Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Innamincka, Outamincka


The original bar at the Innamincka Pub.

Since I got back from Sydney, things have been so quiet Dusty has shut the Bakery for the summer, so I have a fair bit of spare time on my hands, although its now so hot I don't feel like going outside in the middle of the day.

The owners of the pub at Birdsville also own the pub at Innamincka, and have been renovating. The opening for the new bar, the Outamincka Bar, was held a few weekends ago, and gave us the perfect excuse to do some sight-seeing. We went down via the Birdsville Track and Walker's Crossing, and came back via Burke and Wills' Dig Tree and Cordillo Downs, which boasts the country's biggest shearing shed. There hasn't actually been any sheep at Cordillo since about the 1940s, but the building is still there and very impressive. It was a round trip of about 770 kms.

The road got more interesting once we turned off the Birdsville Track and headed for Walker's Crossing. At first it was just vast empty gibber plain with the odd sand dune thrown in, but as we got into Coongie Lakes National Park, there were lots of trees, although around the lakes they were mostly dead because the lakes were dry. The road was bendy and undulating, and our line of vision very close for a change. The ground was mostly white, a stark contrast to the red sand dunes. We passed Walker's Crossing, a very drab and dry creek bed (I don't know why I keep expecting water in these places) and decided to detour via the Tirrawarra Oil and Gas Fields, which had interesting plumes of black smoke coming straight from the ground, where they were burning off condensate. There is also water associated with this and there was an unexpected large, very green swampy area in the middle of vast expanses of nothing — such contrasts are part a of the wonder of this part of the world. More lots of nothing, then the Geodynamics Thermal Hot Rocks drill site — Geodynamics plan to supply geothermal energy to Immamincka by March next year, an exciting small start to bigger things. Not too far past that we saw a line of trees which usually indicates a watercourse, and came upon Wills' Grave on the banks of the Cooper Creek.

Cooper Creek is a large body of (mostly permanent) water, formed from the meeting of the Thomson and Barcoo Rivers near Windorah. It was a lovely spot, with huge River Red Gums and grassy banks. I wanted to pitch the tent right there, but we pressed on to Innamincka. We headed straight for the pub, where we had a very cold beer with Birdsville artist Wolfgang John (also down for the opening) and checked out the lay of the land. The new bar was a very impressive modern addition to a rustic old building, and the staff were gearing up for the evening. We looked around town, which took about 5 minutes — it's very small, population about 12 plus the bar staff, and set on a hot dry gibber plain above the flood line of the Cooper Creek. Camping was on the town common along the creek bank, and was just as nice as the area around Wills' Grave. We set up the tent, and Wolfie, who had put out his swag a bit further along, turned up with more beers, so we sat down by the water and watched the pelicans and corellas and parrots while the sun went down.

It was so pleasant there we were almost late for the festivities at the bar, where a large crowd had turned up from nowhere. A lot of them had flown in earlier that afternoon, and been on a tour of the Geodynamics site. It was a very pleasant evening, with lots of good food, wine, and interesting people to talk to. We retired to our tent for a good night's sleep, but woke to the noise of the corellas at dawn. After making ourselves bacon and eggs and coffee on our little stove for breakfast, we went swimming in the creek.

We got away about 11 am and headed off for the Dig Tree. By the time we got there it was a bit like a blast furnace — very hot and windy. If B&W were walking around in that, I'm not surprised it killed them. (Actually, they had beri-beri or some such dietary failing.) We had planned to stop for lunch, but after a fairly quick inspection we jumped back into our air-conditioned car and headed north. Parts of the road were extremely rough and rocky and shortened the life of our tyres quite a bit, and other parts were soft red sand tracks. We passed a road train with a shredded tyre, and chased a camel off the road not much further along.

Cordillo Downs sat baking on another gibber ridge, there are no trees to be seen anywhere. The shearing shed is a very impressive building, and the homestead beyond also looked interesting but was private so I didn't get to check it out. Back on the very rocky road, and eventually came upon the ruins of Cadelga Station, where we stopped for coffee and our late lunch of peanut butter sandwiches at about 3pm. We still had a long way to go, and when we hit the main Birdsville-Windorah Road, it felt like a highway in comparison to the rough track we had been travelling on.

We were treated to a spectacular sunset as the sun dropped from a clear sky to a dust haze on the horizon, and when we finally got back about 7.30 pm, we felt like we'd been travelling a long long time.

A red sand dune disappears into a heat mirage behind some cattle not long after turning off the Birdsville Track. It's difficult to see how cattle survive out here, but they looked to be in good condition.


The red sand dunes contrast with the white road.


The Coongie Lakes. They do get a lot of water after a big rain further north and it eventually makes it way down the Cooper Creek.


A plume on the plain — Tirrawarra Oil and Gas Field burning off.


Miles of nothing — seriously!


The Geodynamics thermal hot rocks drill.


The Cooper Creek at the Wills Grave just outside Innamincka — a lovely and surprisingly big watercourse in the middle of the desert.


Setting up camp along the Cooper Creek at the Innamincka town common. There is a pelican floating past in the creek.


The original part of the Innamincka Hotel.


The opening of the Outamincka Bar — hard to believe outside there's hundreds of miles of desert to the next town — but was definitely worth the drive.


Innamincka sits on a gibber ridge above the floodline of the Creek. The big building on the left is the Australian Inland Mission hospital, built in 1929, and now has tourist information. Then the pub, the Trading Post and some tourist cabins, a private house or two, and that's about it.


The Burke & Wills Dig Tree, north of Innamincka.


This guy thought he owned the road.


The old shearing shed at Cordillo Downs. It's a very large building and was built with the curving roof because it required less structural support.


Cadelga Station ruins.


The sun sets into a dust haze.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Melbourne Cup comes to town


Ex-Melbourne Cup-winning jockey John Marshall poses with the Cup on the front of one of Tom Kruse's Birdsville Mail trucks, a 1940s Chevrolet Blitz. The current owner drove it up from Quorn (South Australia) for the occasion.

Not the race, the actual Cup!

The Emirates promotions people decided to raise some awareness of the Cup's history by taking the Cup on a tour of outback Queensland, and Birdsville was one of the towns to be honoured. Quite a few people around the area are involved in racing (hence the Birdsville Cup) and one local horse, Pandie Sun, came third in the 1957 Melbourne Cup.

The Cup and its entourage of three plus another three Channel 7 camera crew flew in a couple of Sundays ago, made an appearance at the Pub, did a tour of all the businesses of the town (five plus the school), visited the race course, mounted one of Tom Kruse's old mail trucks for a parade with some locals on their horses and retired to the Wirrari Centre for drinks and finger food, and speeches.

Locals had provided a lot of racing memorabilia to decorate the Wirrari Centre, including an impressive array of cups, lots of photographs and a colouring competition from the school kids. There was a great turnup, despite several of the locals heading off for a wedding in Charleville that weekend. Everyone had their photo taken with the Cup, and the star jockey, Alan Marshall, said he thought it didn't get photographed that much at the actual Melbourne Cup Races.

Someone suggested the Cup should go out to Big Red to be photographed a bit more, and since they were due to depart at 8 am the next morning, several intrepid locals volunteered to take the official party and the Cup out for the sunrise. We all gathered at the Bakery at 5.30 am and had coffee to fortify ourselves, then roared off in the semi-darkness and got to Big Red just in time to set up. Lots more pictures were taken, then we jumped back in the cars and delivered all safely to their plane for their next visit to Jundah.

PS Weather today: 42.8 degrees C (109.4 F) at 12.44 pm, overcast and windy. There looks to be rain falling in the distance, but it's probably so hot none of it is making it to the ground. Yesterday, 42.2 hottest, coolest overnight 26 degrees at 3 am. We spend a lot of time inside with the aircon .... the sparrows and crows sit around outside panting with their beaks open. The kites float overhead on the thermals.

John (left) and Brian, the publican, with the Cup at the Pub.


John Marshall (holding cup) poses with John Menzies, owner of the Birdsville Working Museum, and his mule Bella. Bella is a very large animal — she is a cross between a donkey and a Belgian Draught horse.


My moment with the Cup ....


The Cup Parade sets out.


Locals from the parade on their horses pose in front of the crowd at the pub.


Local school kids get in on the action.


Mixing it with the locals at the pub .....


A selection of cups and photographs of winners from Pandie Station.


Jane, from Pandie, won the best hat prize.


Filming the cup against the sunrise on Big Red. Bigger than Ben Hur, really ....


The Cup in all it's glory.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A trip to Sydney


The view from the cafe near Mark & Janene's place — a million miles from Birdsville ....

I've been a bit distracted since the last blog, but here goes ....

A couple of weeks after the races, we had a car rally of 300 people come through Birdsville, for which Dusty was cooking dinner. The Bakery only holds about 40-50 people at best, so dinner was to be at the recently-finished, newly enlarged Wirrari Tourist Information Centre, overlooking the oval. Despite Dusty losing a lot of sleep, huge amounts of food were prepared, and we served up lots of cold roast meats and salads, three different curries and rice, and hot corned beef with baked veg. Tables and chairs were set up in the area outside, every available local was roped in to help and it all went off very well, with lots of good feedback from the rally people.

Two days later, I packed my bags and headed off to Sydney for a wedding and, two weeks after, a yacht race at Lake Macquarie. Evan was driving down for the yacht race and we would travel back together. MacAir (locally known as SlackAir) was true to form, and arrived five hours late. Luckily, I had decided to go via Mt Isa and catch the plane to Sydney the next day, rather than trust MacAir to get me to Brisbane in time to make my Sydney connection directly. All in all, it took about a day and a half to get to Sydney ....

My friends of many years, Anne and Carson, had finally decided to tie the knot after years of living together, and Anne's daughter Kate did a fabulous job of organising it at a very flash boutique hotel, The Establishment, near Circular Quay. It was a lovely wedding, and I met people I hadn't seen for years and enjoyed myself very much. I had decided to splurge and stay at the hotel, expensive but worth every cent. It was a great way to start my visit back to Sydney.

The next two weeks were a whirl of shopping, eating and socialising, and boy did I make up for lost time! I also did a barista course, and now I am a qualified barista. I stayed with friends Mark and Janene, who have a grand old terrace house just off King St, Newtown, so I was in the thick of the action. Evan arrived unexpectedly after the first week for his old skipper's wake, a sad day for him but a welcome surprise for me. We really enjoyed ourselves catching up with friends and the time went very quickly. So much to do, so little time to do it! It was great to be back in Sydney, but I was starting to miss the quiet and space of Birdsville by the time it we had to leave, not to mention the ability to park anywhere, any time ....

Neale arrived from Birdsville Friday evening, so we picked him up from the airport and headed straight up to Lake Macquarie, two hours north of Sydney, for the Heaven Can Wait 24-hour Yacht Race where we were crewing for Mark and Janene, who have a Van der Stadt 34 ft cruising yacht. Lake Macquarie is a huge waterway, four times bigger than Sydney Harbour, and we managed to get around the 28 nautical miles (approx 42 kms) course three and a half times in the 24 hours. Despite a brilliant start, we had a mediocre result (we had a huge handicap). We really enjoyed the sailing despite the cold wet weather, and breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches prepared by Janene on the galley stove was the envy of several of the sports boats as they passed us.

The three of us jumped in the car as soon as we got off the boat on Sunday afternoon and headed straight back to Birdsville. We got as far as Gilgandra that night, through pouring rain, and set off again early the next day. We drove all the way through to Birdsville Monday, and arrived at 2.30 am Tuesday morning — a huge trip of 2,000 km in 36 hours. Driving into Birdsville in the wee small hours was strangely moving and I was quietly glad to be back ....

The rally cars lined up outside the Wirrari Centre and oval.


Tables for dinner all set up and ready to go.


Carson and Anne tie the knot with great style.


My room at The Establishment — what luxury!


Learning the tricks of the trade at the barista course.


Janene gets things into order on the bow of Windchaser.


Umbakumba, another Balmain boat, finally overtakes us again after we have held them off for about four hours.


Skipper Mark (second left) and crew still in good spirits after 24 hours of wet and cold racing.

Monday, September 15, 2008

A storm on the road


A sunspot on the road as the sky darkens. There is rain in the distance.

A couple of weeks back we took friends Mark and Janene up to Mt Isa to catch their plane back to Sydney. We had been keeping a close eye on the weather because rain had been predicted that afternoon, and we didn't want to get caught on the road back to Birdsville. What did catch us was most unexpected — a dust storm associated with the storm cell, basically a mini hurricane.

The wind picks up, with sand gusting across the road.


And then we see a very ominous red dust cloud in the distance.


A very large dust cloud. This is the far end of it


And getting closer all the time.


Then it hits us.


We crawled along with minimal visibility for about 15 minutes.


Finally we come out of the dust.


And find we have missed the rain behind it.


About an inch fell — none of it on Birdsville, although this was the rain that cut the Windorah road directly before the Birdsville Races.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The blur that was the Races


The catchphrase for the Birdsville Race advertising is "The dust never settles".

The races were a little over a week ago now, and it's hard to believe it happened at all, except for the persistent flat feeling now that it's all over after the weeks of build-up for the biggest event in the Birdsville year.

The Bakery was frantically flat out, Dusty's friends and rellos did a fantastic job. I made coffees for four hours solid one morning, and bacon and eggs for three hours solid the next morning, so I missed out on a lot of what was going on in town and at the track. We did pizzas Thurs-Sun evenings as well, so the days were long, and it didn't help that I had the flu through most of it. But it was fun, and very exciting, lots of adrenalin, and a very definite party atmosphere all round.

Normie Rowe came in for a pie and coffee, as did Bill Peach. Tom Kruse (now 94 and in a wheelchair — he was in Birdsville to unveil a bust in honour of himself) and a bunch of dignitaries came for lunch — they sat in the back of the Bakery while the craziness continued out the front. The TV crew for the Australian Top Gear show came in to film Dusty on Friday morning. I think there was a group from the ABC in as well. Dusty was very nervous for the Getaway crowd the day before, but was rapidly becoming quite blasé by this stage. He went out to Big Red with the Top Gear guys on Friday morning — they'd driven a very expensive Audi sports car slowly up the Birdsville track and then took it out and drove it up Big Red! It came back rather battered and scratched. Keep an eye out for it on TV ....

Went to the pub after work to check it out, the place was pumping with live music, and lots of people, mostly talking, but quite a few energetic dancers in front of the stage out back. Fred Brophy's boxing tent was pulling them in too, lots of drumming and spruiking to get the punters in. We went in, it wasn't as blood-thirsty as I thought it might be, and watched as a couple of the young barmen from the pub got flattened. No major damage done, and some very enthusiastic encouragement from the crowd.

Dusty gave me Saturday off, which astounded me considering how busy things were, so I got to dress up and go to the Races with Evan, his sister Helen and her friend Therese, who were staying with us. Managed to lose some money on the first race, won some of it back on the last race. The weather was fabulous, blue skies and 30 degrees, and not too many flies. But lots and lots of people. And police. I went back into town to pick up Theresa when she got a break from the Bakery, and got breathalysed on the way there and again on the way back 10 minutes later. When we left at the end of the day, the traffic queue was long, as they were breathalysing every 3–4 drivers, including Evan. Amazingly, only one person in the whole weekend returned a positive reading.

People started leaving first thing Sunday morning, we were still very busy at the Bakery as lots of people wanted breakfast before they headed off. By lunchtime, most of the stalls and hot food vans were gone, and by Monday, Birdsville was back to it's usual sleepy little self. So we shut the Bakery after lunch and all went and had a barbecue by the river for Dusty's 60th birthday.

PS Today's weather: Hot, very windy and very dusty. Dirty grey sky, horizon gone, "raised dust". 32 degrees today, 36.8 a couple of days ago. Still over 30 degrees when we went to bed, so we left all the doors and windows open. We were woken to the roaring of wind at 2 am, so scampered over the already dusty floors to shut everything up.

The house of pain — Fred Brophy has the last travelling boxing tent in Australia.


Sideshow Alley — normally a vacant lot opposite the Oval.


How to stand out in a crowd ....


Welcome to the Birdsville Races!


Our bookies — Therese and Helen's friends Terry and Effie.


And the winner is ......


This pair won the Best Dressed Couple in the Fashions in the Field competition.


The caravan park was chockers.


People fly in and camp under their plane's wings.


Happy Birthday, Dusty! (far right)