Overnight at St. George

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We went into town at Bourke in the morning to Port Bourke wharf, once so busy and important when it was a major destination for paddleboats. What we did see were Corellas - hundreds of them, flying in the air, landing in trees and logs in the river - noisy and destructive. Being native, they are protected and are in plague proportions, stripping trees of bark and leaves - it's so sad to see beautiful river red gums dying because of their destructiveness.

After leaving Bourke, we drove north and over the border into Queensland and towards Cunnamulla. We counted three small rises, hardly hills, along the way, the rest of the trip was along very flat ground, with the occasional healthy flock of sheep or some cattle, a few emus or kangaroos and lots of road kill - mostly kangaroos - they are silly when they see lights from cars and trucks at night - they just bound towards them.

We stayed the night at Cunnamulla, shops were closed Saturday afternoon so we just drove around, looked at the Cunnamulla Fella, the sculpture in town that was made by Archie St. Claire who also fashioned the Stockman in Katherine in NT. Slim Dusty sang the song Cunnamulla Fella about a stockman returning home to Cunnamulla, and like the Katherine sculpture, it's very good.

We left Cunnamulla early and had a similar drive today to St. George. We did stop at one town, Ballon, for lunch which was billed as an important koala habitat but, after a lot of looking up into gum trees, we found not a one. It's a long weekend so we're not expecting any shops to be open anywhere until Tuesday.

So tonight is at St. George - and we got the last site at the caravan park - the northern exodus of the grey nomads has begun.

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