. Kidman's doesn't take pets either, which suited us, whereas the Caravan Park in town does. It is on the highway with quite a few trucks driving past, but hopefully they will die down during the night. Kidman's is $32 a night for a powered site. It was still blowing a gale when we arrived but during the night it died down a bit.