Day 18, Sunday 8/07/2012, Birdsville to Cordillo Downs

Breakfast was at 7am in the front dining room (The Lizard Lounge) of the Birdsville Hotel. Of course we had to have the ‘Big Red’. We were lucky to get to the bakery so early as they were almost out of bread already! We had to fuel up at The Birdsville Roadhouse, and this is also the grocery store. They only get a delivery once a fortnight and are already running low on most things. Maybe this peak season was busier than usual. After finishing our purchases we headed to the info centre (which is also centrelink and the library) to check road conditions and closures. Innamincka and the Cordillo Downs Rd are open, yay!! The lady here said “ooh, I wouldn’t go on that road, it’s terrible!” It’s open, so we’ll be there! There was no store at all where you could buy books other than the old 2^nd hand books at the library (poor Peter).

Other than the places mentioned above, there is a small police station, an old closed courthouse, a small school, airport, clinic, hotel and racetrack. Birdsville has the only Geothermal Power Station in Australia. The Diamantina River flows through the town, with a caravan park and a Burke and Wills monument on its banks.  Other than a few houses, that is it for Birdsville.

There were the obligatory Birdsville Hotel posing shots with Jordan getting a lovely one of Fiona and me, and then we headed south. The Diamantina was flowing and there was plenty of birdlife to be seen but we didn’t stop since it was raining. We did cross the river though at the old causeway which was fun.

While photographing the racetrack I asked Lisa if she wanted a race. Col took off though without letting me out but Lisa still jumped out and went for a run on the track. Go Lisa!

Our next stop was to pull over on the Birdsville Development Road for Bruce to clean his air filter. Boy it needed it! You should have seen the red dirt blasted out using his air compressor. Now he wishes he did this before Big Red as he would have had more power.

Shortly after this we turned right on the Cordillo Downs Road passing a beautiful lake and salt pan surrounded by the red gibber plains of the Sturt Stony Desert, with a few emus running by. Given the recent flooding, there is the contrast of pale green grasses across the plains against the deep burgundy of the rocks.

 There are plenty of trees along each creek, with most creeks full. Our lunch stop was at Caldega Outstation Ruins which was used when mustering in the past. It is a gorgeous old house on the Caldega waterhole which was full, with birds galore. Haley decided it was too messy here to try to clean up but Jordan, Jack and Jess were planning their home renovations and picking their rooms.

There was much fun to be had with creek crossings. There were plenty of muddy cars, smiling faces and cameras clicking! We passed only a couple of other groups along this track today.

Time for a history lesson at the old Cordillo Downs stone shearing shed. This was a property with 24000 sheep in the late 1800s. A severe drought drastically took these numbers to a mere 300 sheep, but at the turn of the century they were back to 83000 sheep. It took 30 to 40 donkeys to tow 4 tonnes of wool. Horses couldn’t handle the Strzelecki sand dunes. There was a plaque commemorating the Afghan cameleers which took over from the donkeys.

South of the property the scenery is awesome! There are the burgundy gibber plains of the Sturt Stony Desert, white grasses, and a back drop orange sand dunes of the Strzelecki Desert which were particularly awesome when glowing in the sunset. The storm cloud we were heading towards seems to be dissipating thank goodness (although secretly I would love to get stuck out here).

We found a gorgeous spot to camp, on the NW bank of Montkeleary Creek. It is half full with beautiful gums along the banks. Amazingly it is not cold. There is plenty of firewood available though, washed down from the floods.

After an hour of daylight for exploring, wood collecting, photography and relaxing, we had dinner around an amazing fire.

Peter’s trying to bribe Jordan, Jack and Jessica into lending him their kindle as he was unable to get the 2^nd Hunger Games book at Birdsville. The clouds have gone, the stars are bright and the temperature mild. Dingos were howling throughout the night.