Told this morning by my intrepid hubby that my services were required by Chris the bartender as his pig dog had an injury that needed attention – friend Sonya was concerned it was infected but Chris wasn’t that fussed. The kids came up to the house and we met his 2 big burly pig dogs. ‘Seagull’ had run off recently and returned from his adventures with a gouge about 5cm along the left side of his penis – it was healing well when I inspected it, with no signs of infection and I informed his jubilant owner he would live to fight another day. Not much call for pig hunting out here – we only saw 1 small pig on the way out of White Cliffs but Chris and Sonya hail from near Brisbane and are travelling with the dogs and trailer – so far they have been at CC for 3 months, but they are moving on soon, or so they say!
Pre-departure inspection of the car revealed not only the aerial gone but about a dozen bolts holding the bash plates under the bulbar, there was but 1 lone screw between comfort and a very ugly miss-hap if they had all given way – needless to say ARB will be hotfooting spares out along with the new aerial when they can find a distributor nearby (ie within 1000km!).
We forced ourselves to wade through 2 hours of school work before the flies drove us bonkers. Pete managed to fix ‘Bill’s fax machine so was allowed to send his email and we departed CC feeling like we had experienced a little bit of ‘country’. A tip from Bill and we took a short-cut from CC through ‘Bollards Lagoon’ property along the ‘Bore Track’ which only saved us about 20km in distance but the road conditions were supposed to be better – not sure about that as the track was narrow, rutted and in places covered in soft boggy sand. Anyway we press onwards doing our 50-60km/hr and hope we are there by nightfall. Hard for you City Slickers to imagine taking 6hours to do 200km, but as they say ‘life is the journey, not the destination.
You may well wonder what the kids are doing while we slip and slide through the sand – the DVD player is getting a great workout and hasn’t jumped once - they have become entranced in ‘Star Wars’, happily watching away until we drag them outside to view yet another ‘wonder of the outback’. At every overnight stop out come the torch-lit light sabres with battles taking place all over the universe.
Arrived at Cullymurra campground about 8km outside Innaminka and were stunned to see the size of the Cooper River = the first real water we had seen all trip – there were even Pelicans! Dumped the camper for later set-up and hot-footed it into town to see if we could book on the Cooper Cruise only to be sadly disappointed when told ‘Bill didn’t come back up this year!” An eftpos machine allowed me $200 cash so we were flush once again and after milk, bread and a treat for the kids about ¼ of that was gone! Not much to see in town only pub, general store, auto place and National Parks Office, all covered in a thick layer of grey dust – so inviting, NOT!
Back at camp we set up, gobbled down dinner and headed back to town to watch the State of Origin Match on the screen at the pub – full of grey nomads from both states, kids managed to make it past half time and we made sure NSW was winning before heading along the dusty track for home.
That night all toileting was halted when Chloe went out to the loo and became hysterical when her torch lit up the 1000’s of ants coating the ground and the toilet – she refused point blank from then on to go near them and I had to move the portable seat around the campsite at night whenever she wanted to pee – can’t say I blame her as later that same night I too went and couldn’t get to the seat for ants. Luckily they don’t seem to like our groundsheet and so the trailer was relatively ant-free.
Cullyamurra Waterhole Camp Ground – Innaminka Regional Reserve Bush Camp ($15/night)
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