Innamincka & Birdsville.

As suspected, there has been no service along the way, hence the silence from us. The trip from Tibooburra to Innaminicka was long and fairly ardurous as we had to be continually alert for poor road conditions. We bought our lunch at the Cameron Corner store and fortunately enquired about the road conditions and were advised to take the old Strzelecki track - this was contradictory to our previous advice but it proved to be correct. It’s surprising to see so many oil rigs, gas pipelines and dozens of  huge trucks here in what looks like the middle of nowhere! 

                               

We only travelled on the “new” Strzelecki track for 18km but that was the worst road we’ve been on. The Santos trucks have just made a mess of the road and travelling behind one, being covered in his dust and travelling at 20kph was not much fun. Turning off this road we came across this giant snake 

                                         

                  

- we still don’t know what it was -either an Eastern Brown or Womba python - the former is most deadly - should it bite you out here you’d probably die before help arrived - a very sobering thought!!

We set up camp at the Ski Beach site where we were 10 years ago but how different it is now - instead of a lovely open area, there are 4 designated sites roped off with mounds in between! All done for the online booking system!! Netherethless, the Cooper Creek is still beautiful, it’s lovely and peaceful and private. 

   

The fishing rods were found and the boys had mixed success with Dennis taking the honours by catching a beautiful 42cm yellow belly, and between them a few brim, several turtles and a catfish were caught. 

   

Not so good are the flies which are terrible and we’ve all donned the very attractive but quite effective fly nets!! 

Armed with my Burke and Wills information book, we visited the various sites along the creek and were once again saddened by the final days of these explorers and they were so young! We forget sometimes  that the expedition was actually successful as they did reach the Gulf of Carpenteria. Here we are at the site where Burke died. 

                                       

We also enjoyed a drink in the Innaminicka pub as we continue our pub crawl - and we’ll have to sample the drinks at the Birdsville pub some time. 

After Innaminicka we crossed the flowing causeway along to the Cordillo Track and past the supposedly largest shearing shed in Australia. 

  

This shearing shed was actually underwhelming as except for its unusual shape and being made of stone, inside it was gutted and we couldn’t get an image of how it was set up as an operational shed. 

We stopped last night at a free spot along the Developmental Road - just as well we did as we found Dennis had a flat trailer tyre and we had lost our Anderson plug! So some running repairs were made and we battled the flies - only then to have the bugs and grasshoppers come out and annoy us!! 

                          

We hit Birdsville this morning and unfortunately it’s a windy dusty unpleasant day so we hope tomorrow is nicer. We set up then walked to the iconic bakery where we enjoyed a lovely pie and coffee. Darryl and I were adventurous and tried a curried camel and kangaroo pie!! The camel one was delicious 😋. 

There is a beautiful camp kitchen where we are sitting now - and where we will eat our meals as the flies are still very friendly here!

We’re glad everyone is well and was good to catch up with news now we have service.

Till the next blog, love from the travellers (very dusty ones!!) ❌❌❌❌